The Plunder from Dabaritta

The people of Sepphoris had decided to stay loyal to the Romans, but they were afraid of my coming, and they tried to keep me busy with another affair so that they themselves might be free from fear. So they sent to Jesus, the robber chief in the borderlands of Ptolemais, and promised him a great deal of money if he would stir up war against us with the force he had, which numbered eight hundred. He agreed to their promises and planned to fall on us while we were unprepared and knew nothing of it beforehand. He sent to me asking permission to come and pay his respects. I gave it, for I knew nothing of the plot in advance, and he took his band of robbers and hurried toward me. [a]

But his villainy did not succeed in the end. When he was already close, one of his men deserted and came to me to tell me what he was attempting. On learning this, I went out into the marketplace, pretending to know nothing of the plot, and took with me many armed Galileans and some men of Tiberias. Then I gave orders that all the roads should be very securely guarded, and instructed the men at the gates to let in only Jesus with his leading men when he arrived, to shut out the rest, and to beat them if they tried to force their way in. They did as they were told, and Jesus came in with a few others. I ordered him to throw down his arms at once, telling him that if he disobeyed he would die. Seeing armed men standing all around him, he was frightened and obeyed; and those of his followers who had been shut out fled when they heard he had been seized.

Then I called Jesus aside privately and told him that I was not unaware of the plot that had been laid against me, nor of who had sent him; but that I would nevertheless forgive him what he had done, if he would repent and be loyal to me. When he promised to do everything I asked, I let him go and allowed him to gather again the men he had had with him before. But I threatened the people of Sepphoris that if they did not stop their ingratitude, I would make them pay for it.

At this time two great nobles from among the king’s subjects came to me from the region of Trachonitis, bringing their horses and weapons and carrying their money with them. The Jews insisted that they be circumcised if they wanted to live among them. But I would not let them be forced. I said that every person ought to worship God according to his own choice and not under compulsion, and that these men, who had fled to us for safety, ought not to be made to regret it. When the crowd had been persuaded, I supplied the men who had come to us generously with everything they needed for their accustomed way of life. [b]

King Agrippa sent a force, with Aequus Modius as its general, to take the fortress of Gamala. The troops he sent were not enough to surround the fortress, but they lay in wait in the open places and besieged Gamala. Meanwhile Aebutius the decurion, who had been entrusted with command of the Great Plain, heard that I was at Simonias, a village on the borders of Galilee about seven and a half miles from him. He took the hundred horsemen he had with him and some foot soldiers, about two hundred, brought along the people of the town of Gaba as allies, marched by night, and came to the village where I was staying. [c]

I drew up my forces opposite him, and they were numerous. Aebutius tried to draw us down into the plain, for he had great confidence in his horsemen. But we did not do as he wished. I saw what an advantage his cavalry would have if we went down into the plain, since we were all on foot, and I decided to engage the enemy where we were. For a while Aebutius and his men held out bravely; but when he saw that his cavalry was useless to him in that place, he withdrew to the town of Gaba without having achieved anything, having lost three men in the fight.

I followed close on his heels with two thousand armed men. When I came to the town of Besara, on the borders of Ptolemais and about two and a half miles from Gaba, where Aebutius was staying, I posted my armed men outside the village and ordered them to guard the roads securely, so that the enemy would not trouble us while we carried off the grain. A great deal of it was stored there, belonging to Queen Berenice; it had been collected from the surrounding villages into Besara. I loaded the camels and donkeys, many of which I had brought with me, and sent the grain off into Galilee. When I had done this, I challenged Aebutius to battle. He would not accept, for he was dismayed by our readiness and daring, so I turned against Neopolitanus, having heard that he was plundering the territory of Tiberias. Neopolitanus commanded a squadron of cavalry and had taken charge of Scythopolis to guard it against the enemy. When I had stopped him from doing further harm to the territory of Tiberias, I turned my attention to the affairs of Galilee.

John son of Levi, who, as I said, was living in Gischala, learned that everything was going as I wished, and that my subjects regarded me with goodwill and my enemies with terror. He did not take it well. Thinking that my success meant his own ruin, he drifted into envy beyond all measure. Hoping to put an end to my good fortune by kindling hatred against me among my subjects, he tried to persuade the people of Tiberias and of Sepphoris, and of Gabara too — these are the largest cities in Galilee — to abandon their loyalty to me and join him; he would be a better general for them than I was, he said.

The people of Sepphoris did not agree, for they were attached to neither of us, having chosen the Romans as their masters. The people of Tiberias would not accept a revolt, but they did agree to be his friends. But the people of Gabara went over to John. It was Simon who urged them to it, the leading man of the city and a friend and companion of John. They did not openly admit to the revolt, for they were very much afraid of the Galileans, having often had proof of their goodwill toward me. But they secretly watched for a suitable opportunity and plotted against me; and in fact I came into the greatest danger, for the following reason.

Some brazen young men from the village of Dabaritta lay in wait for the wife of Ptolemy, the king’s steward. She was traveling across the Great Plain with a great deal of baggage and some horsemen following her as a guard, out of the territory subject to the king and his sister into the Roman province. They fell on the party suddenly, forced the woman to flee, and plundered everything she was carrying. Then they came to me at Tarichaeae, bringing four mules loaded with clothing and furnishings; there was also a considerable weight of silver, and five hundred gold pieces. [g]

I wanted to keep these things safe for Ptolemy, since he was a fellow Jew, and our laws forbid us to rob even our enemies. So I told those who had brought them that they must be kept, so that the walls of Jerusalem could be repaired with the money from their sale. The young men were angry at not getting a share of the spoils, as they had expected. They went off to the villages around Tiberias and told the people that I was about to betray their country to the Romans. I had used a trick on them, they said, in saying that the plunder they had brought would be kept for repairing the walls of Jerusalem, when I had in fact decided to give it back to its owner.

And on that point at least they had not mistaken my intention. As soon as they had gone, I sent for two leading men, Dassion and Jannaeus son of Levi, who were among the king’s closest friends, and told them to take the plundered goods and send them to him; and I threatened them with death as the penalty if they told anyone else about it.

A rumor now spread through all Galilee that their country was about to be betrayed by me to the Romans, and everyone was provoked to demand my punishment. The people of Tarichaeae, also believing that the young men were telling the truth, persuaded my bodyguards and armed men to leave me while I was asleep and come at once to the hippodrome, to deliberate there with everyone about their general. They were persuaded and went, and found a great crowd already gathered, all shouting with one voice to punish the traitor who had been so wicked toward them. [h]

The man who chiefly inflamed them was Jesus son of Sapphias, at that time chief magistrate of Tiberias, a wicked man with a natural gift for throwing great affairs into confusion, a maker of faction and revolution like no other. He took the laws of Moses into his hands, came forward into the middle of the crowd, and said:

“Citizens, if you cannot hate Josephus for your own sakes, look to the laws of your fathers, which your commander-in-chief was about to betray. Hate wickedness for their sake, and punish the man who has dared to do such things.”

When he had said this and the crowd had shouted its approval, he took some armed men and hurried to the house where I was lodging, intending to kill me. I had sensed nothing before the uproar, for I had fallen asleep from exhaustion. But Simon, who had been entrusted with guarding my person and was the only one who had stayed with me, saw the citizens rushing at the house. He woke me, told me of the danger hanging over me, and asked me to die nobly, as a general should, at his hand, before my enemies came to force me to it or to kill me. [i]

That was what he said. But I entrusted myself to God and hurried to go out to the crowd. I changed into black clothing, hung my sword from my neck, and went to the hippodrome by a different road, where I thought none of my enemies would meet me. There I suddenly appeared, threw myself face down, and wet the ground with my tears, so that I seemed pitiable to them all.

When I saw the change in the crowd, I tried to divide their opinions before the armed men came back from the house. I granted that I had done wrong, as they themselves believed, but I begged them to let me first explain for what purpose I had been keeping the money brought in from the plunder, and then to put me to death, if they so ordered. The crowd told me to speak. Just then the armed men came up, and when they saw me they ran at me to kill me. But when the crowd told them to wait, they obeyed, expecting that as soon as I admitted to them that I had kept the money for the king, they would kill me as one who had confessed to treason.