The Empty Fleet at Tiberias

When the whole crowd had fallen silent, I said: [a]

“Fellow countrymen, I do not refuse to die, if that is just. But before I die I want to tell you the truth. I knew that this city was most hospitable, and gladly crowded with a great many men who have left their own native places and come here to share our fortune. So I wanted to build walls with this money that you are so angry about — the money was to be spent on the building.”

At this the people of Tarichaeae and the strangers raised a shout, saying they were grateful to me and urging me to take heart. But the Galileans and the people of Tiberias kept up their anger, and a quarrel broke out among them, some threatening to punish me and others telling me to pay no attention. When I promised that I would build walls for Tiberias too, and for their other cities that needed them, they believed me, and each went back to his own home. So, against all hope, I escaped that danger and went back to my house with my friends and twenty armed men.

But once again the robbers and the authors of the uproar, afraid for themselves that I would make them pay for what they had done, took six hundred armed men and came to the house where I was staying, to set it on fire. When their attack was reported to me, I thought it unworthy to run away, and I decided to take the risk and act with some daring. I ordered the doors of the house shut, went up to the upper room myself, and invited them to send in some men to receive the money, telling them that this would put an end to their anger. They sent in the most brazen of them all. I had him flogged with whips, ordered one of his hands to be cut off and hung from his neck, and in that state threw him out to those who had sent him. Panic and no small fear seized them. Afraid that they would suffer the same if they stayed — for they guessed that I had more men inside than they had — they took to flight. So by this stratagem I escaped their second plot.

Once again some people stirred up the crowd, saying that the king’s nobles who had come to me ought not to be allowed to live if they would not go over to the customs of the people to whom they had come for safety. They slandered them too, calling them sorcerers and saying it was through them that the Romans had come. The crowd, misled by the plausibility of what was said to please them, was quickly persuaded. When I learned of this, I taught the people once more that those who had fled to them for refuge ought not to be persecuted. I made fun of the nonsense about sorcery, saying that the Romans would not maintain so many tens of thousands of soldiers if they could defeat their enemies by sorcery. [b]

When I said this, they were persuaded for a little while. But they went away and were stirred up again by wicked men against the nobles, and once they even went with weapons to the nobles’ house in Tarichaeae to kill them. When I learned of it I was afraid that if this abomination were carried out, the city would become a place no one seeking refuge could enter. So I went to the nobles’ house with some others and locked it. I had a trench dug from the house down to the lake, sent for a boat, embarked with them, and crossed over to the border of Hippos. There I paid them the value of their horses — in an escape like this I could not bring the horses along — and let them go, urging them earnestly to bear bravely the hardship that had come upon them. I was myself greatly distressed at being forced to put men who had fled to me back into enemy country; but I thought it better that they should die among the Romans, if it came to that, than in the country under my command. In the end they came through safely, for King Agrippa pardoned their offenses. That was how their story ended.

The people of the city of Tiberias wrote to the king asking him to send a force to guard their territory, since they wanted to join him. That was what they wrote to him. But when I came to them, they asked me to build their walls, as I had promised; for they had heard that the walls of Tarichaeae were already built. I agreed, made all the preparations for the building, and ordered the master builders to set to work. Three days later, as I was on my way to Tarichaeae, which is about three and a half miles from Tiberias, it happened that some Roman horsemen were seen on the march not far from the city, and they gave the impression that the king’s force had come. At once the people shouted out loud praises of the king and abuse of me. Someone came running to tell me what was in their minds: they had decided to desert me. [d]

I was greatly alarmed at the news. I had sent the armed men away from Tarichaeae to their homes, because the next day was the Sabbath and I did not want the people of Tarichaeae burdened by a crowd of soldiers. In fact, whenever I stayed in that city I did not even provide a guard for myself, having often had proof of the loyalty of its inhabitants toward me. Now I had only seven armed men around me, besides my friends, and I did not know what to do. I did not think it right to send for my forces, because the day was already ending; and even if they had come, we could not take up arms on the next day, since our laws forbid it, however great the need may seem. If I let the people of Tarichaeae and the strangers with them loose to plunder the city, I saw that they would not be strong enough, and that my own move would be delayed far too long; for I thought that the king’s force would arrive first and that I would be thrown out of the city.

So I decided to use a stratagem against them. At once I posted the most trustworthy of my friends at the gates of Tarichaeae to keep a close watch on anyone who wanted to go out. Then I called together the heads of households and ordered each of them to launch a boat, go aboard, take a helmsman with him, and follow me to the city of Tiberias. I myself went aboard with my friends and the seven armed men I have mentioned, and sailed for Tiberias.

When the people of Tiberias realized that no force had come to them from the king, and saw the whole lake full of boats, they were afraid for their city. Terrified by the thought that the boats were full of fighting men, they changed their minds. They threw down their weapons and came out to meet me with their wives and children, shouting their praises of me — for they supposed I had not found out their intentions beforehand — and begging me to spare the city. When I came near, I ordered the helmsmen to drop anchor while still far from land, so that the people of Tiberias would not see that the boats had no men aboard. Then I went closer myself in one of the boats and rebuked them for their folly, and for being so ready to abandon their loyalty to me without any just reason at all. But I promised that I would surely forgive them in the future if they sent me ten of the leaders of the people. They readily obeyed and sent the men I had asked for, and I put them on board and sent them off to Tarichaeae to be kept under guard.

By this stratagem I took the whole council of Tiberias, a few at a time, and sent them to that city, and with them many of the leading men of the common people, no fewer in number than the councilors. When the people saw what great trouble they had brought on themselves, they urged me to punish the author of the uproar. His name was Clitus, a brazen and reckless young man. I did not think it right before God to kill a man of my own people, but I had to punish him. So I ordered Levi, one of my bodyguards, to go out and cut off one of Clitus’s hands. The man I had ordered was afraid to go out alone into such a crowd, and I did not want the soldier’s cowardice to become plain to the people of Tiberias. So I called to Clitus himself and said: [g]

“Since you deserve to lose both your hands for being so ungrateful to me, be your own executioner — or if you disobey, you will suffer a worse punishment.”

He begged me earnestly to leave him one of his hands, and I agreed, though reluctantly. Glad not to lose both, he took a sword and cut off his own left hand. And that put an end to the uproar.

After I had gone to Tarichaeae, the people of Tiberias learned of the stratagem I had used against them, and they were amazed that I had put an end to their folly without bloodshed. I sent for some of the people of Tiberias from the prison, among them Justus and his father Pistus, and had them to dinner with me. During the meal I told them that I too knew that the power of the Romans surpassed all others, but that I kept quiet about it because of the robbers. I advised them to do the same, waiting for the right moment, and not to resent having me as their general, for they would not easily find another as considerate as I was. [h]

I also reminded Justus that before I came from Jerusalem, before the war, the Galileans had cut off his brother’s hands, charging him with villainy in forging letters. And I reminded him that after Philip’s departure the people of Gamala, in their quarrel with the Babylonians, had killed Chares, who was a relative of Philip, and how prudently they had punished Jesus, Chares’s brother, who was the husband of Justus’s sister. After talking with Justus and his companions in this way over dinner, I ordered in the morning that they should all be released from custody.

Before this, Philip son of Jacimus had left the fortress of Gamala, for the following reason. Philip learned that Varus had been removed by King Agrippa and that Aequus Modius, an old friend and associate of his, had come to replace him. So he wrote to Modius telling him of his own misfortunes and asking him to send on to the king and his sister the letters he had sent. When Modius received the letters, he was overjoyed to learn from them that Philip was safe, and he sent the letters to the king and his sister, who were near Berytus. [k]

When King Agrippa learned that the rumor about Philip was false — for word had gone round that he was commanding the Jews in their war against the Romans — he sent horsemen to escort Philip to him. When Philip arrived, the king greeted him warmly and showed him to the Roman commanders, telling them that this was the Philip about whom the story had gone round that he had revolted from the Romans. He ordered him to take some horsemen and go quickly to the fortress of Gamala, to bring all his household out of it and to settle the Babylonians in Batanea again. He also charged him to take every care that no revolution broke out among his subjects. With these instructions from the king, Philip hurried off to do what he had been ordered.