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WHEN Masada was thus taken, the general left a garrison in the fortress
to keep it, and he himself went away to Cesarea; for there were now no
enemies left in the country, but it was all overthrown by so long a war.
Yet did this war afford disturbances and dangerous disorders even in places
very far remote from Judea; for still it came to pass that many Jews were
slain at Alexandria in Egypt; for as many of the Sicarii as were able to
fly thither, out of the seditious wars in Judea, were not content to have
saved themselves, but must needs be undertaking to make new disturbances,
and persuaded many of those that entertained them to assert their liberty,
to esteem the Romans to be no better than themselves, and to look upon
God as their only Lord and Master. But when part of the Jews of reputation
opposed them, they slew some of them, and with the others they were very
pressing in their exhortations to revolt from the Romans; but when the
principal men of the senate saw what madness they were come to, they thought
it no longer safe for themselves to overlook them. So they got all the
Jews together to an assembly, and accused the madness of the Sicarii, and
demonstrated that they had been the authors of all the evils that had come
upon them. They said also that "these men, now they were run away
from Judea, having no sure hope of escaping, because as soon as ever they
shall be known, they will be soon destroyed by the Romans, they come hither
and fill us full of those calamities which belong to them, while we have
not been partakers with them in any of their sins." Accordingly, they
exhorted the multitude to have a care, lest they should be brought to destruction
by their means, and to make their apology to the Romans for what had been
done, by delivering these men up to them; who being thus apprized of the
greatness of the danger they were in, complied with what was proposed,
and ran with great violence upon the Sicarii, and seized upon them; and
indeed six hundred of them were caught immediately: but as to all those
that fled into Egypt
1
and to the Egyptian Thebes, it was not long ere they were caught also,
and brought back, whose courage, or whether we ought to call it madness,
or hardiness in their opinions, every body was amazed at. For when all
sorts of torments and vexations of their bodies that could be devised were
made use of to them, they could not get any one of them to comply so far
as to confess, or seem to confess, that Caesar was their lord; but they
preserved their own opinion, in spite of all the distress they were brought
to, as if they received these torments and the fire itself with bodies
insensible of pain, and with a soul that in a manner rejoiced under them.
But what was most of all astonishing to the beholders was the courage of
the children; for not one of these children was so far overcome by these
torments, as to name Caesar for their lord. So far does the strength of
the courage [of the soul] prevail over the weakness of the body.