Jerusalem, the City of Herod and Saladin — John Shaqi
Jerusalem, the City of Herod and SaladinBesant, Walter
History
Jerusalem, the City of Herod and Saladin
Besant, Walter
Jerusalem -- Description and travel; Jerusalem -- History
Next day he sent again for the high priest, and told him that as a
sign of the loyalty of the people, and their sorrow for the late
tumults, he should expect them to go forth and meet the two cohorts
who were advancing to Jerusalem with every sign of joy. The
seditious part of the citizens refused. Then the chief priests, with
dust upon their heads and rent garments, brought out the holy
vessels and the sacerdotal robes, with their harpers and harps, and
implored the people not to risk a collision with the Romans. They
yielded, and went out to welcome the cohorts. But the soldiers
preserved a gloomy silence. Then some of the more fiery Jews,
turning on the Romans, began to abuse Florus. The horsemen rode at
them and trampled them down, and a scene of the wildest uproar took
place at the gates as they pressed and jostled each other to get in.
Then the troops marched straight on Antonia, hoping to get both the
fortress and the Temple into their hands. They got into Antonia,
when the Jews cut down some part of the cloisters which connected
the fort with the Temple. Florus tried to join them, but his men
could not pass through the streets, which were crammed with Jews.
And next day Florus retired to Cæsarea, leaving only one cohort
behind, and the city boiling and seething with rage and madness. And
now, indeed, there was little hope of any reconciliation. Both
Florus and the Jews sent statements of their conduct to Cestius
Gallus, and begged for an investigation. And it must have been now,
if at all, that Florus became desirous of fanning the embers of
discontent into a flame and making that a war which had only
promised to be a disturbance. But nothing can be discovered to prove
that Josephus’s assertions as to his motives are based on fact. It
is easy, of course, to attribute motives, but hard to prove them.
Nothing advanced by Josephus proves more than that Florus was
rapacious and cruel, and the people discontented and turbulent.
Cestius sent Neapolitanus, one of his officers, to report on the
condition of the city. Agrippa joined him. The people came sixty
furlongs out of the town to meet them, crying and lamenting, calling
on Agrippa to help them in their miseries, and beseeching
Neapolitanus to hear their complaints against Florus. The latter
they took all round the city, showing him that it was perfectly
quiet, and that the people had risen, not against the Romans, but
against Florus. Then Neapolitanus went into the Temple to perform
such sacrifices as were allowed to strangers, and commending the
Jews for their fidelity, went back to Cestius. Agrippa came next.
Placing his sister Berenice, doubtless a favourite with the people,
in the gallery with him, he made a long harangue. He implored them
to consider the vast power of the Romans, and not, for the sake of a
quarrel with one governor, to bring upon themselves the ruin of
themselves, their families, and their nation. He pointed out that if
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