The journey to Rome (A.D. 63-4), like St. Paul’s a few years earlier, began with a shipwreck. Its nominal purpose was to plead the cause of certain priests who had been sent by Felix to Italy for trial. Chronology[4] will hardly permit us to accept the suggestion of Edersheim[5] to connect St. Paul’s liberation with the mission of Josephus; but he cannot have failed, during his stay in the city on the eve of the Neronian persecution, to become acquainted, if not with the work of the Apostle, at least with the existence of the Christian community. Through the influence of Poppæa, the mistress and afterwards wife of Nero, who coquetted with Judaism (Josephus’s words imply that she was a proselyte), he was successful in obtaining the release of the priests and returned to Judæa laden with presents. Besides the expressed object, was there any ulterior motive in this visit to the capital? Edersheim suggests that, foreseeing the trend of events, Josephus was already fired with the ambition of becoming the intermediary between Rome and his nation. At any rate, his visit had impressed him with a sense of Rome’s invincible power; and on his return to Judæa, where he found the Jews drifting towards revolt and everything pointing to the immediate outbreak of war, he at first tried to pacify the war-party, but in vain. The turbulent state of the country at length induced Cestius Gallus, the governor of Syria, to advance against Jerusalem. With the disastrous rout of his army in the defiles of Beth-Horon towards the end of A.D. 66, following upon his unexpected withdrawal from the gates of the metropolis,[6] it was realized that the irrevocable step had been taken, and all preparations were made for the impending war.