d
them with stripes, and by that means put a stop to the disturbance for
a time. But the Jewish citizens depending on their wealth, and on that
account despising the Syrians, reproached them again, and hoped to
provoke them by such reproaches. However, the Syrians, though they were
inferior in wealth, yet valuing themselves highly on this account, that
the greatest part of the Roman soldiers that were there were either of
Cesarea or Sebaste, they also for some time used reproachful language
to the Jews also; and thus it was, till at length they came to throwing
stones at one another, and several were wounded, and fell on both sides,
though still the Jews were the conquerors. But when Felix saw that this
quarrel was become a kind of war, he came upon them on the sudden, and
desired the Jews to desist; and when they refused so to do, he armed his
soldiers, and sent them out upon them, and slew many of them, and took
more of them alive, and permitted his soldiers to plunder some of the
houses of the citizens, which were full of riches. Now those Jews that
were more moderate, and of principal dignity among them, were afraid of
themselves, and desired of Felix that he would sound a retreat to
his soldiers, and spare them for the future, and afford them room for
repentance for what they had done; and Felix was prevailed upon to do
so.

8. About this time king Agrippa gave the high priesthood to Ismael, who
was the son of Fabi. And now arose a sedition between the high priests
and the principal men of the multitude of Jerusalem; each of which
got them a company of the boldest sort of men, and of those that loved
innovations about them, and became leaders to them; and when they
struggled together, they did it by casting reproachful words against one
another, and by throwing stones also. And there was nobody to reprove
them; but these disorders were done after a licentious manner in the
city, as if it had no government over it. And such was the impudence
[21] and boldness that had seized on the high priests, that they had the
hardiness to send their servants into the threshing-floors, to take away
those tithes that were due to the priests, insomuch that it so fell out
that the poorest sort of the priests died for want. To this degree did
the violence of the seditious prevail over all right and justice.

9. Now when Porcius Festus was sent as successor to Felix by Nero, the
principal of the Jewish inhabitants of Cesarea went up