of the
people of Tiberias during the siege of Jerusalem, some of whom were
slain, and the rest caught and carried captives? But thou wilt pretend
that thou didst not engage in the war, since thou didst flee to the
king. Yes, indeed, thou didst flee to him; but I say it was out of fear
of me. Thou sayest, indeed, that it is I who am a wicked man. But then,
for what reason was it that king Agrippa, who procured thee thy life
when thou wast condemned to die by Vespian, and who bestowed so much
riches upon thee, did twice afterward put thee in bonds, and as often
obliged thee to run away from thy country, and, when he had once ordered
thee to be put to death, he granted thee a pardon at the earnest desire
of Bernice? And when [after so many of thy wicked pranks] he made thee
his secretary, he caught thee falsifying his epistles, and drove thee
away from his sight. But I shall not inquire accurately into these
matters of scandal against thee. Yet cannot I but wonder at thy
impudence, when thou hast the assurance to say, that thou hast better
related these affairs [of the war] than have all the others that have
written about them, whilst thou didst not know what was done in Galilee;
for thou wast then at Berytus with the king; nor didst thou know how
much the Romans suffered at the siege of Jotapata, or what miseries they
brought upon us; nor couldst thou learn by inquiry what I did during
that siege myself; for all those that might afford such information
were quite destroyed in that siege. But perhaps thou wilt say, thou hast
written of what was done against the people of Jerusalem exactly. But
how should that be? for neither wast thou concerned in that war, nor
hast thou read the commentaries of Caesar; of which we have evident
proof, because thou hast contradicted those commentaries of Caesar
in thy history. But if thou art so hardy as to affirm, that thou hast
written that history better than all the rest, why didst thou not
publish thy history while the emperors Vespasian and Titus, the generals
in that war, as well as king Agrippa and his family, who were men very
well skilled in the learning of the Greeks, were all alive? for thou
hast had it written these twenty years, and then mightest thou have had
the testimony of thy accuracy. But now when these men are no longer with
us, and thou thinkest thou canst not be contradicted, thou venturest to
publish it. But then I was not in like manner afraid of my own writing,
but