d to inform the
multitude that "the city Tiberius had ever been a city of Galilee,
and that in the days of Herod the tetrarch, who had built it, it had
obtained the principal place, and that he had ordered that the city
Sepphoris should be subordinate to the city Tiberias; that they had not
lost this preeminence even under Agrippa the father, but had retained it
until Felix was procurator of Judea. But he told them, that now they had
been so unfortunate as to be made a present by Nero to Agrippa, junior;
and that, upon Sepphoris's submission of itself to the Romans, that was
become the capital city of Galilee, and that the royal library and the
archives were now removed from them." When he had spoken these things,
and a great many more, against king Agrippa, in order to provoke the
people to a revolt, he added that "this was the time for them to take
arms, and join with the Galileans as their confederates [whom they might
command, and who would now willingly assist them, out of the hatred they
bare to the people of Sepphoris; because they preserved their fidelity
to the Romans], and to gather a great number of forces, in order to
punish them." And as he said this, he exhorted the multitude, [to go to
war;] for his abilities lay in making harangues to the people, and in
being too hard in his speeches for such as opposed him, though they
advised what was more to their advantage, and this by his craftiness and
his fallacies, for he was not unskilful in the learning of the Greeks;
and in dependence on that skill it was, that he undertook to write
a history of these affairs, as aiming, by this way of haranguing, to
disguise the truth. But as to this man, and how ill were his character
and conduct of life, and how he and his brother were, in great measure,
the authors of our destruction, I shall give the reader an account in
the progress of my narration. So when Justus had, by his persuasions,
prevailed with the citizens of Tiberias to take arms, nay, and had
forced a great many so to do against their wills, he went out, and set
the villages that belonged to Gadara and Hippos on fire; which
villages were situated on the borders of Tiberias, and of the region of
Scythopolis.

10. And this was the state Tiberias was now in. But as for Gischala,
its affairs were thus:-- When John, the son of Levi, saw some of the
citizens much elevated upon their revolt from the Romans, he labored to
restrain them, and entreated them that they w