for me; and
indeed I thereby came into the greatest danger, on the occasion
following.

26. There were some bold young men of the village of Dabaritta, who
observed that the wife of Ptolemy, the king's procurator, was to make
a progress over the great plain with a mighty attendance, and with some
horsemen that followed as a guard to them, and this out of a country
that was subject to the king and queen, into the jurisdiction of the
Romans; and fell upon them on a sudden, and obliged the wife of Ptolemy
to fly away, and plundered all the carriages. They also came to me to
Tarichese, with four mules' loading of garments, and other furniture;
and the weight of the silver they brought was not small, and there were
five hundred pieces of gold also. Now I had a mind to preserve these
spoils for Ptolemy, who was my countryman; and it is prohibited [12]
by our laws even to spoil our enemies; so I said to those that brought
these spoils, that they ought to be kept, in order to rebuild the walls
of Jerusalem with them when they came to be sold. But the young men
took it very ill that they did not receive a part of those spoils
for themselves, as they expected to have done; so they went among the
villages in the neighborhood of Tiberias, and told the people that I was
going to betray their country to the Romans, and that I used deceitful
language to them, when I said, that what had been thus gotten by rapine
should be kept for the rebuilding of the walls of the city of Jerusalem;
although I had resolved to restore these spoils again to their former
owner. And indeed they were herein not mistaken as to my intentions; for
when I had gotten clear of them, I sent for two of the principal men,
Dassion, and Janneus the son of Levi, persons that were among the chief
friends of the king, and commanded them to take the furniture that had
been plundered, and to send it to him; and I threatened that I would
order them to be put to death by way of punishment, if they discovered
this my command to any other person.

27. Now, when all Galilee was filled with this rumor, that their country
was about to be betrayed by me to the Romans, and when all men were
exasperated against me, and ready to bring me to punishment, the
inhabitants of Tarichee did also themselves suppose that what the young
men said was true, and persuaded my guards and armed men to leave me
when I was asleep, and to come presently to the hippodrome, in order
there to take co