Page:Selections. Translated by H. St. J. Thackeray (1919).djvu/117



Galilee surrenders to Cestius, almost without a blow; Joppa, attacked by land and sea, is captured and burnt; and the Roman arms are everywhere successful.

From Antipatris Cestius advanced to Lydda and found the city deserted, for the population had gone up en masse to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles. Fifty persons who showed themselves he put to the sword, and after burning down the town resumed his march; and, ascending through Beth-Horon, pitched his camp at a place called Gibeon, fifty furlongs distant from Jerusalem. A Jewish Successful Charge outside Jerusalem

The Jews, seeing the war at length approaching their mother city, abandoned the feast and rushed to arms; and, relying largely on their numbers, sprang in disorder and with loud cries into the fray. It was the Sabbath which they regarded with peculiar reverence, but they paid no thought to that seventh day of rest. But the same passion which shook them out of their piety brought them victory in the battle. With such fury, at any rate, did they fall upon the Romans that they broke and passed through their ranks, killing as they went; and had not the cavalry, with a body of infantry which was not so hard pressed as the rest, disengaged and wheeled round to the relief of the broken line, Cestius and his whole army would have been in jeopardy. The Roman killed were five hundred and fifteen (four hundred infantry and the rest cavalry); the Jews lost but two and twenty When their frontal attack was thus held up, the Jews retired to the city. But Simon, son of Gioras, fell upon the rear of the Romans as they withdrew to Beth-Horon,