Page:Selections. Translated by H. St. J. Thackeray (1919).djvu/86

 word to Machærus, which at that time was subject to her father, and so found that the general in command there had everything in readiness for her (intended) journey. No sooner, therefore, had she arrived (at Machærus) than she was off again into Arabia, escorted by one general after another in turn, and so reached her father post haste and told him of Herod's intentions.

Aretas seized this occasion for hostilities and also for raising the question of frontiers in the region of Gamala; the two belligerents mustered their armies and opened war, sending their generals as their representatives in the field. A battle took place in which the whole of Herod's army was cut to pieces as the result of the defection of a contingent from Philip's tetrarchy which enlisted with Herod's forces and then deserted. Herod reported the matter to Tiberius, who was indignant at the aggression of Aretas and wrote instructions to Vitellius to go to war with him and either to take him alive and bring him a prisoner to Rome or to kill him and send him his head. Such were the injunctions of Tiberius to the governor of Syria.

Some of the Jews, however, regarded the destruction of Herod's army as the work of God, who thus exacted very just retribution for John, surnamed the Baptist, Herod's victim. John was a good man who bade the Jews first cultivate virtue by justice towards each other and piety towards God, and so to come to baptism; for immersion, he said, would only appear acceptable to God if practised, not as an expiation for specific offences,) of the MS reading [Greek: tô te] ("and to him who was subject").]; in the previous clause [Greek: baptismos].]