forces who so greatly suffered in it, or the might of the commanders,—whose great labours about Jerusalem will be deemed inglorious, if what they achieved be reckoned but a small matter.
4. HOWEVER, I will not go to the other extreme, out of opposition to those men who ex- tol the Romans, nor will I The author's determine to raise the actions of intentions, my countrymen too high ; but I will prosecute the actions of both parties with accuracy. Yet shall I suit my language to the passions I am under, as to the affairs I describe, and must be allowed to indulge some lamentations upon the miseries undergone by my own country ; for that it was a seditious temper of our own that destroyed it ; and that they were the tyrants among the Jews who brought the Roman power upon us, who unwil- lingly attacked us, and occasioned the burning of our holy temple, Titus Caesar, who destroyed it, is himself a witness, who, during the entire war, pitied the people who were kept under by the seditious, and did often voluntarily delay the taking of the city, and allowed time to the seige, in order to let the authors have opportunity for repentance. But if any one makes an unjust ac- cusation against us, when we speak so passion- ately about the tyrants, or the robbers, or sorely bewail the misfortunes of our country, let him indulge my affections herein, though it be contrary to the rules for writing history ; because it had so come to pass, that our city Jerusalem had arrived at a higher degree of felicity than any other city under the Roman government, and yet at last fell into the sorest of calamities again. Accordingly it appears to me, that the misfor- tunes of all men, from the beginning of the world, if they be compared to these of the Jews.l are not so considerable as they were ; while the authors of them were not foreigners neither. This makes it impossible for me to contain my lamentations. But if any one be inflexible in hi censures of me, let him attribute the facts them- selves to the historical part, and the lamentations to the writer himself only.
5. HOWEVER, I may justly blame the learned men among the Greeks, who, when such great actions have been done in their own times, which, upon the comparison, quite Orsek eclipse the old wars, do yet sit as Historians, judges of those affairs, and pass bitter censures upon the labours of the best writers of Antiquity ; which moderns, although they may be superior to the old writers in eloquence, yet are they inferior to them in the execution of what they intended to do. While these also write new histories about the Assyri- ans and Medes, as if the ancient writers had not described their affairs as they ought to have
1 That these calamities of the Jews, who were our Saviours murderers, were to be ttte greatest that had ever been, since the beginning of the world, our Saviour had directly foretold, Matt. xxiv. at; Mark xiii. it); Luke xr, 23, 94 ; and that they proved to be. such accordingly, Josef hus is here a most antJientic witness.
done; although these be as far inferior to them in abilities as they are different in their notions from them ; for of old every one took upon them to write what happened in his own time ; where their immediate concern in the actions made their promises of value; and where it must be reproach- ful to write lies, when they must be known by the readers to be such. But then, an undertak- ing to preserve the memory of what hath not been before recorded, and to represent the affairs of one's own time to those that come afterward, is really worthy of praise and com- mendation. Now he is to be esteemed to have taken good pains in earnest, not who does no more than change the disposition and order of other men's works, but he who not only relates what had not been related before, but composes an entire body of history of his own: accordingly, I have been at great charges, and have taken very great pains [about this history], though I be a foreigner ; and do dedicate this work, as a memorial of great actions, both to the Greeks and the Barbarians. But for some of our own principal men, their mouths are wide open, and their tongues loosed presently, for gain and law- suits, but quite muzzled up when they are to write history, where they must speak truth and gather facts together with a great deal of pains, and so they leave the writing such histories to weaker people, and to such as are not acquainted with the actions of princes. Yet shall the real truth of historical facts be preferred by us, how much soever it be neglected among the Greek historians.
6. TO WRITE concerning the Antiquities of the Jews, who they were [originally], and how they revolted from the Egyptians, and what country they travelled over, and what country they seized upon The author's afterward, and how they were plant, removed out of them, I think this not to be a fit opportunity, and, on other accounts, also superfluous; and this because many Jews before me have composed the histories of our ancestors very exactly ; as have some of the Greeks done it also, and have translated our his- tories into their own tongue, and have not much mistaken the truth in their histories. But then, where the writers of these affairs and our prophets leave off, thence shall I take my rise, and begin my history. Now, as to what concerns that war which happened in my own time, I will go over it very largely, and with all the diligence I am able ; but for what pi^ceded mine own age, that I shall run over briefly.
7. [FOR EXAMPLE, 1 shall relate] how Antiochus, who was., named Epiphanes, took Jerusalem by force, and held it three years and three months, and. was then ejected out of the country by the Hiplnifor sons of Asamoneus: after that, I>1 history how their posterity quarrelled about the government, and brought upon their settlement, the Romans and Pompey; how Herod also, the son. of Antipater, dissolved their government, and brought Socius upon them ; as also how our people made a sedition upon Herod's death while Augustus was the
