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[334]
But when Zoilus and the people of Gaza came to him, and desired his
assistance, because their country was laid waste by the Jews, and by Alexander,
Alexander raised the siege, for fear of Ptolemy: and when he had drawn
off his army into his own country, he used a stratagem afterwards, by privately
inviting Cleopatra to come against Ptolemy, but publicly pretending to
desire a league of friendship and mutual assistance with him; and promising
to give him four hundred talents of silver, he desired that, by way of
requital, he would take off Zoilus the tyrant, and give his country to
the Jews. And then indeed Ptolemy, with pleasure, made such a league of
friendship with Alexander, and subdued Zoilus; but when he afterwards heard
that he had privily sent to Cleopatra his mother, he broke the league with
him, which yet he had confirmed with an oath, and fell upon him, and besieged
Ptolemais, because it would not receive him. However, leaving his generals,
with some part of his forces, to go on with the siege, he went himself
immediately with the rest to lay Judea waste; and when Alexander understood
this to be Ptolemy's intention, he also got together about fifty thousand
soldiers out of his own country; nay, as some writers have said, eighty
thousand 1
He then took his army, and went to meet Ptolemy; but Ptolemy fell upon
Asochis, a city of Galilee, and took it by force on the sabbath day, and
there he took about ten thousand slaves, and a great deal of other prey.
1 From these, and other occasional expressions, dropped by Josephus, we may learn, that where the sacred hooks of the Jews were deficient, he had several other histories then extant, (but now most of them lost,) which he faithfully followed in his own history; nor indeed have we any other records of those times, relating to Judea, that can be compared to these accounts of Josephus, though when we do meet with authentic fragments of such original records, they almost always confirm his history.
Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by. William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo. John E. Beardsley. 1895.
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