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[461]
However, the Syrians were even with the Jews in the multitude of
the men whom they slew; for they killed those whom they caught in their
cities, and that not only out of the hatred they bare them, as formerly,
but to prevent the danger under which they were from them; so that the
disorders in all Syria were terrible, and every city was divided into two
armies, encamped one against another, and the preservation of the one party
was in the destruction of the other; so the day time was spent in shedding
of blood, and the night in fear, which was of the two the more terrible;
for when the Syrians thought they had ruined the Jews, they had the Judaizers
in suspicion also; and as each side did not care to slay those whom they
only suspected on the other, so did they greatly fear them when they were
mingled with the other, as if they were certainly foreigners. Moreover,
greediness of gain was a provocation to kill the opposite party, even to
such as had of old appeared very mild and gentle towards them; for they
without fear plundered the effects of the slain, and carried off the spoils
of those whom they slew to their own houses, as if they had been gained
in a set battle; and he was esteemed a man of honor who got the greatest
share, as having prevailed over the greatest number of his enemies. It
was then common to see cities filled with dead bodies, still lying unburied,
and those of old men, mixed with infants, all dead, and scattered about
together; women also lay amongst them, without any covering for their nakedness:
you might then see the whole province full of inexpressible calamities,
while the dread of still more barbarous practices which were threatened
was every where greater than what had been already perpetrated.
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