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[383]
Now these and many the like motives did Josephus use to these men
to prevent their murdering themselves; but desperation had shut their ears,
as having long ago devoted themselves to die, and they were irritated at
Josephus. They then ran upon him with their swords in their hands, one
from one quarter, and another from another, and called him a coward, and
everyone of them appeared openly as if he were ready to smite him; but
he calling to one of them by name, and looking like a general to another,
and taking a third by the hand, and making a fourth ashamed of himself,
by praying him to forbear, and being in this condition distracted with
various passions, (as he well might in the great distress he was then in,)
he kept off every one of their swords from killing him, and was forced
to do like such wild beasts as are encompassed about on every side, who
always turn themselves against those that last touched them. Nay, some
of their right hands were debilitated by the reverence they bare to their
general in these his fatal calamities, and their swords dropped out of
their hands; and not a few of them there were, who, when they aimed to
smite him with their swords, they were not thoroughly either willing or
able to do it.
Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by. William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo. John E. Beardsley. 1895.
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