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[514]
Whereupon the zealots, out of the dread they were in of his attacking
them, and being willing to prevent one that was growing up to oppose them,
went out against him with their weapons. Simon met them, and joining battle
with them, slew a considerable number of them, and drove the rest before
him into the city, but durst not trust so much upon his forces as to make
an assault upon the walls; but he resolved first to subdue Idumea, and
as he had now twenty thousand armed men, he marched to the borders of their
country. Hereupon the rulers of the Idumeans got together on the sudden
the most warlike part of their people, about twenty-five thousand in number,
and permitted the rest to be a guard to their own country, by reason of
the incursions that were made by the Sicarii that were at Masada.
Thus they received Simon at their borders, where they fought him, and continued
the battle all that day; and the dispute lay whether they had conquered
him, or been conquered by him. So he went back to Nain, as did the Idumeans
return home. Nor was it long ere Simon came violently again upon their
country; when he pitched his camp at a certain village called Thecoe, and
sent Eleazar, one of his companions, to those that kept garrison at Herodium,
and in order to persuade them to surrender that fortress to him. The garrison
received this man readily, while they knew nothing of what he came about;
but as soon as he talked of the surrender of the place, they fell upon
him with their drawn swords, till he found that he had no place for flight,
when he threw himself down from the wall into the valley beneath; so he
died immediately: but the Idumeans, who were already much afraid of Simon's
power, thought fit to take a view of the enemy's army before they hazarded
a battle with them.
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