Again Josephus, after recounting very many things concerning the calamity that overtook the whole Jewish nation, makes plain, word for word, that, besides countless others, very many of those held in honour among the Jews were, after being tortured with scourges, crucified in Jerusalem itself by Florus. This man was procurator of Judaea when it came to pass that the war was first kindled, in the twelfth year of Nero's rule.
He then says that throughout all Syria, on account of the revolt of the Jews, a dreadful tumult took hold; everywhere those of the Jewish nation were mercilessly destroyed by the inhabitants of the cities as though they were enemies, so that one might see the cities full of unburied bodies, and the dead—old men flung out together with infants—and women without even the covering due to modesty; and the whole province was full of indescribable calamities, while the strain of what was threatened was greater than the outrages committed on each occasion. These things Josephus relates word for word. And such was the state of affairs concerning the Jews.