Huxley has gone much further, and has set forth strategical reasons which he thinks demonstrate that Vespasian's case would have been one truly of demoniacal possession could he have passed by Gabara and marched on to Gadara. For the Roman line of march would have been between Gabara, to the north, and Jotopata, a fortified city in strong position on the south. According to Robinson,[1] I may observe the distance between the two is only from six to eight Roman miles. Vespasian "could not afford to leave these strongholds in the possession of the enemy,"[2] and from Gabara "his communications with his base could easily be threatened."
Now this statement is contradicted right and left by the facts. For first, if Gabara be the right reading, it was (and so Milman has stated it) ungarrisoned. Secondly, it was not a stronghold at all; for Josephus tells us that all Galilee was now cruelly devastated with fire and sword by the Romans, and there was nowhere any refuge, except in the cities he had fortified; of which Gabara was not one. Thirdly, in the narrow region between Gabara and Jotopata lay Sepphoris, which was held by the Romans, and was the stronghold from which all Galilee was laid waste. Fourthly, Vespasian, in defiance of his modern instructor, did leave behind him all the twelve or fourteen strong places that Josephus had fortified except one. Fifthly, he did, indeed, march against Jotopata, but for this he had a very strong reason, quite apart from fears about his base, which would under the circumstances have been chimerical; namely, that the Roman commander, Placidus, had just before failed in an attack upon it, and had been defeated and put to flight under its walls. We may now, I think, bid adieu to the strategy of Prof. Huxley.
Many a good cause, however, suffers from the use of bad arguments in its favor. It remains for me to offer, with due submission some reasons, which appear to me serious, in support of the text as it stands.
1. Josephus says Vespasian attacked "the city of the Gadarenes." So far as I know, he uses this form of expression only when the city is the center of a district (Gadaris),[3] named after it. Such was the case of Gadara, but not of Gabara. He does not call Sepphoris the city of the Sepphorites, or Gamala the city of the Gamalenes.
2. He says the place was taken at the first assault; appropriately enough for a fortified place shorn of its garrison, but not appropriate for an open town.
3. Gamala, as part of the open country of Galilee, was already in full subjection to the Romans.
