Note 7 — Chapter IV · Salathiel Journeys Far from Jerusalem

—page 26. Before the Roman conquest, the hatred of the Samaritan for the Jew made Samaria largely a land of brigands, through which a Jew could not safely travel. To Herod the Great belongs the credit of breaking up this brigandage, so far as it was an organized system. Josephus relates that Herod, after taking Sepphoris, the metropolis of Galilee, “hasted away to the robbers that were in the caves, who overran a great part of the country, and did as great mischief to its inhabitants as war itself could have done.” He defeated them with a great slaughter, and drove them out of the land.