It was not the first incident he had seen which showed him his own fate if it became known that he intended to treat with Rome.  He put aside his calculations in that direction as a detail not yet in order, and turned to the organization of his army.  Here again he met obstacle.

Among his council of Bezethans he found an enthusiasm for some intangible purpose, objection to his own plans and a certain hauteur that he could not understand.

“What is it you hope for, brethren?” he asked one night as he stood in the gloom of the crypt under the ruin with fifty of his ablest thinkers and soldiers about him.

“The days of Samuel before Israel cursed itself with a king,” one man declared.  The others were suddenly silent.

“Those days will not come to you,” he answered patiently.  “You must fight for them.”

“We will fight.”

“Good!  Let us unite and I will lead you,” the Maccabee offered.

“But after you have led us, perhaps to victory, then what?” they asked pointedly.

The Maccabee saw that they were sounding him for his ambitions, and discreetly effaced them.

“Do with me what you will; or if you doubt me, choose a leader among yourselves.”

They shook their heads.

“Then enlist under Simon and John and fight with them,” he cried, losing patience.

Murmurs and angry looks greeted this suggestion, and the Maccabee put out his hands toward them hopelessly.

“Then what will you do?” he asked.

“It shall be shown us,” they replied; and with this answer, with his organization yet uneffected, his plans more than ever chaotic, the Maccabee began another day.  Shrewd and resourceful as he believed himself to be, he beheld plan after plan reveal its inefficiency.  Forced by some act of the city to abandon one idea, the next that followed found a new intractability.  It seemed that there were no two heads in Jerusalem of a similar thought.  Whoever was not demoralized by panic was fatally stubborn or mad.  The single purpose that seemed to prevail was to hold out against reason.

Finally he determined to pick the most rational of his men and shape an army that would be distinctly Jewish and enviable.  Nothing Roman should mar its organization.  He would have again the six hundred Gibborim of David, and after he had formed them into a body he would trust to the existing circumstances to direct him how to proceed to the assistance of Jerusalem with them.  He should be the sole captain, the sole authority, the single commander of them all.  He would not have an unwieldy army, but one perfectly devoted.  He would lead by his own genius, attract and command by his own personality.  With six hundred absolutely subject to his will, trained in endurance and steadfastness, he could achieve more surely than with an undisciplined horde which first of all must be fed.

Throughout those days of predatory warfare he made careful selection of material for his army.  As yet, while famine had not reduced Jerusalem to a skeleton, he could select for bodily strength and mental balance.  He worked swiftly, sparing his men daily to the defense of the city against the Roman and daily sacrificing precious numbers of them to the pit of the dead just over the wall.