Antiquities — Book 16

Josephus · a new plain-English translation from the Greek

CONTENTS. How Alexander and Aristobulus returned from Rome to their father. How Salome and Pheroras, the king's brother and sister, made use of slanders against them. How Herod, having given wives to Alexander and his circle, sailed to Agrippa at Mytilene, and from there persuaded him to come to Judea. Agrippa's departure for Ionia, and how Herod sailed a second time to meet Agrippa at the Bosporus. The appeal of the Jews of Ionia to Agrippa, in Herod's presence, concerning their complaints against the Greeks. How Agrippa confirmed their laws for them, and Herod returned to Judea. How Herod addressed the people of Jerusalem and remitted a quarter of the past year's taxes for them. How discord arose in Herod's household, since he favored Antipater, his eldest son, while those around Alexander bore the insult badly. How, while Antipater was staying in Rome, Herod brought Alexander and his circle before Caesar and accused them. Alexander's defense before Caesar, and his reconciliation with his father. How Herod held games every five years in honor of the founding of Caesarea. The embassy of the Jews from Cyrene and Asia to Caesar concerning the wrongs they charged against the Greeks. Copies of the letters that Caesar and Agrippa wrote on their behalf to the cities. How Herod, being short of funds, went down into David's tomb, and, after being terrified by an apparition, set up a monument at the tomb. How Archelaus, king of Cappadocia, reconciled Alexander with his father, though Herod had earlier had him bound, and how Archelaus went up to Cappadocia and Herod to Rome. The revolt of those living in Trachonitis, and the reconquest of the region by his generals. How Herod demanded the surrender of the rebels who had fled into Arabia, and, failing to obtain them, marched against them with Saturninus's permission. How Syllaeus the Arab accused Herod before Caesar over his incursion, and how, through Nicolaus, he was cleared of the charges when Caesar had been angry. The slanders of Eurycles against Herod's sons, and how their father had them imprisoned and wrote to Caesar about them. How, when Caesar granted him authority at Berytus before the council, he accused his sons, and how, once put to death, they were buried at Alexandreion. This book covers a period of twelve years.

In administering affairs generally, the king was eager to check the various wrongs being committed in the city and the countryside, and so he laid down a law unlike any earlier one, one which he himself enforced: burglars were to be sold out of the kingdom. This was harsh, not merely as a punishment for the offenders, but it also amounted to an overturning of ancestral custom. For to be enslaved to foreigners who did not share the same way of life, and to be compelled to do whatever they ordered, was, for our people, a sin against religion, not simply a punishment for the one caught -- such a penalty having been guarded against in the earlier law. The laws instead required the thief to pay back fourfold, and, if he had nothing, to be sold indeed, but not to foreigners, nor into permanent slavery: he had to be released after six years. But fixed as it now was, the punishment seemed harsh and lawless, a mark of arrogance, since Herod had set the penalty not as a king but as a tyrant, with contempt for the common interests of his subjects. These acts, being of a piece with the rest of his character, formed part of the slanders and the ill will felt toward him.

At this time he also made a voyage to Italy, setting out to meet Caesar and to see his sons, who were living in Rome. Caesar received him warmly in every way, and, since the boys had now completed their studies, handed them over for him to take home. When they arrived from Italy, the crowds were eager to see the young men, who had become conspicuous to everyone, both adorned by the greatness of the fortune surrounding them and not falling short of royal dignity in their bearing. They at once became objects of envy to Salome, the king's sister, and to those who had prevailed against Mariamme through slander; for these people supposed that once the young men came to power they would pay the penalty for the wrongs done to their mother. So they carried this same fear over into slander against the brothers, spreading the story that the young men took no pleasure in being with their father because of their mother's death, to the point that it did not even seem right to them to come into the presence of the murderer of the woman who bore them. By shifting in this way from truth to a plausible pretext for their charge, they were able to do harm and strip away the goodwill Herod felt toward his sons; for they did not say these things to him directly, but scattered such talk among the rest of the populace. Once this was carried back to Herod, a hatred was quietly built up that not even nature itself would overcome as time passed. At that time, however, the king, though given over more than ever to every kind of suspicion and slander, still, out of a father's natural affection, granted the young men what honor was due and joined them in marriage, now that they were of age: to Aristobulus he gave Berenice, the daughter of Salome, and to Alexander, Glaphyra, the daughter of Archelaus, king of Cappadocia.

Having settled these matters, when he learned that Marcus Agrippa had sailed back from Italy to Asia, Herod hurried to him and pressed him to come into his own kingdom and receive what was owed him from a man who was both a stranger and a friend. Agrippa yielded to his earnest insistence and came to Judea, and Herod left nothing undone to please him: he welcomed him in the newly founded cities, and besides showing him the buildings, he provided him and his friends with every enjoyment of a lavish way of life, both at Sebaste and at Caesarea by the harbor he had built, and in the fortresses he had constructed at great expense -- Alexandreion, Herodeion, and Hyrcania. He also brought him to the city of Jerusalem, where the whole population came out to meet him in festive dress and welcomed the man with acclamations. Agrippa offered a hecatomb to God and feasted the people on a scale matching the grandest occasions. He himself, though he would gladly have stayed even more days for his own pleasure, was pressed for time; for with winter coming on, he did not think it safe to make the return voyage to Ionia, which he was obliged to do.

So Agrippa sailed away, after Herod had honored both him and the most distinguished of his companions with many gifts. The king spent the winter at home, and in spring hurried to meet Agrippa again, knowing that he was leading the way for a campaign to the Bosporus. Sailing by way of Rhodes and Cos, he put in there, expecting to catch up with Agrippa near Lesbos. But there a north wind caught him and kept the ships from putting out. He stayed on several days at Chios, welcoming many who came to him and helping them with royal gifts; and seeing that the city's colonnade had fallen down -- one that had been demolished in the Mithridatic War and, unlike other structures, could not easily be restored because of its size and beauty -- he gave money enough not merely to cover but to exceed what was needed to complete the work, instructing the people not to let it lie neglected but to raise it quickly and restore to the city its own ornament.

Once the wind had died down, he sailed on to Mytilene and from there was carried to Byzantium; and hearing that Agrippa had already sailed past the Cyanean rocks, he pressed on as fast as he could. Catching up with him near Sinope in Pontus, he came into view unexpectedly, sailing up with his ships, and his arrival was warmly welcomed, with many expressions of affection, since Agrippa now felt he had received the surest proof of Herod's goodwill toward him: that the king had made so long a voyage and had not failed him in his need, valuing it above even leaving behind the government and administration of his own affairs. In short, throughout the campaign Herod was everything to him -- a partner in matters of business, an adviser in particular affairs, a pleasant companion even in times of relaxation, and the only one who shared with him both burdensome things, out of goodwill, and pleasant things, out of the honor due him.

When they had finished the business in Pontus for which Agrippa had been sent, they decided not to make the return journey by sea, but instead crossed through Paphlagonia and Cappadocia, and from there traveled through Greater Phrygia to Ephesus, then sailed again from Ephesus to Samos. Many benefits were conferred by the king in each city according to the needs of those who approached him; for he himself did not hold back whatever could be provided through money, meeting the expenses from his own funds, and in matters that some sought from Agrippa he acted as intermediary, arranging that none of the petitioners went away disappointed. Since Agrippa too was generous and large-minded in granting whatever was asked of him without burdening anyone else, the king's influence did the most to spur him toward acts of kindness, for Agrippa was never slow to act. He reconciled Agrippa with the people of Ilium, settled for the Chians their debts to Caesar's agents and freed them from the taxes, and for the others he intervened as each case required.

While they were then in Ionia, a great number of Jews living in the cities came forward, seizing the opportunity and speaking freely, and told of the wrongs done to them: that they were not permitted to follow their own laws, and were forced to appear in court, harassed by local magistrates on holy days, and were being deprived of the funds dedicated for Jerusalem, being compelled to take part in military service and public duties and to spend on these the sacred money -- from all of which they had always been exempt, since the Romans had allowed them to live by their own laws. As they cried out in this way, the king arranged for Agrippa to hear their case argued, and assigned Nicolaus, one of his friends, to speak the just case on their behalf. Agrippa then made the leading Romans and the kings and princes present with him into a council, and Nicolaus stood up and spoke on behalf of the Jews as follows:

"Great Agrippa, everyone who has suffered wrong must of necessity take refuge with those who have the power to remove such wrongs; but those who come to you now do so with confidence besides. For having received from you before the very things they had often prayed for, they now ask only that the favors granted through you not be taken away by the very men who gave them, especially since they received these favors from those who alone had the power to grant them, and are being deprived of them by no one of higher standing, but by men whom they know to be subjects on an equal footing with themselves, just as you are. Whether great things were granted to them or small, it is a credit to those who received them that they proved themselves worthy of so much; but it is shameful for those who gave the favors not to make good on them as well."

"Those, however, who stand in their way and harass the Jews clearly wrong both parties: the recipients, if they do not consider them worthy men to whom the rulers themselves bore witness by granting such things; and the givers, if they think it right that their own favors should prove unreliable. If one were to ask these people which of two things they would rather be deprived of -- their life, or their ancestral customs, the processions, the sacrifices, the festivals they hold in honor of the gods they recognize -- I know well that they would choose to suffer anything rather than abolish any part of their ancestral ways."

"For it is on this very account that most men choose war, guarding against transgressing them, and we measure the prosperity that the whole human race now enjoys through you by this: that it is possible for each people, in its own land, to honor its own ways, and so to grow and to live. This, then, they would not choose to suffer themselves, and yet they force it upon others, as if they were not committing an equal impiety, whether they neglect the pious duties owed to their own gods, or unlawfully destroy the customs proper to others."

"Let us examine this further point: is there any people, or city, or common nation of men, for whom the protection of your rule and the power of Rome has not been the greatest of blessings? Would anyone wish the favors that come from it to be void? No one, not even a madman -- for there is no one who does not share in them, both privately and in common. Indeed, those who take away certain things that you have granted leave nothing secure even for those very things which they hold on your account. Yet it is not even possible to measure the benefits these people owe you; for if they were to reckon up both their kingdom of old and their present government, with all the many things that have contributed to their prosperity, it is enough, above all, that they no longer appear as slaves but as free men."

"As for what belongs to us, even when we conduct our own affairs splendidly, it gives no cause for envy; for it is through you that we prosper along with everyone else, and we have asked to share in only this one thing: to preserve our ancestral piety without hindrance -- which, considered in itself, would seem to be a matter of no envy, and one that lies with those who permit it to grant. For the divine, if it delights in being honored, delights also in those who allow it to be honored."

"Nothing in our customs is inhuman; all of them are pious and consecrated by the justice we habitually observe. Nor do we conceal the precepts we follow in life as reminders of piety and of proper human conduct; we set aside the seventh day of the week for the study of our customs and law, considering the practice of these, like anything else, a discipline through which we will avoid wrongdoing. These customs are good, if one examines them on their own merits, and they are ancient for us, even if some do not think so, so that the honor owed to their antiquity is hard to instill in those who have not received and preserved them faithfully."

"Of these things they now strip us through harassment: destroying, under false pretenses, the funds we contribute to God, and openly committing sacrilege; imposing taxes and dragging us before courts and to other business even on our festivals -- not out of any need arising from actual dealings, but out of spite for the religion they know we hold, bearing toward us a hatred that is neither just nor within their own right to indulge. For your rule, having become one over all peoples, renders goodwill effective and ill will ineffective for those who choose the latter instead of the former."

"This, then, is what we ask, great Agrippa: that we not suffer harm, nor be harassed, nor be prevented from following our own customs, nor be deprived of our possessions, nor be forced by these men into what we do not force upon them ourselves; for these things are not only just, but were granted by you yourselves before. We could still..."

we could read out many decrees of the senate and the bronze tablets set up on the Capitol concerning these matters — decrees plainly granted only after testing our loyalty to you, and binding even had you bestowed on us nothing else at all. For, to put it simply, you have preserved for all mankind, not for us alone, what already existed, and by adding more than anyone hoped for you do good through your rule; anyone who tried to catalogue the good fortune each people enjoys through you would make the account endless. But to show that we ourselves justly deserve all of this, it is enough — passing over what has already been said — to point to the man who now rules us and sits here beside you. What goodwill toward your house has he ever left undone? What loyalty has he ever fallen short of? What honor has he failed to conceive? What need of yours has he not put first? Why then should our gratitude not be counted among the many benefits you have received? It would perhaps also be good not to leave unmentioned the valor of his father Antipater, who came to Caesar's aid with two thousand infantry when Caesar had invaded Egypt, and proved second to none, either in the land battles or when ships were needed. What need is there to say how great a weight they threw onto the scale at that critical moment, and how many gifts, and of what kind, each of them individually received from Caesar for it — enough to recall the letters Caesar then wrote to the senate, and how Antipater publicly received honors and citizenship? These proofs will suffice to show that we possess these favors deservedly, and to ask that you confirm them — you, from whom, even had they not been granted before, one could hope for them, given the king's disposition toward you and yours toward him. We are told by the Jews there that you entered the country graciously, that you offered God whole burnt sacrifices, honoring him with complete vows, that you feasted the people, and that you accepted the gifts of hospitality they offered. All this, for a nation and a city, must be reckoned tokens of welcome and pledges of friendship toward a man in charge of so many affairs — a friendship you showed the Jewish nation, procured for it by Herod's own hospitality. In reminding you of these things, and of the king himself who is present and sits here beside you, we ask nothing extravagant — only that you not stand by and let others take away what you yourselves have granted.

When Nicolaus had finished speaking in this way, the Greeks offered no rebuttal at all; they were not arguing a case as though in a court, but simply pressing by force to keep on doing as they pleased. They had no defense to offer for what they were doing — only the excuse that, since they inhabited the country, the Jews were now wronging them in everything. The Jews for their part showed themselves to be natives of the land, doing no harm even as they honored their own customs while living there. Agrippa, seeing that the Greeks were resorting to force, replied as follows: because of Herod's goodwill and friendship toward him, he was ready to grant the Jews absolutely anything; but what they were asking for also seemed just in its own right. So that even if they had asked for still more, he would not have hesitated to grant whatever did not burden Roman rule. But since what they had already been granted must not be nullified, he confirmed that they should continue, unmolested, in their own customs. With these words he dissolved the assembly. Herod, standing by, embraced him and acknowledged his gratitude for his disposition toward him. Agrippa, showing the same warmth in return, embraced him just as fully, clasping and kissing him. Then he withdrew for the time. The king decided to sail home from Samos, and having taken leave of Agrippa he put out to sea, landing at Caesarea not many days later, having found favorable winds. From there he went up to Jerusalem and gathered the whole people in assembly — a great crowd had come in also from the countryside. Coming forward, he gave an account of his entire journey abroad, and told them how, because of him, the Jews throughout Asia would from now on live unmolested. And, exulting over his good fortune generally and over how he had administered the kingdom, claiming that he had left out nothing that served their interests, he remitted to them a quarter of the previous year's taxes. The people, won over both by his words and by his generosity, went away with the greatest joy, calling down many blessings on the king.

Meanwhile the strife within the household kept advancing and taking a harsher turn. Salome had, as it were by inheritance, taken over the hatred against the young men, and everything that had won her success against their mother was now turning into recklessness and boldness, so that she would leave none of Mariamme's children alive who might avenge, through her death, the woman put to death because of her. The young men, for their part, harbored some boldness and ill will toward their father as well, both from remembering how their mother had suffered undeservedly, and from their own desire to rule. So once again the same evil as before repeated itself: abuse from the young men against Salome and Pheroras, and malicious scheming from these two against the youths, with calculated plotting behind it. The hatred on both sides was equal, but the manner of hating was not the same: the young men were quick to abuse and reproach openly, thinking in their inexperience that giving free rein to anger was noble; the others did not act the same way, but employed their slanders in a calculating and malicious fashion, constantly egging the youths on and then counting their boldness as proof that they would turn to violence against their father. For their refusal to feel shame at their mother's alleged offenses, and their conviction that she had not suffered justly, was, they claimed, uncontrollable in one who thought he knew the guilty party and would take revenge even with his own hand. In the end the whole city was filled with talk of this kind, and, as in a contest, the young men's inexperience won sympathy, but Salome's careful diligence prevailed — she drew the material for proving her charges true from the young men's own conduct. For being so aggrieved at their mother's death, and since Salome kept speaking ill of both her and them, they were determined to show, as was true, that their mother's ruin was pitiable, and that they themselves were pitiable, forced as they were to live with her murderers and to share meals with them.

These things went further still, since the strife had free rein during the king's absence abroad. When Herod returned and addressed the people, as we have already related, reports at once reached him from Pheroras and Salome that he was in great danger from the young men, who were openly threatening that they would not rest until they had avenged their mother's murder. They added further that the young men were pinning their hopes on Archelaus, king of Cappadocia, expecting through him to gain access to Caesar and to bring accusations against their father. On hearing this, Herod was troubled at once, and all the more shaken because others too were reporting the same thing; he was thrown back into his misfortune, reckoning first that he had gotten no good from either his dearest ones or the wife he had loved, on account of the turmoil that kept arising in his household, and, taking what had now befallen him to be even heavier and greater than those earlier troubles, he was thrown into confusion of soul. For in truth, divine fortune kept adding to him, beyond all hope, the greatest external successes, while at home the greatest and most unexpected misfortunes kept befalling him — each running to a degree no one would have imagined, so that it made a genuine contest which was the greater excess: whether it would be worth exchanging so much external good fortune for his domestic troubles, or escaping so great a weight of misfortune among his own by never having possessed the admired splendor of his kingdom at all.

Troubled and disposed in this way, in order to bring down the young men Herod brought forward another son of his, born to him while he was still a private citizen, and made a show of honoring him — his name was Antipater — not yet as he later did, wholly won over by him and referring everything to him, but thinking rather to strip Mariamme's sons of their arrogance, managing the move chiefly as a lesson to them. For their self-will, he reasoned, would not persist in them if they were persuaded that succession to the kingdom was not owed to them alone as a matter of necessity. He therefore brought in Antipater as a kind of reserve, thinking he was planning wisely, and that once the young men had been checked he would be free, in due time, to make the better choice. But it did not turn out as he had intended. It seemed to his sons that he had treated them with no small degree of spite, and Antipater, being clever by nature, once he had laid claim to a freedom of speech he had never before had reason to hope for, adopted a single strategy of harm: since his brothers would not yield the first place, he clung close to his father — already estranged by the slanders and easy to manage toward whatever he was bent on — so that things constantly grew far worse for those under accusation. The reports did not come from him alone — he was careful not to seem to be the source of such disclosures himself — but he made use of accomplices who were beyond suspicion and who would be believed to be acting out of goodwill toward the king. And by now a good number of people had begun currying favor with him for what they hoped to gain from it, winning Herod over by seeming to speak out of loyal concern. As these many faces worked together faithfully in concert, still more material kept coming from the young men themselves: often there were tears provoked by the insults done to them, invocations of their mother, and they made a habit of openly charging their father before their friends with injustice — all of which Antipater's circle, watching for their moment, maliciously seized on and reported back to Herod in exaggerated form, producing no small degree of strife within the household. The king, distressed by the slanders and wanting to humble Mariamme's sons, kept giving Antipater ever greater marks of honor, and in the end, completely won over, he brought in Antipater's mother as well, and, writing repeatedly to Caesar on his behalf, commended him all the more earnestly in private.

Then, when Agrippa was going up to Rome after his ten-year administration of the provinces of Asia, Herod sailed from Judea to meet him, and brought only Antipater with him, handing him over to be taken up to Rome laden with many gifts, to become a friend to Caesar — so that everything already seemed to rest on him, and the young men appeared to have been pushed aside entirely from any share in power.

As for honor and appearing to hold first place, things went well for Antipater during his time abroad: since Herod had written letters to all his friends, he was a marked man in Rome. But he was troubled at not being present and not having ready opportunity to keep slandering his brothers, and he feared all the more a change of heart in his father, in case he should on his own decide to think more kindly of Mariamme's sons. Turning this over in his mind, he did not abandon his course, but even from a distance, whenever he hoped to distress his father and provoke him against his brothers, he wrote constantly — ostensibly out of great concern for him, but in truth trading on the hope his natural malice held out, a hope substantial in its own right — until he had brought Herod to such a pitch of anger and ill repute that, already hostile toward the young men yet hesitant to plunge into so grave an affair, lest he err either through negligence or through rashness, Herod judged it better to sail to Rome and there accuse his sons before Caesar, rather than allow himself any act so suspect on account of its enormous impiety. So he went up to Rome, and pressed on as far as the city of Aquileia to meet Caesar. There, gaining audience and asking leave to speak concerning the great misfortunes he believed had befallen him, he brought his sons forward and accused them of madness and of an actual plot, claiming that, holding him in enmity, they had set every effort on doing away with their own father and seizing the kingdom by the cruelest means.

He himself, he said, even in dying, should have the right — not merely of necessity but by judgment, granted him by Caesar — to hand power over to whichever son had remained more loyal to him. But for them, it was not chiefly a matter of the throne; even were they to be deprived of that too, life itself mattered less to them, if only they could manage to kill their father — so savage and polluted a hatred had eaten into their souls. This misfortune he himself had borne for a long time, and now he was forced to lay it out before Caesar and to defile his ears with such a tale. And yet what harsh thing had they suffered at his hands? On what ground did they complain that he was oppressive? How could it be right and just that he not be master of a rule he himself had won through many labors and dangers — free to hold it and to give it to whoever deserved it? For this too, along with everything else, he had set up as a prize for piety, offered to whichever son should show such devoted care toward the one who would one day become king, since so great a reward was there to gain. That it was not even pious of them to meddle in this matter was perfectly plain: whoever is forever brooding on the kingdom necessarily reckons in, along with it, the death of the one who begot him, since there is no other way to receive power. As for himself, up to now he had failed his sons in nothing owed to those raised as royalty and as a king's children — not in adornment, not in attendants, not in luxury — but had even provided them the most distinguished marriages: one to his own sister's daughter, and Alexander to the daughter of King Archelaus. And the greatest thing of all: even with such grievances against them, he had not used the power he held to deal with them himself, but had brought them before Caesar, the common benefactor of all, and, setting aside every power that either a wronged father or a plotted-against king might wield, had presented them for judgment on equal terms. Yet it would be necessary that he not go entirely unavenged, nor live out his life in the greatest fear — nor indeed would it profit them, given what they had contemplated, to go on seeing the sun, should they now escape, having in effect both committed and about to suffer the gravest of human deeds.

In this passionate manner Herod laid these charges against his own sons before Caesar. Even while he was still speaking, the young men were already in tears and confusion; and all the more once Herod ended his speech — for while they held in their own conscience the confident knowledge that they stood clear of any such impiety, they knew that a charge brought by a father is hard to answer, hard as indeed it was, and that speaking with the frankness the moment called for would not look becoming, if it meant...

...always and urgently to refute it as a mistake. So they were at a loss for words, and there were tears, and finally a wail more moving than words, since they were afraid that they would seem to be at a loss out of a guilty conscience, yet found no easy defense, hampered as they were by their youth and by the turmoil they had suffered. Caesar, watching them as they stood, did not read their state as the senselessness of a genuinely troubled conscience, but as hesitation born of inexperience and of natural restraint; and those present were moved to pity for them individually, and they stirred their father too, who was seized by real feeling. When they saw a measure of goodwill both in him and in Caesar, and saw that everyone else present was weeping with them or at least sharing their grief, one of the two, Alexander, addressed his father directly and set about dissolving the charges.

"Father," he said, "your goodwill toward us is plain even in this very trial. If you had truly intended anything harsh against us, you would not have brought us before the man who saves everyone. Having full authority as king, and as father, to punish wrongdoers yourself, to bring the matter to Rome and make this man a witness to it was the act of one who meant to save us, not destroy us. No one who intends to kill a man leads him into temples and shrines. Our own case is worse still: we could not bear to go on living if we were believed to have wronged such a father in such a way. And it may be worse to live under suspicion of wrongdoing, though innocent, than to die for wrongs we did not commit. If frank speech can find room for the truth, it will be a blessing both to persuade you and to escape this danger; but if the slander prevails regardless, this sunlight is superfluous to us — why should we go on looking at it under such suspicion?

"To say that young men desire kingship is a charge conveniently aimed at the young, and adding the memory of our unhappy mother is enough, on top of her first misfortune, to manufacture our present one. But consider whether these are not common charges, equally available against anyone: nothing prevents it being said of any reigning king's sons, if they are young and their mother has died, that all of them are suspected of plotting against their father. Yet mere suspicion is not sufficient ground for so grave a charge of impiety. Let someone say whether such a thing has actually been attempted by us — a charge that even things not otherwise believable tend to gain credit from, once acted upon. Can anyone point to the preparation of poison, a conspiracy of age-mates, the corruption of household slaves, or letters written against you?

"And yet each of these things is sometimes fabricated by slander even when it never happened; for a household divided against itself is a hard thing in a kingdom, and the very throne, which you call a prize of piety, often becomes for the most depraved of men an occasion of hope for which they hold back at nothing in their malice. No one, then, will charge us with any actual wrongdoing; but how could anyone dissolve mere slanders, if he refuses to listen? We did speak with some frankness — not against you, for that would have been unjust, but against those who did not keep silent about whatever was said. One of us wept for our mother — not because she is dead, but because even dead she was spoken of badly by men unworthy to do so. Do we desire the throne that we know our father holds? For what purpose, wanting what? If we already have the honors of kings, as indeed we do, why should we chase after empty ambitions? And if we do not, do we not still hope for them?

"Or did we expect, by murdering you, to gain control of the kingdom — we, for whom, after such a deed, neither land would be passable nor sea navigable? Would the piety and religion of your subjects, of this whole nation, have tolerated men who killed their father holding power, and entering the most holy temple you yourself built? But suppose we had despised everything else — could anyone, having committed murder, remain unpunished while Caesar lives? You did not beget sons so impious, nor so senseless — perhaps more unfortunate than was good for you, but not that. If you have no charges and find no plots, what is sufficient, in your eyes, to give credence to such monstrous impiety? Our mother is dead; but surely what concerned her was fit only to admonish us, not to provoke us to such a thing.

"We could say a great deal more in our defense, but there is no arguing a case for things that never happened. And so, with Caesar, master of all, mediating this moment, we propose this agreement: if you receive from the truth itself an assurance free of suspicion regarding your disposition toward us, father, we will live — though not even so very happily, for a false charge is itself a terrible thing among great evils. But if any dread still remains, you may continue in your own piety, and we will answer for ourselves. Life is not so precious to us that we would wish to keep it at the cost of wronging the one who gave it to us."

While Alexander was speaking in this way, Caesar, who had not believed the charge in its full weight even before, was moved still further, and kept looking steadily at Herod, seeing that he too was somewhat overcome; and anguish had settled on those present, and the report, spreading through the court, turned opinion against the king. For the sheer implausibility of the slander, together with the pitiable spectacle of young men in the flower of youth and beauty, drew sympathy toward them; and still more so once Alexander had met the charge so skillfully and with such good sense in his speech. Even they no longer wore the same expression — still weeping, still bowed toward the ground in dejection, but a better hope was now showing through. The king, seeing that he was thought to have made a reasonable accusation from what had persuaded him, yet had nothing to prove it, felt the need of some kind of defense himself.

Caesar, after pausing a little, said that even if the young men appeared far removed from the charge against them, they had still erred in this very thing — in not presenting themselves to their father in such a way that no talk of this sort could even have arisen concerning them. He urged Herod to cast aside all suspicion and be reconciled with his sons; for it was not right, he said, even to believe such things against his own offspring. A change of heart, he said, could not only heal what had happened but could strengthen their mutual goodwill, since each side, in making amends for the rashness of their suspicion, would resolve to treat the other with still greater regard. With such counsel he gave the young men a nod. And when they wished to fall at their father's feet in supplication, he took hold of them beforehand, and embraced them, weeping, one after the other in turn, so that not one of those present, free man or slave, remained untouched. Then, having given thanks to Caesar, they went off together, and with them Antipater, pretending to rejoice at the reconciliation.

In the days that followed, Herod presented Caesar with three hundred talents, since he was providing games and distributions for the Roman people, and Caesar in turn gave him half the revenue of the copper mines of Cyprus and oversight of the other half, and honored him in other ways as well with gifts of hospitality and lodging, and granted him authority concerning the kingdom to appoint whichever of his sons he chose as successor, or even to divide the honor among them all, as he came to each in turn. When Herod was now ready to act on this at once, Caesar said he would not permit it while he lived — Herod must retain control both of the kingdom and of his sons. On these terms he set out again for Judea.

During his absence a considerable part of his realm around Trachonitis had revolted, but the generals left in charge subdued them and forced them back into obedience. As Herod sailed with his sons and came to Elaeousa in Cilicia — now renamed Sebaste — he met Archelaus, king of Cappadocia, who received him warmly, delighted at the reconciliation of the sons and that Alexander, who had married his daughter, had been cleared of the charge; and they exchanged gifts of the kind fitting for kings. From there Herod went on to Judea, and coming into the temple he addressed the people about what had happened during his journey abroad, recounting Caesar's warmth toward him and whatever else, in detail, he judged useful both for himself and for the others to know. Finally he closed his speech with an admonition concerning his sons, urging both the court and the rest of the people toward harmony, and declaring that his sons would be kings after him —

first Antipater, and then Alexander and Aristobulus, the sons of Mariamme. For the present, he asked that all look to him alone, and regard him as king and master of everyone, since he was neither hindered by old age — being at the time of life most experienced for rule — nor lacking in the other capacities that make it possible both to hold a kingdom and to govern one's children; and he said that if the officers and the army looked to him alone, their life would be untroubled, and every foundation of happiness would come to them from one another. Having said this, he dismissed the assembly, having spoken to the satisfaction of most, but not of all in the same way; for by then many had already been unsettled by the rivalry and by the hopes he had given his sons, and were reaching after change.

About this time Caesarea Sebaste was completed, the whole structure having reached its finish in the tenth year, though the original schedule had run out, so that it fell in the twenty-eighth year of his reign, in the hundred and ninety-second Olympiad. There were at once, for its dedication, greater festivals and the most lavish preparations, for he had announced a contest in music and athletic games, and had prepared a great number of gladiators and wild beasts, and horse-races, and the most costly of the entertainments practiced both at Rome and among certain other peoples. He dedicated this contest too to Caesar, having arranged to hold it every five years; and Caesar sent him, from his own resources, all the equipment needed for such things, adorning Herod's generosity with his own. Caesar's wife Julia, too, on her own account, sent many of the costliest things from Rome, so that the whole display fell short in nothing, being valued together at five hundred talents.

When a great crowd had gathered in the city to see the spectacle, along with embassies which the various peoples sent because of the benefits they had received, he received them all with lodging, banquets, and continuous festivities, the celebration offering, in the daytime, the diversions of the spectacles, and at night the merriment and the lavish expense devoted to it, so that his magnanimity became famous; for in everything he undertook he was eager to surpass the display of whatever had been done before, and it is said that Caesar himself and Agrippa often remarked that the extent of Herod's realm fell short of the greatness of spirit within him, and that he deserved to hold the kingdom of all Syria and Egypt as well.

After this festival and these celebrations he raised another city in the plain called Capharsaba, choosing a well-watered spot and excellent land for planting, with a river flowing around the city itself and a very fine grove, remarkable for the size of its trees, surrounding it. This he named Antipatris, after his father Antipater. He also built, above Jericho, a place named for his mother, one outstanding for its security and most pleasant for lodging, and called it Cypros. For his brother Phasael, out of the affection he had felt for him, he dedicated the finest memorials: he raised a tower in the city itself, no smaller than the one at Pharos, which he called Phasael, serving both as part of the city's defenses and as a memorial to the deceased through its name. He also founded, in his honor, a city of the same name in the plain of Jericho, on the road going north, through which he made the surrounding country, which had been desolate, more productive by the care of its settlers; this too he called Phasaelis.

As for his other benefactions, it would be impossible to say how many he bestowed on cities both in Syria and throughout Greece and wherever else he happened to travel; for he seems to have granted generously many public services, the construction of public works, and money to those in need, for the upkeep of earlier works that had fallen into neglect. But the greatest and most notable of his achievements were these: for the Rhodians he raised the temple of Pythian Apollo at his own expense and gave them many talents of silver for shipbuilding. For the people of Nicopolis, founded near Actium by Caesar, he helped construct most of their public buildings. For the people of Antioch in Syria, who inhabit the greatest city there, one cut lengthwise by a broad street, he paved the open roadway on either side with colonnades and polished stone, greatly benefiting both its adornment and the convenience of its inhabitants. And the games at Olympia, which had grown far less honorable than their name through lack of funds, he made more valuable, establishing revenues for them and enhancing the festival with sacrifices and other adornment; and because of this generosity he was inscribed by the Eleans as perpetual president of the games.

To most other people it comes naturally to wonder at the contradiction in his nature; for when we look to the acts of generosity and the benefactions he showed toward all mankind, there is no way one could deny, even among those honored less by him, that his nature was most beneficent. But when one looks instead to the punishments and the wrongs he inflicted on his subjects and on his closest kin, and takes note of the harshness and the implacability of his character, he will be judged to seem savage and a stranger to all moderation. For this reason some think that a different and conflicting disposition arose in him.

I myself, however, do not hold it so, but suppose one and the same cause behind both: being a lover of honor, and powerfully overcome by that passion, he was driven toward magnanimity whenever there was any hope, whether of future remembrance or of present praise; but since he spent beyond his means on this account, he was forced to be harsh toward his subjects, for the vast sums spent on those he lavished them upon made him, out of what he took in return, a source of hardship. And being aware of the wrongs he did his subjects for this reason, and that he was hated for it, he did not think it easy to correct these faults — nor indeed would that have served his revenues — but instead made their very ill-will an occasion for further gain, out of a spirit of rivalry. As for those closest to him, if anyone failed in word to show due submissive respect, or seemed to stir against his rule in any way, he could not master himself, and pursued kin and friends alike, punishing them as though they were enemies, out of his wish to be honored by himself alone, treating such faults as an assault on that honor. And my proof of this passion, that it was very great in him, lies also in what happened concerning the honors paid to Caesar and Agrippa and his other friends; for the same regard he showed toward...

He asked to be courted by the very people he considered his betters, and thought he was offering them the finest thing he had to give when, by his generosity, he revealed his own desire to receive the same treatment in return. The Jewish nation, however, is by law estranged from all such practices, and has grown accustomed to prize justice over glory. For that reason nothing pleased Herod less than the fact that it was not possible to flatter the king's love of honor with statues, temples, or similar devices. This, I think, was the cause of Herod's offenses against his own household and counselors, and of his benefactions toward outsiders who had no claim on him.

The cities of Asia and of Libya near Cyrene were mistreating the Jews who lived among them. Earlier kings had granted them equality before the law, but now the Greeks were harassing them so badly that they were even seizing sacred funds and doing them harm in particular matters. Suffering these wrongs and finding no end to the Greeks' inhumanity, the Jews sent envoys to Caesar about this as well, and he granted them the same equal taxation, writing to the governors of the provinces. We have appended copies of these letters as evidence of the disposition that our rulers have shown toward us from of old.

"Caesar Augustus, high priest, holding tribunician power, declares: Since the Jewish nation has been found grateful toward the Roman people, not only at the present time but also in the past, and especially in the time of my father, the emperor Caesar, and their high priest Hyrcanus, it has seemed good to me and to my council, under oath, with the consent of the Roman people, that the Jews should live by their own institutions according to their ancestral law, just as they did under Hyrcanus, high priest of the Most High God; that their temples be inviolable and that funds be sent up to Jerusalem and handed over to the receivers at Jerusalem; and that they not be required to give sureties on the Sabbath or on the preparation day before it, from the ninth hour onward. If anyone is caught stealing their sacred books or their sacred funds, whether from the synagogue or from the meeting-hall, he shall be treated as a temple-robber, and his property shall be confiscated to the Roman treasury. As for the decree presented to me by them concerning the piety I show to all people, and concerning Gaius Marcius Censorinus, I order that this edict too be set up in the most conspicuous place assigned to me by the league of Asia at Ancyra. If anyone transgresses any of the above, he shall pay no small penalty. This has been inscribed on a stele in the temple of Caesar."

"Caesar to Norbanus Flaccus, greetings. Whatever Jews there are who, by ancient custom, are accustomed to bring sacred funds and send them up, let them do so without hindrance to Jerusalem." So much for Caesar's letter.

Agrippa too wrote on behalf of the Jews in the following manner: "Agrippa to the magistrates, council, and people of Ephesus, greetings. I wish the Jews in Asia to have the oversight and safeguarding, according to their ancestral custom, of the sacred funds brought to the temple in Jerusalem. As for those who steal sacred writings belonging to the Jews and take refuge in places of asylum, I wish them dragged out and handed over to the Jews, by the same right by which temple-robbers are dragged out. I have also written to Silanus the governor, that no one compel a Jew to give sureties on the Sabbath."

"Marcus Agrippa to the magistrates, council, and people of Cyrene, greetings. The Jews in Cyrene, on whose behalf Augustus has already written to Flavius, the present governor of Libya, and to the other officials of the province, that the sacred funds be sent up to Jerusalem without hindrance, as is their ancestral custom, have now approached me, saying that certain informers are harassing them and preventing them under the pretext of taxes not actually owed. I order that they be restored without being troubled in any way, and that if any of the cities have taken sacred funds from them, those responsible in each case make restitution to the Jews there."

"Gaius Norbanus Flaccus, proconsul, to the magistrates of Sardis, greetings. Caesar has written to me ordering that the Jews not be hindered from gathering money according to their ancestral custom and sending it up to Jerusalem, whatever the amount may be. I have therefore written to you so that you may know that this is what Caesar and I wish to be done." No less did Julius Antonius, the proconsul, write as follows to the magistrates, council, and people of Ephesus: "The Jews living in Asia, when I was administering justice at Ephesus on the Ides of February, showed me that Caesar Augustus and Agrippa had granted them the right to live by their own laws and customs, and to make, without hindrance, the offerings of first-fruits which each of them, out of personal devotion and piety toward the divine, brings together with the rest to send up. They asked that I too should confirm my own decision in accordance with the grants made by Augustus and Agrippa. I therefore wish you to know that, in keeping with the wishes of Augustus and Agrippa, I permit them to use and observe their ancestral customs without hindrance."

I have set these documents down of necessity, since the records of our affairs are bound to reach the Greeks for the most part, to show them that we have always obtained every honor and have never been hindered by our rulers from following our ancestral customs, but rather have been assisted in matters of worship and in the honors paid to God. I make frequent mention of these things, distinguishing the various peoples and removing the causes of the hatred that has taken root, unreasonably, between us and them on both sides. In matters of custom no nation always keeps to the same practices, and even from city to city there is often great divergence; but the pursuit of justice, common to all people alike, is most advantageous to Greeks and barbarians alike, and it is to this above all that our laws pay heed, and if we abide by them purely, they render us well-disposed and friendly toward everyone. For this reason we ought to demand the same of others, and it should not be thought that what differs in practice is therefore alien, but rather that what tends toward moral goodness is what matters; for this is common to all and alone sufficient to preserve human life.

I now return to the continuous thread of the history. Herod, spending lavishly both on projects abroad and within his kingdom, had earlier heard that Hyrcanus, the king before him, on opening the tomb of David, had taken from it three thousand talents of silver, and that far more still remained, enough to supply every expense. He had long had the undertaking in mind, and at that time, opening the tomb by night, he went in, taking care to remain as invisible as possible to the city, and bringing with him only his most trusted friends. He found no hoard of money as Hyrcanus had, but he did find a great quantity of gold ornaments and precious objects, all of which he removed.

He was eager, however, to press his search further inward, even to the very chambers where the bodies of David and Solomon lay, and two of his guards died there, struck down, it was said, by a burst of flame as they went in. Herod himself came out terrified, and as an offering to appease his fear he had a monument of white stone built at the entrance, at great expense. Nicolaus, the historian of his time, mentions this construction, though not that Herod actually went down into the tomb, since he knew the deed was not a creditable one. Indeed, this is the manner in which Nicolaus treats the rest of his history as well: since he lived in the kingdom and was on close terms with Herod, and served him, he wrote as an aide, touching only on what brought Herod glory,

and working hard to justify, or else conceal entirely, many things that were plainly unjust — he who even falsified the truth about Mariamme's death and that of her sons, so brutally carried out by the king, wanting to give it a respectable appearance, slandering her as licentious and the young men as conspirators. Throughout his history he consistently praised beyond measure the king's just deeds, while zealously defending his lawless ones. One might well forgive him for this, as I have said, for he was composing not a history for others but a service for his king. We, however, being of a family closely related to the Hasmonean kings, and for that reason holding the priesthood with honor, consider it unseemly to lie about them, and so we set forth these matters

purely and justly, even though we hold many of that family's descendants, some of them still reigning, in respect, yet we have honored the truth above them — a truth which, whenever it was justly told, has brought upon its tellers the anger of those very people. As for Herod, because of the undertaking he carried out at the tomb, his fortunes seemed to grow worse within his household, whether the divine anger, provoked by what he had already done wrong before, now grew to bring about irreparable disasters, or whether fortune simply chose that moment to strike, so that the timing lent no small credibility to the belief that his calamities came upon him because of his impiety.

For there was, in effect, civil strife within the palace, and mutual hatreds surpassing one another in slander. Antipater was always maneuvering against his brothers, skilled at surrounding them with accusations from outside while he himself often took the place of the one defending them, so that whatever appeared to be his goodwill toward them would seem trustworthy for the schemes he had in mind. In this fashion, by various means, he had thoroughly circumvented his father, persuading him that he alone did everything for his safety. He had also won over Ptolemy, who managed the kingdom's affairs, to Antipater's side, and took counsel with Antipater's mother about urgent matters.

In short, these two controlled everything — free to do whatever they wished and to turn the king against those outside the family whenever it seemed to their advantage. The sons of Mariamme, meanwhile, were always more resentful, unable to bear, given their noble birth, being pushed aside and made to hold a lesser rank. As for the women: Glaphyra, daughter of Archelaus and wife of Alexander, hated Salome both because of her disposition toward her husband and because she seemed to look down on Salome's daughter — for she was married to Aristobulus, and Glaphyra resented her equal standing. Once this second quarrel had broken out, not even Pheroras, the king's brother, was free of turmoil,

for he had his own private grounds for suspicion and hatred. He had fallen in love with a slave woman of his, and was so utterly overcome and possessed by his passion for her that he scorned even the king's own daughter, to whom he was betrothed, keeping his mind fixed on the slave instead. Herod was angered at this slight, both because of the many benefits he had conferred on his brother and because he had made him a partner in the kingdom's power — seeing no comparable return, he felt himself disgraced even in the eyes of the world. So, when Pheroras was refused the girl in due course, Herod gave her to the son of Phasael instead. After some time had passed, thinking that his brother's passion had by now surely subsided, Herod reproached him over the earlier match and asked him to take his second daughter, Cypros, in marriage.

Ptolemy advised Pheroras, who had by now stopped feeling shame before his brother, to abandon his passion, saying it was disgraceful for a man overcome by a slave woman to deprive himself of the king's goodwill and, on top of that, to become for Herod a source of turmoil and hatred. Seeing that this advice would serve him well, since he had already once been under suspicion and had been forgiven, Pheroras sent the woman away — though he had a child by her already — and promised the king he would take his second daughter, setting the wedding for the thirtieth day, and swearing along with this that he would have nothing more to do with the woman he had dismissed. But when the thirty days had passed, he was so much the slave of his passion that he did none of what he had promised, and returned again to his first attachment.

This now openly grieved Herod and roused him to anger. Certain remarks kept slipping out from him, and many made use of the king's anger as an occasion to slander Pheroras further. There was scarcely a day or an hour in which Herod could remain at peace; something new was constantly arising out of the rivalries his kinsmen and closest relations kept stirring up against one another. Salome, harsh and ill-disposed toward Mariamme's sons, would not even allow her own daughter, married to Aristobulus, one of the young men, to show him the affection due a husband; she persuaded her to report whatever he said in private and to inform her even of their disagreements, of which there were many, thereby feeding a great many suspicions. Through this she learned everything about them, while at the same time making her daughter ill-disposed toward the young man.

To please her mother, the daughter often reported that the brothers, in private, kept the memory of Mariamme alive, hated their father, and constantly threatened that, should they ever come to power, they would appoint the sons Herod had by his other wives as village clerks, since their current studious devotion to learning suited them for nothing better; and as for the wives, if they ever saw them wearing their mother's ornaments, they would strip them of their present finery and confine them dressed in rags, not even allowed to see the sun. All this was at once reported to the king through Salome, and he listened to it with pain; he tried to set matters right, but he was worn down by the suspicions, and, growing ever worse, came to believe everyone against everyone. Even so, on that occasion, after rebuking the young men, once they had defended themselves he was somewhat relieved for the time being, but far worse news fell upon him not long after.

For Pheroras went to Alexander, who, as we have said, was married to Glaphyra, daughter of Archelaus, and told him that he had heard from Salome that Herod was overcome with passion for Glaphyra and that his desire for her was beyond consolation. On hearing this, Alexander, being young and prone to jealousy, blazed up, and took

Unable to bear it, he was thrown into confusion by the falsehood of the slander. Often he lamented the wickedness of his own household, seeing what he had been to them and what he was getting in return from them. He sent for Pheroras, and after reproaching him he said: "Vilest of all men, have you come to such unmeasured and excessive ingratitude that you could think such things about me, let alone say them?

Don't I see your purpose in bringing such talk to my son, making it into a plot and a poison meant to destroy me? For who, unless he had enjoyed the favor of some good spirit, as this boy has, would have refrained from punishing his father over such a suspicion? Do you think you were casting a word into his soul, or a sword into the hand raised against the man who begot him? And what do you mean by hating him and his brother, yet feigning goodwill toward them only so as to speak this slander against me, and to say things that it took your own impiety both to conceive and to spread? Go to ruin, you who have proved yourself so vile toward a benefactor and a brother. May this be the conscience you live with for the rest of your life, while I go on winning out over my own kin, neither taking the revenge they deserve nor doing them more good than they are entitled to receive." Such were the king's words.

Pheroras, caught in the act of his own villainy, said that Salome had persuaded him to say these things, and that the words were hers. She, as soon as she heard this — for she happened to be present — cried out convincingly that nothing of the sort had come from her, and that everyone was eager to bring her into the king's hatred, and to hold it against her in every way, because of the goodwill she bore Herod, always foreseeing dangers on his behalf ahead of everyone else, and that at this very moment she was being plotted against all the more; for it was she alone who had persuaded her brother to cast out the wife he had and marry the king's daughter, and it was only natural that he should hate her for it. As she said this, over and over again clutching at her hair and beating her breast, her outward appearance carried some plausibility toward her denial, but the malice of her character betrayed the pretense running through it all. Pheroras was caught in the middle with nothing decent to say in his own defense — he had admitted to speaking the words, but was not believed when he claimed only to have heard them from another. The confusion, and the exchange of accusations back and forth, grew still greater. In the end the king, now hating both his brother and his sister, sent them away, praised his son for his self-restraint and for bringing the matter to him, and, since it was now late in the day, turned to the care of his body.

Once this quarrel had broken out, Salome came off badly from it, since it seemed that the slander had originated with her; and the king's wives were displeased with her, knowing her nature to be most difficult, and how she became by turns an enemy and a friend as the moment suited her. So they were always saying something to Herod against her, and one incident that occurred gave them still greater license to speak freely on the subject.

The king of Arabia, Obodas, was an unambitious man, sluggish by nature, and it was Syllaeus who managed most of his affairs for him, a clever man, still young in years and handsome. Coming to Herod on some business, he saw Salome at dinner and set his mind on her; and knowing that she happened to be a widow, he spoke with her. Salome, who was faring worse than before at her brother's hands and did not look on the young man without feeling, was eager for the marriage, and at the successive dinners they attended there appeared between them rather more warmth, and less restraint, than was proper given how matters stood between the two of them.

The women reported this to the king, mocking the impropriety of it, and Herod made inquiries of Pheroras as well, and asked him to watch, during dinner, how the two of them behaved toward each other. Pheroras reported back that by nods and glances both of them made their inclination unmistakable. After this the Arab, growing suspicious, went away; but after an interval of two or three months he came again for this very purpose, and put a proposal to Herod, asking that Salome be given him in marriage; for the alliance, he said, would not be without advantage, joined as it would be to the rule of the Arabs, which even now was in fact largely in his hands, and would belong to him still more fully in time.

When Herod put the proposal to his sister and asked whether she was ready for the marriage, she accepted at once; but when they required Syllaeus to be circumcised according to Jewish custom before the marriage could take place — since otherwise it was impossible — he would not submit to it, and saying that he would even be stoned by the Arabs if he did such a thing, he departed. So Pheroras, and still more the king's wives, now accused Salome of licentiousness, saying that she had had relations with the Arab.

As for the girl whom the king had betrothed to his brother — whom Pheroras, as I said before, had not taken, being ruled by his wife — Salome had asked for her on behalf of her own son by Costobarus, and was inclined to marry her to him; but she was talked out of it by Pheroras, who said the young man would not be well disposed toward her because of his father's death, and that it was fairer that his own son, who was heir to the tetrarchy, should have her. In this way he begged forgiveness, and even without gaining it acted as if he had; so the betrothal was transferred, and she was married to Pheroras's young son, the king providing a hundred talents as her dowry.

The troubles in the household did not let up but kept growing worse, and something of the following kind occurred, arising from a cause not at all respectable, yet advancing far because of the ill will it stirred. The king had eunuchs whom he prized greatly for their beauty. Of these, one was entrusted with pouring his wine, another with serving his dinner, and another with putting the king to bed — men trusted with the greatest responsibilities of the court. Someone reported to the king that these men had been corrupted by his son Alexander for a great sum of money. When Herod questioned them about their dealings and intimacy with Alexander, they admitted to it, but said they knew of nothing else troubling toward his father. Under torture, though, as the pressure grew more severe and his agents kept intensifying it to gratify Antipater, they began to say that Alexander bore hostility toward his father and an inborn hatred for him.

He had, they said, advised them that Herod should be given up as a lost cause — a man who had already had more than his share and who used the darkening of his hair to disguise his age, hiding the proof of how old he was. If they would only pay attention to him, once he had won the kingdom — which, whatever his father wished, could belong to no one else — he would soon hold the first place in it; for not only by right of birth, but already by his own preparations, he was ready to seize power: many of the officers, and many of his friends, stood ready, being men not unwilling to do or suffer anything whatsoever.

On hearing this report Herod was overcome entirely by both resentment and fear — taking the words spoken as insolence hard to bear, and those hinting at a plot as no less dangerous — so that he grew all the more inflamed from both directions, and, being a harsh man, was afraid that something truly stronger than he could guard against by the time it came might really be organized against him. From this point on he no longer made his investigation openly, but sent out spies among those under suspicion. Suspicion and hatred toward everyone took hold of him, and, seizing on suspicion as a means of safety, he went on applying it freely even against those who did not deserve it. There was no end to it: the men reckoned to have influence seemed to him all the more to be feared the more powerful they appeared, while for those with whom he had no close relation, it seemed enough merely to name them, and at once they seemed to him to be losing part of his security. In the end, those around him, having nothing secure to hope for in the way of safety, turned against one another, thinking that if one man forestalled another by informing against him first, this would work toward his own safety; yet they only made themselves objects of envy whenever they did obtain what they sought, and brought upon themselves, in addition, the just deserts of the wrongs they had done to others. Indeed some were already pursuing private quarrels of their own in just this fashion, and, being caught out, found themselves suffering the same fate, treating the occasion as an instrument and a snare against their enemies, while being caught in the very trap by which they had schemed against others. For repentance came quickly to the king because he was putting men to death without their guilt being made plain, and the difficulty of it was resolved not by his ceasing to act in the same way, but by his taking equal vengeance on those who had brought the accusations. Such was the disturbance surrounding the court.

To many of his friends he now gave notice that they should no longer present themselves to him or come into the palace. He issued this order against those toward whom the freedom he had once granted had been either lesser or greater; for Andromachus and Gemellus, men who had long been his friends, who had done great service to his house both on embassies and in counsel on matters of state, and who had helped raise his sons, and who — need one even ask — had held the very first place in that freedom of access, he now dismissed: the one because his son Demetrius was intimate with Alexander, and Gemellus because he knew him to be well disposed toward Alexander, since he had shared in his upbringing and education and had accompanied him on his stay in Rome. He dismissed these men too, though he would gladly have treated them still worse, restrained only by the fact that he could not, without disgracing men of no small standing, extend such freedom of access as far as this — thereby stripping away both their honor and their power to restrain him from wrongdoing.

Antipater was responsible for all of this: once he had discerned the sickness afflicting his father's willingness to listen freely to others, he had for a long time been pressing close upon him in council, and seemed to be accomplishing all the more of what he intended, one by one, whenever those able to stand against him were removed. So now, once Andromachus and his circle had been driven from any voice or freedom of speech, the king first put to torture as many as he supposed loyal to Alexander, to learn whether they knew of any daring plot against him; but they died having nothing to say. This became for him a further cause of contentiousness — that nothing such as he supposed should turn up on investigation — and Antipater, clever man that he was, sought to discredit as guilty, precisely through their innocence, a man whose self-restraint and loyalty was proved by the very truth, while working to inflame matters further, seeking out from ever more people whatever lay hidden in the scheme.

Then someone among the many being tortured said that he knew the young man had often said, whenever he was praised for being tall of stature, a fine marksman with the bow, and superior to everyone in the other marks of excellence, that these were for him misfortunes rather than blessings given by nature; for his father, he said, was grieved and jealous over them, so that whenever he was out walking with him he would draw himself in and stoop, so as not to appear taller, but when shooting at the hunts, with his father present, he would deliberately miss the mark, for he knew his father's jealous pride whenever these things won him honor. As the man was tortured and, with the easing of pain, gained some relief in his body, he added further that Alexander, with his brother Aristobulus as his accomplice, planned to ambush his father during a hunt and then flee to Rome, and that once this was accomplished he intended to ask for the kingdom for himself.

Letters from the young man to his brother were also found, in which he complained that his father was acting unjustly, granting to Antipater land yielding an income of two hundred talents. On these grounds Herod at once thought he had some solid proof, as he supposed, against the suspicion he held of his sons, and he had Alexander seized and put in chains. Even so he did not relent from his harshness, though he did not entirely believe even what he had heard; for on reflection nothing worthy of a plot appeared to him in these matters, only complaints and youthful ambitions, and it seemed implausible that a man who had openly killed his father would then rush off to Rome. He wanted to get some greater proof of his son's wrongdoing, and, being contentious by nature, he was unwilling to appear to have condemned him to chains rashly. So, torturing those of Alexander's friends who held office, he put not a few of them to death without their saying anything of what he supposed.

With so much readiness for such measures, and fear and confusion prevailing around the palace, one of the younger men, as if under the pressure of necessity, said that Alexander was sending word to his friends in Rome, asking to be summoned there by Caesar as soon as possible; for he had, he said, a plot to reveal against Mithridates, the king of the Parthians, whom his father had chosen as a friend against the Romans, and that he also had poison prepared for him at Ascalon.

Herod believed these things, and found some comfort for his own rashness amid his troubles, being flattered by worse men than himself. The poison, though eagerly sought at once, was not found. But Alexander, out of sheer contentiousness, wishing to make the extremity of these evils still worse, did not turn to denial, but instead met his father's rashness with a still greater fault of his own — perhaps also wishing by this means to shame his father's readiness to believe slanders, and not least in case he had actually resolved, should he be believed, to destroy both him and the whole kingdom. He wrote letters in four books and sent them, saying there was no need to torture anyone further or to go on with the investigation; for the plot was real, and its participants were Pheroras and his most trusted friends, and Salome too, who had come to him by night and lain with him against his will; and that all of them had come together to this end, that once they had gotten him out of the way as quickly as possible, they might be free from the constant expectation of it. Among those thus accused were also Ptolemy and Sapinnius, the most trusted men of the king.

And what need is there to say more? As if some madness had fallen upon them, men once dearest to one another became like wild beasts against each other, none of them allowing room for defense or examination until the truth could be established, but destruction without judgment continually falling on everyone alike — some to chains, others to death, others lamenting that these fates awaited them — while stillness and gloom stripped the palace of its former splendor. Herod's whole life became harsh, his entire existence in turmoil, and his refusal to trust anyone was itself a great punishment inflicted by his own expectation; often, indeed, he imagined his son rising up against him, or standing over him sword in hand, as if in a waking vision. So it was that his soul, working at this night and day, took on an affliction of madness, and no less of derangement. Such was the state of affairs concerning him.

The king of the Cappadocians, when he learned what had happened to Herod, was troubled on account of his daughter and the young man and shared in his friend's distress over so great a disturbance; he came at once, not treating the matter as a minor affair. Finding things as they were, he judged it entirely unsuitable to the moment to rebuke Herod or to say that anything rash had been done, since a man already embittered would only contend the more, and one who hurried to defend himself would be filled with still greater anger. So Archelaus took a different course: he set about correcting the damage that had been done. Feigning anger at the young man, he called him blameless for having done nothing rash, declared that he would break off the marriage with Alexander, and said he would not even spare his own daughter if she had known of any wrongdoing and failed to disclose it.

Since this was not at all what Herod had expected, and Archelaus showed the greater anger on Herod's own behalf, the king's harshness gave way; feeling that he had gained a case for having acted justly, he gradually shifted back into a father's natural feeling. He was pitiable in both moods: when someone cleared the young man of the slanders he was stirred again to anger, but when Archelaus joined in accusing him he turned to tears and unfeigned grief. He began to beg Archelaus neither to dissolve the marriage nor to hold on to his anger over the wrongs the young man had done.

Archelaus, taking this up more gently, shifted the blame onto Alexander's friends, saying that it was they who had corrupted him, since he was young and had no sense of malice; and in this way he made Herod's brother Pheroras still more suspect. For Herod was harsh toward Pheroras too, and Pheroras, seeing no one else able to reconcile him, and finding no other recourse, turned to Archelaus, dressed in mourning black and bearing every mark of impending ruin. Archelaus did not dismiss his plea, but said he could not quickly change the king's mind while he was so disposed; it would be better for Pheroras himself to go and beg, admitting that he was the cause of everything, for in this way he would relieve the excess of Herod's anger, and Archelaus would be present to assist him. When Pheroras was persuaded, both matters were settled together: the slanders against the young man were unexpectedly lifted, and, having reconciled Pheroras, Archelaus set off for Cappadocia, having become, in that crisis, more welcome to Herod than any other man could have been. For this Herod honored him with the most costly gifts and treated him magnificently in every other respect, holding him among his very dearest friends. He also arranged to travel to Rome with him, since Caesar had written concerning these matters, and the two journeyed together as far as Antioch. There Herod also reconciled the governor of Syria, Titius, who was at odds with Archelaus, and then returned to Judea.

While he was in Rome, and after his return from there, war broke out against the Arabs for the following reason. The inhabitants of Trachonitis, once Caesar had taken the region from Zenodorus and given it to Herod, no longer had license to plunder, but were compelled to farm and live peaceably. This was not to their liking, nor did the land reward the labor of those who worked it. Still, at first, since the king would not permit it, they held back from wronging their neighbors, and Herod gained much good repute for his diligence in this. But when he sailed to Rome — the time when he also brought his accusation against his son Alexander and had gone to present his son Antipater to Caesar — the men occupying Trachonitis spread word that he was dead, threw off his rule, and returned to their old habit of wronging the people around them. On that occasion the king's generals subdued them while he was absent, but about forty of the ringleading bandits, fearing what had befallen those who had been caught, abandoned the country and set out for Arabia, where Syllaeus took them in after his failed marriage to Salome; he gave them a fortified place to settle in, and from there, overrunning not only Judea but the whole of Coele-Syria, they plundered it, while Syllaeus supplied them with bases and immunity for their crimes.

When Herod returned from Rome he found that much of his own people's property had been damaged, and he was unable to get the bandits into his power because of the protection the Arabs afforded them; but, deeply angered over the wrongs done to him, he went through Trachonitis and put their families to the sword. This only drove the bandits to greater fury over what they had suffered, and since they had a kind of law entitling them to pursue the killers of their kin by every means without penalty, they carried on ravaging the whole of Herod's realm. Herod, for his part, took the matter up with Caesar's governors, Saturninus and Volumnius, demanding that the bandits be handed over for punishment. Emboldened all the more by this, they grew still more numerous and threw everything into turmoil, aiming to bring down Herod's kingdom — sacking places and villages and slaughtering every man they seized, so that the lawlessness came to resemble open war; for they now numbered about a thousand.

Distressed by this, Herod demanded the bandits back, and also demanded repayment of sixty talents he had lent to Obodas through Syllaeus, since the term of the loan had passed. But Syllaeus, having pushed Obodas aside and taken charge of everything himself, denied that the bandits were in Arabia at all and kept putting off the question of the money, which was discussed before Saturninus and Volumnius, the governors of Syria. In the end it was agreed through them that within thirty days Herod would recover the money, and each side would hand over any of the other's people found within its own kingdom; among Herod's people not a single Arab was found at all, whether as a wrongdoer or in any other capacity, while the Arabs were shown to be sheltering the bandits among themselves. When the deadline passed and Syllaeus had fulfilled none of what was just, he went up to Rome. Herod then seized, as security, the money and the bandits held among the Arabs, and since Saturninus and Volumnius permitted him to proceed against those acting in bad faith, he led out an army into Arabia, covering seven stages in three days, and on reaching the fortress that held the bandits, took it by storm and captured them all, razing the place called Raepta; nothing else was harmed. When the Arabs came out to relieve it under the command of Naceb, a battle followed in which few of Herod's men fell, but Naceb, the Arab general, and about twenty-five of his men fell, and the rest turned to flight. Having punished them, Herod settled three thousand Idumaeans in Trachonitis to keep watch over the bandits there, and sent word of all this to the governors, then in Phoenicia, showing that he had done nothing more than what was needed to proceed against the Arabs' bad faith. On close inquiry they found that none of it was false.

But messengers hurried ahead to Rome on Syllaeus's behalf and reported what had happened, magnifying each event beyond its true measure, as one would expect. Syllaeus had already made himself known to Caesar, and was at that time attending the court; as soon as he heard the news he changed at once into black clothing, came before Caesar, and told him that Arabia had been ravaged by war and the whole kingdom laid waste, since Herod had attacked it with an army. Weeping, he said that two thousand five hundred of the leading Arabs had perished, that their general Naceb, his own kinsman and relative, had been killed, that the wealth at Raepta had been plundered, and that Obodas had been held in contempt for his weakness, unable to withstand the war because neither he nor the Arab forces had been present.

As Syllaeus spoke in this way, adding spitefully that he himself would never have left the country had he not trusted that Caesar cared for peace among all peoples, and that even his own presence there could not have made the war profitable for Herod, Caesar, provoked by what he heard, questioned Herod's representatives who were present, and his own men who had come from Syria, on this one point alone: whether Herod had led out the army. When they were forced to admit this much, but Caesar would not listen to why or how it had been done, his anger grew still greater, and he wrote to Herod harshly on other matters as well, but the chief point of the letter was this: that having once treated him as a friend, he would now treat him as a subject. Syllaeus, too, wrote to the Arabs about these events. Emboldened, they neither surrendered the bandits who had escaped nor settled the debts, and they kept, without payment, the pasturelands they had leased from Herod, since the king of the Jews had been humbled by Caesar's anger. Those holding Trachonitis also took advantage of the moment, rising up against the Idumaean garrison and joining the Arabs in banditry, plundering their territory — harsher in their wrongdoing not merely for gain but out of spite as well.

Herod bore all of this, since the freedom he had enjoyed through Caesar's favor had now changed, and the greater part of his confidence had been stripped away; for Caesar would not even receive the embassy Herod sent to defend himself, but sent the delegation home having achieved nothing. There was, in consequence, despondency and fear, and Syllaeus, trusted and present in Rome, caused no small distress, laying hold now of still greater matters. For Obodas had died, and Aeneas, who took the new name Aretas, succeeded to the rule of the Arabs. Syllaeus attempted, through slander, to push him aside and seize the throne for himself, giving large sums to those at court and promising much to Caesar besides. But Caesar was angry that Aretas had taken the kingship without first writing to him. Aretas, in turn, sent Caesar a letter and gifts, including a golden crown worth many talents; his letter accused Syllaeus of being a wicked slave who had destroyed Obodas with poison and seized control while he still lived, of committing adultery with Arab wives, and of borrowing money in order to make the kingdom his own. Caesar paid no more attention to this than before, and sent him away without accepting any of the gifts.

Meanwhile affairs in Judea and Arabia went from bad to worse, some falling into disorder, and, as things were being destroyed, no one stood firmly in charge: one king had not yet secured his rule and so could not restrain wrongdoers, while Herod, for defending himself, was forced — since Caesar's anger against him had flared so quickly — to endure every outrage committed against him. Seeing no end to the troubles surrounding him, Herod decided to send to Rome once more, to see whether he could find some more moderate resolution, working through his friends and appealing to Caesar himself. It was Nicolaus of Damascus who went there.

Meanwhile his household, and the affairs of his sons, had also been thrown into confusion and had grown far worse around this same time. Even in the past nothing had been free of anxiety, given how the greatest and most difficult of human sufferings so often threatens royal houses through the turns of fortune; but the trouble now advanced and grew even greater, for the following reason. Eurycles of Lacedaemon, a man of some standing among his own people but base at heart, and skilled at both indulging in luxury and flattery and concealing that he did so, came to visit Herod. He gave him gifts and, receiving still more in return, used his opportunities for private meetings to make himself one of the king's closest friends. His lodging was in Antipater's household, but his access and familiarity lay with Alexander, for he claimed to be devoted to Archelaus the Cappadocian. For this reason he also pretended to honor Glaphyra, and went about secretly courting everyone, always attentive to whatever was said or done, so as to trade on the resulting rumors. In the end he turned out, for each person as the occasion required, to seem a friend to that one while appearing to the others to be siding only with whoever suited his own advantage.

This man drew out Alexander — still young, and persuaded that he could speak freely of his grievances to no one but him — who unburdened himself, showing how his father had grown estranged from him, and recounting the treatment of his mother and the doings of Antipater, who, having pushed them aside from honor, now held all power. He said that none of this was bearable, now that his father had been so thoroughly turned against him that he could not even endure being present with him at banquets or gatherings. Such were his words, understandably, given what he suffered. But Eurycles carried these speeches back to Antipater, telling him that Alexander said such things not out of hostility to him but because he felt outdone by him, given how greatly Antipater was honored, and he urged Antipater to be on his guard against Alexander, insisting that Alexander spoke none of this idly, but that his very words carried real intent. Antipater, believing Eurycles well disposed toward him because of this, rewarded him with great gifts at every turn, and at last persuaded him to carry the report on to Herod.

Eurycles, in recounting what he claimed to have heard of Alexander's ill will, proved far from unconvincing; rather, by constantly working on the king with his words and provoking him, he brought Herod to a point where the hatred became fixed beyond recall. He showed this at once: he gave Eurycles fifty talents as a gift on the spot. Eurycles, having taken the money, went up to Archelaus, king of the Cappadocians, and there praised Alexander, saying he had done Archelaus great service in bringing about the reconciliation with his father. Having drawn money from him as well, he departed before his double-dealing could be discovered. Eurycles did not stop his wickedness even once back in Lacedaemon, and for his many crimes was in the end stripped of his own homeland.

The king of the Jews no longer behaved toward Alexander and Aristobulus as he once had, merely listening to the slanders brought against them; having now become hostile to them within his own household, he himself worked things out whether or not anyone spoke against them, watching everything, making inquiries, and giving free rein to anyone who wished to say something damaging about them — even allowing Evaratus of Cos to disclose what he claimed to know about Alexander. And this, above everything, Herod took with the greatest pleasure. A still greater plot then arose against the young men, since the slander against them was constantly being made to grow larger, and it seemed, as one might say, that a prize was set before everyone: to say something damaging about them was thought to serve the king's own safety. Herod had two bodyguards, honored for their strength and stature, Jucundus and Tyrannus. These men, having become resentful of...

The king now had them pushed away from Alexander's circle, though they still rode with him and were honored at the gymnasium, and had received a sum of gold and other gifts. The king immediately grew suspicious of these two as well and had them tortured. After holding out for a long time, they eventually said that Alexander had been urging them to kill Herod, since he would get his chance while out hunting: it would be easy to say the king had been thrown from his horse and impaled on his own spears, since something of the sort had in fact happened to him once before. They also produced the gold, which had been buried in a stable, and denounced the chief huntsman, who they said had given them royal spears and, on Alexander's orders, weapons to Alexander's attendants as well.

After these two, the commander of the fortress of Alexandreion was arrested and tortured, since he too was accused of having agreed to receive the young men into the garrison and to supply them with the funds stored there for the king's use in that fortress. He himself admitted nothing, but his son came forward and said that this had indeed happened, and produced a letter that appeared to be in Alexander's hand: "When, with God's help, we have accomplished all that we have proposed, we will come to you; only try, as you promised, to receive us into the fortress." On being shown this note, Herod no longer had any doubt about his sons' plot against him. Alexander, however, said that Diophantus the secretary had copied his handwriting, and that the note had been forged through Antipater's doing; for Diophantus was indeed known to be skilled at such things, and was later put to death after being convicted of other forgeries.

The king brought those who had been tortured before the crowd at Jericho to denounce the young men, and the mob stoned them to death with their own hands. When the crowd surged forward to kill Alexander and his brother in the same way, the king held them back, through the intervention of Ptolemy and Pheroras, and had them instead placed under guard and watch. No one was allowed to approach them, but everything they did and said was closely monitored, and they suffered all the disgrace and fear of condemned men.

One of them, Aristobulus, overcome with bitterness, urged his own aunt and mother-in-law to grieve with him over his misfortunes and to hate the man who had persuaded her to act as she had. "Is there not also a danger to you," he said, "now that you have been slandered to Syllaeus in hope of marriage, in reporting everything that happens here?" She quickly carried these words to her brother. He could no longer restrain himself and ordered the two young men bound, and, once they had been separated from each other, ordered them to write down and hand over an account of every wrong they had done against their father. When this was required of them, they wrote that they had never conceived or plotted any scheme against the man who begot them, but that they had planned to flee, and this only out of necessity, because their life had become suspect and difficult to bear.

At this time an envoy named Melas, a man of standing among Archelaus's people, arrived from Cappadocia on behalf of Archelaus. Wishing to demonstrate Archelaus's ill will toward him, Herod summoned Alexander from his bonds and again questioned him about the escape plan -- where and how they had intended to withdraw. Alexander said that he had planned to go to Archelaus, and from there, once Archelaus agreed, to be sent on to Rome; he had entertained nothing else improper or troublesome against his father, nor was anything that his enemies had maliciously fabricated true. He said he wished still to live, if only to have Tyrannus and his companions examined more thoroughly, but that they had already been put to death sooner, because Antipater kept installing his own friends among the people. As he was speaking, Herod ordered that Melas and Alexander be brought to Glaphyra, Archelaus's daughter, and that she be asked whether she knew nothing of what was being plotted against Herod.

When they arrived, Glaphyra, seeing Alexander in chains, struck her head at once and, overcome, cried out loudly in shared grief. There were tears from the young man too, and the sight was painful for those present, so much so that for a good while they could neither say nor do what they had come for. At last Ptolemy, to whom the task of conducting Alexander had been assigned, ordered him to state whether his wife knew anything of what had been done. "What would she not have known," he replied, "since she is loved by me more than my own life and shares in our children?" At this she cried out that she knew of nothing improper, but that if lying about herself would help save him, she would confess to everything. Alexander said, "There is nothing impious in it, nor anything of what those who least ought to suspect us have imagined -- I myself never conceived it, and you know nothing of it -- except that we had decided to withdraw to Archelaus and from there to Rome." When she admitted to this much, Herod, concluding that Archelaus's ill will toward him had been proven, gave letters to Olympus and Volumnius, instructing them, on their voyage, to put in at Eleusa in Cilicia and deliver them to Archelaus, reproaching him for having taken part in the young men's plot, and then to sail on from there to Rome.

If they should find that Nicolaus had accomplished anything, so that Caesar was no longer displeased with him, they were to deliver the letters and the evidence he had drawn up against the young men. Archelaus, for his part, defended himself by admitting that he had received the young men, but said it was for their own good and their father's, so that nothing harsher might be added, in anger, to the suspicions over which they were already at odds; he had not, however, agreed to send them to Caesar, nor anything else out of ill will toward Herod.

When they were brought to Rome, they found an opportunity to deliver the letters, only to discover that Caesar had already been reconciled with Herod; for the matter of Nicolaus's embassy had turned out as follows. When he arrived in Rome and came before the court, he asked to be heard not only on the matter for which he had come but also to bring charges against Syllaeus, and it was clear even before the hearing that the two men were at odds. The Arabs, suspecting this of him, went to Nicolaus and reported all of Syllaeus's wrongdoings, offering clear proof that the whole of Obodas's estate had been squandered -- for they even had some of Syllaeus's own letters, which they had taken at the time of the revolt and used to convict him through this evidence.

Nicolaus, seeing that this good fortune had come his way, used it to further his purpose, pressing for a reconciliation between Herod and Caesar; for he knew well that if he wished to defend what Herod had done, he would not be granted freedom of speech, but that if he chose instead to accuse Syllaeus, an opportunity would arise to speak in Herod's favor. So, once the two were set against each other and a day appointed, Nicolaus, with Aretas's envoys present, brought a whole series of charges against Syllaeus: that he was responsible for the death of the king and of many Arabs; that he had borrowed money for no honest purpose; and he exposed adulteries not only with women in Arabia but also with women in Rome. He added, most seriously of all, that Syllaeus had deceived Caesar by telling him nothing that was true about what Herod had done.

When he came to this point, Caesar cut him off, insisting that he speak only to this: whether Herod had not led an army into Arabia, killed two thousand five hundred of its people, taken prisoners, and plundered the country. To this Nicolaus replied that he would show, above all, that none of this -- or at most very little of it -- had happened as Caesar had heard, and that it would have been just to bear it harshly even if it had. When, to everyone's surprise, Caesar consented to hear him out, Nicolaus spoke of the loan of five hundred talents and the contract, in which it was also written that once the deadline had passed it was permitted to seize pledges from the whole country; the campaign, he said, was no campaign at all, but a just demand for one's own money -- and not even that demand made hastily, or beyond what the contracts allowed. Herod had gone repeatedly to Saturninus and Volumnius, the governors of Syria, and finally, at Berytus, in their presence, Syllaeus had sworn by Caesar's own fortune that within thirty days he would hand over the money and the fugitives from Herod's kingdom.

When Syllaeus did none of this, Herod had gone again to the governors, and only when they permitted him to seize the pledges did he go forth, with difficulty, together with his own men. "This, then, was the 'war,'" Nicolaus said, "as these men have made a tragedy of it, and this was the nature of the campaign. And how could it be called a war, when your own governors had permitted it, the agreement had authorized it, and your own name, Caesar, along with those of the other gods, had been impiously violated? As for the prisoners," he went on, "that must be spoken of next. Bandits from among those inhabiting the Trachonitis, forty of them at first and then more, fleeing Herod's punishments, made Arabia their base. Syllaeus took them in, supporting them beyond all men, gave them land to live off, and took for himself the profits of their banditry. He had also sworn, under the same oaths, to hand them over by the same deadline as the loan. He cannot at present show any other people of Arabia removed from their land besides these -- nor even all of these, but only those who failed to escape notice. Thus, Caesar, you can see for yourself how the greatest and most invidious accusation, that of taking captives, turns out to be nothing but a fabrication and a lie devised to provoke your anger.

"For I say that when the Arabs' forces attacked us, and one and then a second of Herod's men fell, and Herod's men, defending themselves only with difficulty, killed Nakebos their commander and about twenty-five men in all -- Syllaeus, reckoning each one of these as a hundred, reported two thousand five hundred dead." This moved Caesar all the more, and turning to Syllaeus in a rage he demanded to know how many Arabs had actually died. When Syllaeus, at a loss, said he had been misinformed, the loan agreements were read out, along with the governors' letters and those of the cities that laid the blame on the bandits, and in the end Caesar's judgment came to this: he condemned Syllaeus to death, and, reconciled with Herod, expressed regret for the harsher letter he had written him out of the bitterness caused by slander, and said something to the effect that Syllaeus had forced him, through his false report, to be unjust toward a friend. In the end Syllaeus was sent back to answer the charges and repay his debts to his creditors before being punished.

Caesar was not well disposed toward Aretas, because he had taken the throne on his own authority rather than through Caesar's grant. He had in fact decided to give Arabia to Herod, but the letters sent by Herod prevented it. For when Olympus and Volumnius, learning that Caesar was well disposed, thought it best at once to hand over, on Herod's instructions, the documents concerning his sons and the evidence against them, Caesar, on reading them, judged it would not be right to add another kingdom to an old man already in such trouble over his children; but he received Aretas's envoys and, reproaching him only for his rashness in not waiting to receive the kingdom from Caesar himself, accepted his gifts and confirmed him in his rule. To Herod, now reconciled, he wrote that he was grieved over the matter of his sons, and that if they had attempted anything truly impious, he should proceed against them as against those who had raised their hands against their own father -- for that authority was granted to him; but if they had merely planned to flee, he should admonish them and take no irrevocable action.

He advised him to convene a council at Berytus, where Romans resided, and, taking with him the governors and Archelaus, king of Cappadocia, and any others he judged distinguished for friendship and standing, to determine with their counsel what ought to be done. Such was Caesar's letter. When it was brought to him, Herod was overjoyed, both at the reconciliation and at being granted full authority over his sons. And somehow, while his earlier misfortune, hard as it was, had not made him bold or rash toward destroying his children, now, seizing on this turn for the better and this new freedom of action, he grew vain in the exercise of his power. He accordingly sent out summons to all whom he thought fit to call to the council, apart from Archelaus; him he did not think fit to have present, out of enmity, or because he thought he would stand in the way of his purpose.

When the governors and the others he had summoned from the cities had gathered at Berytus, he kept his sons -- for he did not see fit to bring them before the council -- in a village of the Sidonians called Platana, near the city, so that he could produce them if they were called for. He himself entered alone, and, before an assembly of a hundred and fifty seated men, brought an accusation that was not one of grief, as might be expected from a man suffering such misfortune, but one very far removed from how a father should speak against his sons. It was violent, and in laying out his case he was in turmoil, giving the greatest signs of rage and savagery, not allowing the judges to examine the evidence for themselves, but instead presenting, on the sons' behalf, a defense unworthy of a father speaking against his sons, and reading out what they themselves had written, in which no plot or thought of impiety had been recorded -- only that they had planned to flee, along with certain reproaches against him arising from their ill will. As he read these out, he grew still louder, and turned what remained into an admission of the plot itself, swearing that he would rather be deprived of life than hear such words.

Finally he said that he held this authority both by nature and by Caesar's grant, and added that ancestral law also commanded that if parents, having accused someone, laid their hands upon his head, those standing by were required to stone him and put him to death in this way. This he said he was ready to do himself, in his own country and by his own royal authority; yet he had chosen to wait for their judgment -- though he had not come as though seeking judges for offenses that were plain, for which he had nearly suffered at his sons' hands, but rather men who, having the opportunity to share his anger, would judge that no one, however distant, ought to overlook so grave a plot.

When the king had said this, and the young men had not even been brought forward to answer the charge, those seated in the council, agreeing among themselves that gentleness and reconciliation would only make matters worse, confirmed his authority to act. And first Saturninus, a man of consular rank and among those of the highest standing, delivered his opinion, though in a most unpleasant position: he said he condemned Herod's sons, but did not think it right to have them killed, since he too had sons, and the calamity would be all the greater for him, even if--

Everything had gone badly for him because of them. After Saturninus, his sons declared the same opinion — three legates who had accompanied him — and Volumnius said outright that men who had committed such impiety against their father should be punished with death. Most of those who spoke after them said the same, so that it no longer seemed to be anything other than that the young men had already been condemned to death. From there Herod went straight to Tyre, bringing them with him, and when Nicolaus sailed to him from Rome, he questioned him, after first describing what had happened at Berytus, about what opinion his friends in Rome held concerning his sons. Nicolaus said that what they had planned against Herod did indeed seem impious, but that he ought to confine and keep them under guard; and if he later decided to punish them, he should make sure it did not appear that he had acted more out of anger than judgment, while if he decided instead to release them, he should make sure the misfortune would not be beyond correction. This, he said, was also the opinion of most of Herod's friends in Rome. Herod fell silent and sank into deep thought, and then ordered Nicolaus to sail with him.

When he arrived at Caesarea, there was at once talk everywhere among all the people about the sons, and the kingdom was in suspense, waiting to see where their case would finally turn. A terrible fear had come over everyone, that after long factional strife things would arrive at their final outcome, and while they were distressed at what was happening, no one could safely say anything rash, nor listen safely to anyone else who did; but shut in as they were, they bore the excess of their grief painfully yet in silence. One of them, however, a soldier of long standing named Tiro, whose son was of an age to be a friend of Alexander, could not, out of his outspoken nature, keep hidden what the others kept quietly concealed; instead he was driven to cry out often among the crowds, saying openly that truth had perished, that justice had been removed from among men, and that lies and malice now prevailed, casting so thick a cloud over affairs that even the greatest of human sufferings could no longer be seen by those responsible for them. Being the sort of man he was, he seemed to speak with reckless disregard for danger, yet the reasonableness of what he said stirred everyone, since he took his stand on the occasion not without courage. For this reason people gladly heard, spoken by him, everything each of them would have wished to say himself, and while they foresaw their own safety in keeping silent, they nevertheless welcomed his outspokenness, for the disaster they expected compelled everyone, through him, to speak on Alexander's behalf.

He himself, pressing forward to the king with complete freedom of speech, insisted on speaking with him alone, and when this was granted but he could not bring himself to speak, he said: "O king, to endure in silence such suffering, though this bold outspokenness is dangerous, I have judged more useful and necessary for you than my own safety, if you should gain something profitable from it. Where have your good sense and your judgment gone, fallen out of your soul? Where is that extraordinary intelligence of yours, by which you accomplished many great things? What is this desolation of friends and kinsmen? I do not even judge those who are present to be kinsmen or friends, since they look on while such a horror is done to a kingdom once counted blessed. Will you not consider what is actually being done? You will kill two young men, born of a queen, men of the highest excellence in every virtue, and leave yourself in old age with a single son who has managed badly the hope placed in him, and with kinsmen on whom you yourself have already so often pronounced sentence of death. Do you not realize that even the silence of the crowds nevertheless sees this madness and hates the deed, and that the whole army, and its leading officers, feel pity for the unfortunate and hatred for those who are doing this?" The king listened to this at first not altogether unreasonably, but — why should I even say it — he was deeply stirred when Tiro touched openly on his suffering and on his mistrust of his own household. Then, little by little, the man went further, using an unmeasured and soldierly frankness, for his lack of restraint carried him beyond what the occasion allowed, and Herod was filled with confusion, and, feeling reproached rather than hearing words meant for his benefit — especially once he learned of the soldiers' disposition and the officers' resentment — ordered that all those named be arrested and that Tiro be bound and held under guard.

When this had happened, a certain Trypho, a barber of the king's, seized the occasion as well, coming forward and saying that Tiro had often tried to persuade him, whenever he was shaving the king's throat with the razor, to cut it — for he would then be among the first around Alexander and would receive great gifts. Having said this, Herod ordered him arrested, and after this there was torture of Tiro, of his son, and of the barber. While Tiro held out under it, his son, seeing his father now in a wretched state and with no hope of safety — foreseeing from the severity being inflicted on the sufferer what awaited himself as well — said he would reveal the truth to the king, if he would spare both himself and his father further torture and abuse by his telling it. When the king had given his word on this, he said there was a plot for Tiro to attack the king with his own hand, since it was easy for him to approach him alone, and that in doing so and suffering whatever was likely to follow, he would not act ignobly, but would be doing Alexander a favor. Having said this, he freed his father from the compulsion, though it is unclear whether he was forced to speak the truth, or whether he had thought of this as a way of ending the suffering for himself and for the one who had begotten him.

Herod, if he had earlier had any hesitation about the killing of his children, any room or place left for it in his soul, now had none at all; having removed everything that might have afforded him a change of mind toward better reasoning, he hastened at last to bring his resolve to its conclusion. Bringing before an assembly three hundred of the officers who had been implicated, along with Tiro, his son, and the barber who had informed against him, he brought accusations against all of them. The crowd, pelting them at once with whatever came to hand, killed them. Alexander and Aristobulus were taken to Sebaste on their father's order and strangled there, and their bodies were carried by night to Alexandreion, where their maternal grandfather and most of their ancestors lay buried.

Now perhaps it does not seem unreasonable to some that a hatred nurtured over a long time should grow in this way and, advancing further, overcome nature itself. But a question might reasonably arise as to whether such a cause should be traced back to the young men, on the ground that they provoked their father to anger and, over time, brought him to an incurable harshness toward themselves, or rather to Herod himself, since he was a man untouched by restraint and extraordinary in his desire for power and for the rest of his reputation, so much so that no one supposes he left anything undone by which he might make whatever he wanted unassailable — or else one might say that fortune had a power greater than any sound reasoning, whence we are also persuaded that human affairs are consecrated beforehand by her to the necessity that they come about absolutely, and we call this fate, as though nothing existed that did not come about through her. This argument, however, as reaching too far toward that conclusion, will suffice for us to raise only in passing, granting something to ourselves as well and not leaving the differences among ways of life unaccountable — matters that have already been philosophized about before us, and by the law as well.

Of the other two causes, one might reproach the sons with an accusation arising from youthful self-will and royal pride, in that they tolerated slanders against their father and were not kindly examiners of the way he conducted his life, being prone to suspect the worst and unrestrained in speaking of it, and thus easily caught, on both counts, by those who watched them and reported for favor. The father, however, does not seem worthy of any mitigation for his impiety toward them, since, without having received clear proof of a plot or being able to demonstrate any preparation for an attempt, he dared to kill his own offspring — men outstanding in body and longed for by all who were not even his own, and no way inferior in their pursuits, whether it were a matter of hunting, or training for war, or speaking on behalf of those who had fallen into misfortune. For they took part in all of these, and Alexander, the elder, even more so. It would have sufficed, even if he had condemned them, to keep them alive nonetheless, in bonds or in exile from the kingdom, with great safety for himself, surrounded as he was by the power of Rome, through which he could suffer nothing even from open assault and force. But to kill them quickly, for the pleasure of the passion overpowering him, is proof of unmeasured impiety, and he erred greatly in this, being already advanced in age. Yet the delay and the passing of time would not bring him any pardon either; for to rush, stirred and shaken, into some monstrous act, though a harsh thing, is at least something that always happens; but to pause and deliberate at length, often setting out and often hesitating, and in the end to undertake and carry it through, is the mark of a bloodthirsty soul, hard to turn back from the worse course. He showed this also in what followed, not sparing even the rest of those who seemed dearest to him, in whose case justice made less claim to pity for those who perished, but the cruelty was just the same, in that he spared none of them either. We will go on to narrate these things in the account that follows.

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