On the Embassy to Gaius

Philo of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the Greek

How long shall we old men still be children — our bodies grey with the length of time, but our souls, through sheer lack of perception, utter infants? We think fortune, the most unsteady of things, is the most fixed, and nature, the most stable of things, the least secure. We keep changing our judgments, as in a game of checkers shifting our pieces, supposing that the products of chance are more lasting than the products of nature, and that what accords with nature is less secure than the products of chance.

The cause is that we judge present things without foresight of what is to come, using a perception that wanders in place of an understanding that does not wander. For the eye grasps what is in plain view and within reach, but reason presses on even to what is unseen and future — reason whose sight is keener than that of the body's eyes, yet we dim it, some by drunkenness and by gorging themselves, others by the greatest of evils, ignorance.

Still, the present occasion, and the many great matters judged in connection with it, are enough to persuade those — even if some have become unbelieving — that the divine takes forethought for human beings, and especially for the suppliant race, which has been allotted to the Father and King of the universe, the cause of all things.

This race is called, in Chaldean, Israel; and when the name is translated into Greek it means "the one who sees God" — which to my mind is the most precious of all possessions, private or common.

For if the sight of elders, or teachers, or rulers, or parents moves those who behold them to reverence and good order and zeal for a life of self-control, how much greater a foundation of virtue and nobility of character do we suppose will be found in souls that have been trained, bending beneath everything that has come into being, to see the uncreated and divine — the first good, beautiful, blessed, and happy, or rather, if the truth must be told, that which is better than the good, more beautiful than the beautiful, more blessed than blessedness itself and happier than happiness itself, and more perfect than anything that has been said.

For reason cannot climb up to the God who is untouchable and altogether intangible, but falls back and recedes, unable to use even his own proper names as a stepping-stone toward disclosure — I do not mean a name for his being, since not even the whole heaven, were it to become an articulate voice, could ever find words apt and well-aimed enough for that — but names for the powers that attend him as his bodyguard: the power that makes the world, the royal power, the power of providence, and the others, as many as are beneficent and as many as are punitive,

even if the punitive powers should be reckoned among the beneficent — not only because they form a part of laws and ordinances (for law is by nature completed out of two things: honor for the good and punishment for the wicked), but also because punishment itself often admonishes and disciplines even those who have sinned, and if not them, then certainly those near them; for the punishments of others improve the many, through fear of suffering the like.

For who, seeing Gaius, after the death of Tiberius Caesar, having taken over the government of every land and sea free of faction, well-governed, and fitted together in every part into concord — eastern, western, southern, northern; the barbarian race in harmony with the Greek, the Greek with the barbarian, the military with the civic population, the civic population with the soldiery — all agreeing to share and enjoy peace — who did not marvel and stand amazed at a state of good fortune beyond nature and beyond all account,

one who had inherited outright, all at once and in heaps, ready-made goods: vast treasuries of money, silver and gold — the one as raw material, the other as coin, the other as adornment fashioned into cups and other things wrought for display — vast forces, infantry, cavalry, naval; revenues supplied as though from springs, in an ever-flowing stream,

a rule over not merely the greater and most necessary parts of the inhabited world — which one might properly call "the inhabited world" — bounded by two rivers, the Euphrates and the Rhine, the one cutting off Germany and the more savage nations, the Euphrates cutting off Parthia and the tribes of the Sarmatians and Scythians, which are no less wild than the Germanic peoples — but, as I have already said, a rule over everything from where the sun rises to where it sets, both the sea within the ocean and the sea beyond it; over which the Roman people rejoiced, and all Italy, and the nations of Asia and of Europe.

For as no one had ever marveled at any emperor there had ever been, all were amazed at him, not hoping to have possession and use of goods both private and common, but thinking they already possessed the fullness of some good fortune, with even greater happiness in store.

One could see nothing else throughout the cities but altars, sacrificial victims, sacrifices, people dressed in white, wearing garlands, radiant, their faces bright with good will shining out from cheerful looks — festivals, public assemblies, musical contests, horse races, revels, all-night festivities with flutes and lyres, delights, relaxations, holidays, every kind of pleasure through every sense.

Then the rich did not surpass the poor, nor the honored the dishonored, nor creditors their debtors, nor masters their slaves, since the occasion granted equality before the law — so that the life under Cronus, recorded by the poets, was no longer thought a fiction of myth, because of the abundance and the good season, the freedom from grief and fear, and the rejoicings, shared by whole households together and by whole peoples, by day and by night, which continued unceasing and unbroken for the first seven months.

But in the eighth month a severe illness fell upon Gaius, who had shortly before, while Tiberius still lived, changed the easier and therefore healthier regimen he had followed into one of extravagance. For much unmixed wine, gluttonous feasting, insatiable appetites even on top of a full belly, ill-timed hot baths, vomiting followed at once again by wine-binges, and further bouts of gluttony, and lust indulged through boys and women, and whatever else destroys the soul and the body and the bonds that hold each together, all conspired together against him. And the wages of self-control are health and strength, but the wages of lack of self-control are weakness and sickness bordering on death.

So when the report spread that he was ill — while the seas were still navigable, for it was the beginning of autumn, the last voyage for seafarers, as they returned from markets everywhere to their own harbors and anchorages, especially those who took care not to winter abroad — people set aside their soft, luxurious life and grew gloomy; every household and every city became full of anxiety and dejection, as the joy of a little before now hung evenly balanced against a matching grief.

For every part of the inhabited world fell sick along with him, suffering a heavier illness than the one that gripped Gaius; for his was an illness of the body alone, but theirs was an illness affecting everyone everywhere — of strength of soul, of peace, of hopes, of the sharing and enjoyment of good things.

For they called to mind how many and how great are the evils that spring from lack of government: famine, war, the felling of trees, the ravaging of lands, the loss of property, deportations, the incurable fears surrounding slavery and death — for which there was no physician, since they had but one cure, that Gaius regain his strength.

So when the illness began to abate, in a short time even those at the ends of the earth perceived it — for nothing is swifter than a rumor — and every city was in suspense, ever thirsting for better news, until through those arriving the complete recovery was announced as good news; because of which they turned again from the beginning to the same rejoicings, each continent and every island alike counting his safety as their own.

For no one recalls so great a joy having come upon a single country or a single nation at the safety and restoration of a ruler as came, at Gaius, upon the whole inhabited world — both when he took over the government and when he recovered his strength from his illness.

For, as though only now beginning to change from a nomadic and beast-like life to one lived together in common and shared, and from desolate wilderness and folds and foothills to settling in walled cities, and from an unsupervised existence to being placed under the charge of some herdsman and leader of the flock over the gentler herd, they rejoiced in their ignorance of the truth;

for the human mind is blind when it comes to true perception of what is beneficial, able to use guesswork and conjecture rather than knowledge.

So indeed, without delay, he who had been thought a savior and benefactor, and one who would pour down for Asia and Europe new springs of good things for an unshakeable happiness, both for each individually and for all in common — as the saying goes, "from the very altar" — began to change into savagery, or rather revealed the wildness he had been screening beneath the mask of pretense.

For his cousin, who had been left as partner in the rule and was more properly his heir — the one was a grandson by adoption, the other by nature Tiberius's own — he put to death, alleging a plot, though not even his age admitted of such a charge; for the poor boy was only just passing from childhood into adolescence.

And, as some say, if Tiberius had lived only a short time longer, Gaius would have been removed from the way, since he had proceeded to incurable suspicions, and the legitimate grandson alone would have been declared ruler and heir of his grandfather's rule.

But Tiberius was overtaken by fate before he could bring his plans to completion; and Gaius, by outmaneuvering him, expected to escape the charge arising from his transgression of what was due to his partner in rule.

The trick was this: gathering the men in office, he said, "I wish — my cousin by birth, but my brother in affection, following also the judgment of the late Tiberius — to share the supreme power with him; and you yourselves see that he is still quite an infant, and in need of guardians, teachers, and tutors.

For what greater good could there be than that so great a weight of empire should be laid, not upon a single soul or a single body, but that there should be one able to lighten and share the load with me? As for me," he said, having outstripped guardians, teachers, and tutors of that age, though still a boy, I already write myself

as father, father, and him as son." With these words he deceived both those present and the youth himself — for the position given him was bait, since no rule was really hoped for by it, but rather the stripping away of what he already held — and against his co-heir and partner in right he plotted with great confidence, having taken thought for no one. For under Roman law full authority over a son rests with the father, quite apart from the fact that the imperial office answers to no one, no one daring or able to demand an account of anything whatsoever done.

This man, then, having taken him for a mere reserve contestant set aside in the games, he wrestled down, taking pity neither on their having been reared together, nor on their kinship, nor on his youth — that wretched, untimely-doomed partner in rule and co-heir, once hoped to be sole emperor because of his very close kinship to Tiberius; for grandsons, when their fathers have died, are counted among their grandfathers in the rank of sons.

It is said, too, that when he was ordered to kill himself with his own hand, with a centurion and a tribune standing over him, who had been told not to touch the pollution themselves, on the ground that it was not lawful for the descendants of emperors to be destroyed by others — for he made mention of laws in the midst of lawlessness, and of piety in the midst of impious deeds, mocking the very nature of truth — being wholly without experience — for he had never even seen another man being killed, nor had he been trained in arms, which are the practice and preliminary exercises of children being reared for empire, on account of wars that may arise — at first he begged those who had come, stretching out his neck, to kill him.

But when they would not consent, he himself took up the sword and asked, out of ignorance and inexperience, where the most fatal spot was, so that with a well-aimed blow he might break off his wretched life. And they, like teachers of misfortune, instructed and pointed out the place where the sword must strike; and he, having received his first and last lesson, became, under compulsion, the murderer of himself — wretched man.

When this first and greatest contest had been won by Gaius against Gaius, with no partner left in the rule any longer toward whom those who wished him ill and lived under suspicion might incline, he set himself at once toward a second contest: that against Macro, a man who had striven together with him in everything concerning the government — not only after he had been declared emperor, for it is the mark of flattery to court good fortune, but even earlier, toward his obtaining the rule at all.

For Tiberius, using deep intelligence, and being the most skilled of his contemporaries at discerning a man's unspoken intention, and excelling in understanding to the same degree that he excelled in good fortune, often eyed Gaius askance, as one ill-disposed toward the whole house of the Claudii, and attached only to his mother's family — and he feared for his grandson, lest, left young, he should come to ruin —

and as one ill-suited toward so great a rule besides, both because of the unsociable and uncommunicative character of his nature, and because of the unevenness of his ways; for his behavior appeared to Tiberius strange and frenzied, no consistency being preserved either in words or in deeds.

Macro, with all his strength, so far as the occasion allowed, courted Tiberius's favor, healing his suspicions, and above all where his mind seemed most deeply wounded, on account of his unceasing fear for his grandson.

For he declared that Gaius was well-disposed and obedient, and utterly devoted to his cousin, so much so that out of affection he alone would be willing to yield the rule to him; but that his modesty was of no advantage to him with many, on whose account Gaius, though simple, was thought devious.

And whenever a recital of probabilities failed to persuade, he would bring forward the pledge founded on their agreements, saying, "I give my guarantee; I am trustworthy enough for this; I have given sufficient proof of my particular devotion both to Caesar and to Tiberius, having been entrusted with the attack on and overthrow of Sejanus."

And in general he was capable in his praises of Gaius, if one may rightly call praises what were really defenses against charges and accusations that arose from suspicion, obscure and unclear — for, in sum, whatever praises one might utter concerning brothers or legitimate sons, so many and even more did Macro deliver to Tiberius on behalf of Gaius.

The cause, as the common report has it, was not only that Macro was courted in return by him — Macro who held the greatest, indeed almost the whole, power in the government — but also that Macro's wife, for a reason left unspoken, day by day anointed and roused her husband to relax nothing of his zeal and assistance on the young man's behalf. It is a terrible thing for a woman to unsettle and lead astray a man's judgment, and above all a lewd woman; for on account of shared complicity she becomes the more flattering.

He, not knowing of the corruption of his marriage and household, and thinking the flattery to be the purest goodwill, was deceived and, without realizing it, through their stratagems admitted his bitterest enemies as though they were his dearest friends.

Knowing, then, that he had saved him from destruction when he had come within a hair's breadth of ruin countless times, he used admonitions that were unfeigned and spoken with full frankness; for he wished, like a good craftsman, that his own work should remain undestroyed, dissolved neither by himself nor by another.

So whenever he saw him fallen asleep at a banquet, he would rouse him, aiming both at propriety and at safety — for one asleep is easily plotted against — or if he saw him watching dancers with wild excess, or at times dancing along with them, or at the mimes not smiling at shameful jests and gibes with becoming restraint but guffawing more like a boy, or being overcome by the melody of lyre-singers or choruses, at times even singing along, he would nudge him, sitting or reclining nearby, and try to restrain him.

Often, too, leaning close to his ear, so that no one else might overhear, he would admonish him quietly and gently, saying: "You must not be like anyone present, nor indeed like other men, either in what you watch, or what you hear, or in anything else that comes through the senses, but must excel in every concern of life to the same degree that you surpass others in good fortune."

For it is absurd that the ruler of land and sea should be overcome by a song, a dance, a mocking jest, or anything of the kind, rather than always and everywhere remembering his rule, like a shepherd and overseer of a flock, drawing toward his own improvement whatever word or deed comes from anyone at all.

Then he would say: "Whenever you happen to be present at theatrical, athletic, or equestrian contests, do not look at the pursuits themselves, but at the excellence achieved within those pursuits, and reason as follows:

if, in matters that benefit human life not at all, providing spectators nothing but delight and pleasure, some men labor so hard as to be praised and admired and to receive prizes and honors and crowns along with public proclamations, what must the man do who possesses the highest and greatest of all arts?

The greatest and best of all arts is rulership, through which all good and fertile land, both plain and mountain, is cultivated, and every sea is sailed without danger by cargo ships, in exchange for the goods that lands, out of desire for community, send back and forth to one another, receiving what they lack and sending back the surplus of what they carry.

For envy has never mastered the whole inhabited world, nor even its great divisions, all Europe or all Asia; rather, like a venomous creeping thing, it lurks, having crept into small places, against a single man or a single household, or, if ever it should breathe too strongly, against a single city; but it does not approach a wider circle of nation or land, and especially not since your own family, the Augustan house, truly began to preside over all things everywhere.

For whatever harmful things flourished and were found in our midst, he drove into exile beyond the borders and into the recesses of Tartarus, while things beneficial and profitable, which had in some sense been banished, he brought back from the ends of earth and sea into our own inhabited world; all of which

are entrusted to be steered by your single hand. Escorted by nature to the very highest stern, and having been given the rudder in charge, he steers the common vessel of humankind to safety, rejoicing and delighting in nothing more than in doing good to his subjects.

For different people owe different contributions, which private citizens are obliged to pay in their cities; but the contribution most proper to a ruler is this: to propose good counsels concerning his subjects, to carry out rightly what has been resolved, and to bring forth good things ungrudgingly with a generous hand and a generous mind — except for whatever it is right to hold in reserve as a precaution against the uncertainty of the future.

With words like these the unfortunate man kept chanting his charms, in hopes of improving Gaius. But Gaius, being fond of strife and contention, turned his mind to the opposite course, as though he had been urged toward it, and grew bold enough to shame his corrector to his face; and sometimes, when he saw him arriving from a distance, he would say the following to those nearby:

‘Here comes the teacher of a man who no longer needs to learn, the tutor of one who is no longer a boy, the counselor of one wiser than himself — the man who thinks the emperor should obey his subject enrolls himself as an expert in the science of rule and as my instructor, though from whom he learned the art of governing, I for my part do not know.’

‘For I, from my very swaddling clothes, have had countless teachers — fathers, brothers, uncles, cousins, grandfathers, ancestors going back to the founders of our line, all of them my blood relations on both sides, paternal and maternal, who acquired sovereign power for themselves — not to mention that even in the first depositing of the seed there are certain royal potencies belonging to rulers.’

‘For just as resemblances of body and soul — in form, in disposition, in movements, in counsels and actions — are preserved in the generative principles, so it is likely that the resemblance to rule itself is sketched out, in still more definite outline, within those same principles.’

‘Then does someone dare to teach me — me, who was already fashioned through and through as emperor while still in the womb, in the workshop of nature — an ignorant man instructing a man of knowledge? Where is it lawful for private persons, until just now, even to peer into the counsels of a ruler’s soul? Yet with shameless boldness they dare to play the hierophant and to initiate others into the mysteries of rule, though they could scarcely even be enrolled among the initiates themselves.’

By practicing this little by little, he began to grow estranged from Macro, and to fabricate charges against him that were false but plausible and easily believed — for keen and powerful natures are formidable at inventing plausibilities.

These were the pretexts: ‘Gaius is my creation,’ said Macro. ‘I fathered him more than his parents did, or at least no less. Three times over, not once, he would have been snatched away by Tiberius’ murderous intent, had it not been for me and my persuasions. And when Tiberius died, holding the military forces under my command, I immediately transferred them over to Gaius’ service, teaching them that a single man had been lost, while the empire remains sound and complete.’

Some were persuaded by these words as though they were true, not recognizing the deceitful character of the speaker; for the counterfeit and shifting nature of his character was not yet apparent. But in fact, not many days later, the ill-fated man was put out of the way along with his wife, receiving as recompense for his excessive goodwill the harshest punishment of all.

Such is the nature of a favor bestowed on the ungrateful: in return for the benefits they received, they inflict the greatest injuries upon their benefactors. Macro, at any rate, having in truth accomplished everything with the most intense zeal and ambition — first to save Gaius, and then to see that he alone should succeed to the empire — reaped such rewards for his labor.

For it is said that the wretched man was compelled to kill himself with his own hand, and his wife suffered the same misfortune, though she had once been thought to have grown genuinely close to him through their long companionship; but they say that nothing bound by love’s ties is secure, because of the fickleness of that passion.

Now once Macro and his whole household had been sacrificed, Gaius stripped for a third, still graver act of treachery. Marcus Silanus had become his father-in-law, a man full of high spirit and brilliant by birth. When his daughter died an untimely death, Silanus still continued to attend upon Gaius, showing him the goodwill not so much of a father-in-law as of a true father, expecting to receive the same in return, having by the law of equality transformed his son-in-law into a son. But he was deceiving himself, holding a false opinion without realizing it.

For Silanus went on continually speaking as a guardian would, concealing nothing of what was needed to improve and benefit Gaius’ character, life, and rule, having as grounds for such frankness both his surpassing nobility of birth and his kinship by marriage; indeed his daughter had died not so long before that the rightful claims of an in-law should have faded — she was, so to speak, still gasping her last, some final remnants of the vital spirit still remaining and lodged within the body.

But Gaius, taking such admonitions as an outrage, because he believed himself the wisest and most self-controlled of all, and moreover the bravest and most just, hated those who instructed him more than he hated his acknowledged enemies.

Supposing, then, that this man too was a nuisance who would check the great onrush of his desires, and bidding a hearty farewell to the departed spirits of his dead wife on the grounds that he would remove her father, who had become his father-in-law, he had him treacherously killed.

And by now the matter had become notorious, on account of the successive murders of leading men, so that talk of these hard-to-purify pollutions echoed from every mouth — not openly, out of fear, but in a quieter voice.

Then, through a change of heart — for the crowd is unsteady in everything, in its counsels, its words, and its deeds — people, disbelieving that Gaius, who a little before had been thought kind and humane, equitable and sociable, had undergone such a sudden and total transformation, began looking for justifications; and searching them out, they found them. Concerning his cousin and co-heir, they said the following:

‘Rule admits no partner; this is an immovable law of nature. This young man, being stronger, brought about beforehand what he himself was destined to suffer at the hands of a weaker rival — this is self-defense, not murder. Indeed, perhaps it was even a foresighted act, for the benefit of the whole human race, that the boy was removed, since some would have attached themselves to him and others to Gaius, and out of such divisions civil strife and foreign wars arise. And what is better than peace? Peace grows out of right rule; and rule is right only when it is free of rivalry and undivided, through which all else, too, is set right.’

‘And concerning Macro: he grew more puffed up than was fitting; he never read the Delphic inscription, “Know yourself.” They say that knowledge is the cause of happiness, and ignorance the cause of misery. What had come over him, that he should exchange places and shift the subject into the rank of ruler and the emperor Gaius into the position of subject? It belongs properly to a ruler to give orders, which is what Macro was doing, and to a subject to obey, which is what he expected Gaius to endure.’

For these thoughtless people called advice a command, and a counselor a ruler, either failing through obtuseness to understand, or through flattery recasting the true nature of both the words and the things themselves.

‘And concerning Silanus: Silanus suffered something worthy of ridicule, for thinking that a father-in-law could carry as much weight with a son-in-law as a natural father does with a son. And yet fathers, when their sons enter upon great offices and powers, though they are themselves private citizens, hold themselves back, content to take second place. But this foolish man, no longer even a father-in-law, meddled in matters that were none of his concern, not understanding that his kinship by marriage had died along with his daughter’s death.’

‘For marriage-ties are the bond joining unrelated households, drawing what was foreign into kinship; and once that bond is dissolved, the partnership too is dissolved, especially when it is dissolved by an irreparable event — the death of the woman given in marriage into a foreign household.’

Such things people murmured in every gathering, giving the greatest weight to their wish not to seem to think the emperor cruel; for having hoped that such kindness and humanity as had been established in Gaius’ soul, greater than in any of his predecessors, they considered it altogether incredible that he had undergone so great and so sudden a change to the opposite extreme.

Having accomplished, then, these three labors just described, drawn from the three most essential quarters — two from within his own country, the senatorial order and the equestrian order, and the third from his own family — and supposing that, having overcome the strongest and most powerful men, he had instilled the most overwhelming fear in everyone else,

through the slaughter of Silanus he had struck fear into the senators — for Silanus had ranked second to none in the Senate — through the killing of Macro he had struck fear into the equestrians — for Macro had become, so to speak, the leader of their chorus, carrying off the first prizes of honor and renown — and through the murder of his cousin and co-heir he had struck fear into all his blood relations — he no longer thought it fitting to remain within the bounds of human nature, but overreached himself, striving to be regarded as a god.

At the beginning of this madness, they say, he reasoned as follows: just as the leaders of herds of other animals — cowherds, goatherds, and shepherds — are not themselves cattle or goats or sheep, but human beings who have attained a superior lot and constitution, in the same way I too, since I lead the herd, must be reckoned as set apart from the best herd of the human race and not to belong to the category of man, but to have obtained a greater and more divine lot.

Having sealed this notion in his mind, the fool carried around within himself this mythical fabrication as though it were the most unassailable truth. And once he had grown bold and dared to publish to the multitude this most godless self-deification of himself, he set about doing the things that followed from it and were consonant with it, and, as if by a series of steps, advanced little by little upward.

For he began at first by making himself resemble the so-called demigods — Dionysus, Heracles, and the Dioscuri — treating their oracular shrines and rites, Trophonius and Amphiaraus and Amphilochus and the like, as objects of mockery by comparison with his own power.

Then, as in a theater, he would take up now one costume and now another: at one time the lion-skin and club, both gilded, got up as Heracles; at another, a cap set upon his head when he was playing at being one of the Dioscuri; and at still other times he was decked out with ivy, thyrsus, and fawn-skins as Dionysus.

And he claimed to surpass even them on this ground: that each of those gods, having his own particular honors, did not lay claim to those shared by the others, whereas he arrogated to himself the honors of all of them together, out of envy and greed — indeed he outdid even those gods themselves, not by changing into a three-bodied Geryon, so as to deceive onlookers by sheer number, but — and this was the most extraordinary thing — while remaining a single body, transforming and recasting himself into manifold shapes, after the fashion of the Egyptian Proteus, whom Homer represented as undergoing every sort of change into the elements and the animals and plants that arise from them.

And yet, Gaius, what need had you of these emblems, you who were accustomed to have set up statues of the very beings just named? For what was needed was to emulate their virtues. Heracles purged land and sea, undertaking the most necessary and beneficial labors for the sake of all humankind, in order to destroy the harmful and destructive elements in the nature of each.

Dionysus tamed the vine and, pouring out from it a drink at once most pleasant and most beneficial to souls and bodies alike, brings souls to good cheer, working in them forgetfulness of evils and hopes of good things, while he renders bodies healthier, stronger, and more agile.

And he makes each individual human being better, and transforms populous households and kinship groups from a parched and toilsome existence into the pattern of a relaxed and cheerful way of life, and furnishes to every city, Greek and barbarian alike, feastings, merriments, festivities, and festivals one after another; for unmixed wine is the cause of all that has been mentioned. Again, tradition holds that the Dioscuri shared their immortality in common.

For since one of them was mortal and the other immortal, the one who had been granted the better lot did not think it right to love himself more than to show goodwill toward his brother.

For having envisioned the endless span of time and reckoned that he himself would live forever while his brother would be forever dead, and that along with his immortality he would take on an immortal grief for his brother, he brought about a marvelous exchange, blending together for himself what was mortal and for his brother what was imperishable, and did away with inequality, the source of injustice, by means of equality, which is the wellspring of justice.

All these, Gaius, were admired because of the benefactions they had performed, and are admired even now, and were deemed worthy of reverence and the highest honors. Tell us, then, yourself: on what ground do you swell with pride and puff yourself up as their equal?

Did you imitate the Dioscuri in brotherly love? Let me begin from this point. Your own brother and co-heir, in the prime of his early manhood — you man of iron, most pitiless of men — you slaughtered savagely, and your sisters you later drove into exile. Did they too instill in you a fear that they might take away your rule? Did you imitate Dionysus?

Have you become a discoverer of new graces, as he was? Have you filled the inhabited world with good cheer? Do Asia and Europe find themselves unable to contain the gifts that have come from you?

Rather, as a common blight and avenging fury, you have discovered new arts and sciences by which you turn pleasant and joyful things into unpleasantness, grief, and an unlivable life for all people everywhere, seizing for yourself, with insatiable and unquenchable desires, all the good and beautiful things possessed by others — those from the eastern lands, those from the western, those from all the other regions of the whole world, whatever there was to the south or toward the north — while in return you give back and send out, from your own bitterness, all the harmful and ruinous things that accursed and venomous souls are wont to breed. Is it for this that you have appeared to us as the new Dionysus?

But you also emulated Heracles, did you, with your untiring labors and unwearied feats of manly courage — good order and just law, abundance and prosperity and a plenty of all other good things, of which deep peace is the craftsman — filling continents and islands with these, you, the basest of the base, full of cowardice, you who have emptied the cities of everything conducive to stability and happiness, and have filled them instead with things productive of turmoil and confusion and the utmost misery?

In the face of such great calamities as you have brought upon us for our ruin, tell me, Gaius, do you seek to obtain a share of immortality, so that you may render your disasters not brief and short-lived but everlasting? I think, on the contrary, that even if you were once thought to have become a god, you would surely, on account of your wicked practices, be changed back into a mortal nature; for if virtues confer immortality, vices surely bring corruption.

So do not enroll yourself among the Dioscuri, those most devoted of brothers, you who have become the slayer and destroyer of your own brothers, nor lay claim to a share of the honor of Heracles or Dionysus, benefactors of human life, you who are a ruiner and corrupter of the very things they achieved.

So great was the frenzy that possessed him, and such the deranged and distracted madness, that he passed even beyond the demigods and pressed on, stripping for a contest with the reverence paid to beings reputed greater and more fully divine — Hermes, Apollo, and Ares.

Hermes first: arraying himself in herald's staff, sandals, and cloak, he made a show of order amid disorder, of consistency amid confusion, and of reason amid derangement.

Then, whenever it took his fancy, he would set these aside and transform and re-equip himself into Apollo, binding his head with rayed crowns, holding a bow in his left hand and arrows, and extending graces with his right — as though it were fitting to offer good things readily, with the better position, the right, assigned to that purpose, while punishments were to be withheld and assigned the inferior position.

— that is, the left. And choruses at once stood arrayed, singing paeans to him, the very same who a little before had been calling him Bacchus, Euios, and Lyaeus, and honoring him with hymns, when he took up the trappings of Dionysus.

Often, too, putting on a breastplate and sword, he would go forth with helmet and shield, invoked as Ares; and on either side of him marched the attendants of this new [and young] Ares, a company of murderers and public executioners, ready to render base services to one who lusted for blood and thirsted for human gore.

Then those who witnessed these things were struck with amazement at the absurdity, and marveled how a man who does the very opposite of what those he chooses to rival do should not think it worth his while to practice their virtues, yet gets himself up in the emblems proper to each of them. And yet these appended ornaments and adornments are set upon carved images and statues as symbols signifying the benefits that those so honored provide to the human race. Hermes wears sandals fitted with the pinions of wings on their soles. Why?

Is it not because it is fitting that the interpreter and prophet of things divine — from which very function he has been named Hermes — in announcing good things (for no one who brings news of evil can be a spokesman, not even for a wise man, let alone a god), should be swiftest of foot and all but borne on wings, owing to his unhesitating eagerness? For it is fitting to be first to bring good news of what is advantageous, just as one ought to delay in reporting what is ill-omened, if one is permitted to let it rest in silence.

Again, he takes up the herald's staff, a token of treaties of reconciliation; for wars secure truces and settlements through heralds who establish peace, while wars without heralds produce endless calamities both for those who wage them and for those who defend against them.

But for what purpose did Gaius take up the sandals? Was it so that ill-omened and inauspicious things, which ought to be kept quiet, might be proclaimed everywhere with headlong speed, resounding on every side? And yet what need was there for such hurried movement? For even standing still, he poured out countless evils upon evils, as if from ever-flowing springs, raining them down on every part of the inhabited world.

What need has he of a herald's staff, who never once spoke or did anything peaceable, but filled every household and city with civil wars, throughout both Greece and the barbarian world? Let him set aside Hermes, then—let him renounce

this name that does not belong to him, this false name. What is there in him resembling Apollo's offspring? He wears a crown of rays, the craftsman having skillfully imitated the sun's beams. But to that god, the sun, or light altogether, is welcome, not night, nor darkness, nor whatever is more lightless than darkness and fit for the state of his lawless deeds. For fine things need the full brightness of midday to be displayed, but shameful things, they say, need the depths of Tartarus, into which they deserve to be thrust, so as to be properly hidden.

Let him also change what is in each hand, and not falsify their order. Let him hold out arrows and a bow in his right hand—for he knows how to shoot arrows and hit his mark against men, women, whole families, and flourishing cities, for their utter destruction.

As for the Graces, let him either fling them away quickly or hide them in his left hand—for their beauty put them to shame, since he was forever leering and gaping after great fortunes, lusting for unjust plunder, by which their owners were butchered for the sake of a prosperity that brought them only misfortune.

But he also thoroughly falsified the medical art of Apollo. For Apollo became the discoverer of healing remedies for the health of mankind, claiming even to cure the diseases brought on by others, because of the surpassing gentleness that came to him both by nature and by practice.

Gaius, by contrast, brought diseases upon the healthy, mutilation upon the whole, and, in short, deaths inflicted by human hands upon the living—harsh deaths ahead of their appointed time—having prepared every instrument of destruction in unstinting supply; and if he had not been cut off first by justice, he would soon have destroyed whatever was most esteemed in every city.

For his preparations were ready above all against those in office and the wealthy, especially those in Rome and the rest of Italy, among whom silver and gold were stored up in such quantity that, if all the rest of the inhabited world's wealth were gathered together from its farthest reaches, it would be found far inferior. For this reason it was from his own homeland, as if from a sacred place, that he began to scatter the seeds of war in place of peace—he, the city-hater, the people-devourer, the plague, the destroying evil.

Apollo is said to be not only a healer but also a good prophet, foretelling the future through oracles for the benefit of mankind, so that no one, overshadowed by ignorance of what is hidden, might stumble blindly and unforeseeing into what is undesirable as though it were most profitable; but rather, having learned the future beforehand as though it were already present, and seeing it with the mind no less than what is at hand is guarded against by the eyes of the body, he might take precaution against suffering anything irreparable.

Is it, then, worth setting against these the ill-omened oracles of Gaius, through which poverty, dishonor, exile, and death were foretold everywhere for those in office and in power? What partnership, then, is there with Apollo for one who has practiced nothing proper or akin to him? Let the false-named Healer cease imitating the true Healer—for just as with counterfeit coin, a false stamp does not make the form of a god.

One might sooner hope for anything at all than that such a body and such a soul, both soft, could ever be made to resemble the strength of Ares in either respect. But he, like an actor on a stage changing many masks, deceived onlookers with false appearances.

Come, then, let none of the matters of body or soul be examined further, given his estrangement in every disposition and movement from the divinity just mentioned. As for the power of Ares—not the mythologized Ares, but the reason that exists in nature, to which courage has been allotted—do we not know it to be a power that wards off evil, a helper, and a defender of those who are wronged, as indeed the very name seems to show?

For it seems to me that Ares was named, in our tongue, from arēgein, which means 'to help'—one who puts down wars, a craftsman of peace. Of that peace Gaius was an enemy, but a comrade of wars, turning stability into turmoil and faction.

Have we not now learned from all this that Gaius ought not to be likened to any god, nor even to any demigod, since he had attained neither their nature, nor their essence, nor even their moral purpose? Desire, it seems, is blind, and most of all when it takes on vainglory together with love of strife, joined to the greatest power—the very power under which we, who were formerly prosperous, were ruined.

For he eyed the Jews alone with suspicion, as though they alone had chosen the opposite course and had been taught, in a manner, from their very swaddling clothes by parents, tutors, and instructors—and long before that by the sacred laws, and further still by unwritten customs—to regard as one the Father and Maker of the world, God.

For all the others—men, women, cities, nations, regions, climates of the earth, almost the whole inhabited world, I might say—although groaning at what was happening, nonetheless flattered him no less, exalting him beyond measure and swelling his conceit still further. Some even brought the barbarian custom into Italy—prostration—falsifying the noble character of Roman freedom.

One nation alone, that of the Jews, was singled out as suspected of resistance, being accustomed to welcome voluntary deaths as though they were immortality, so as not to overlook the destruction of any of their ancestral ways, however small—because, just as with buildings, the removal of a single stone makes even what still seems to stand firmly collapse, giving way and crumbling toward the empty space.

And what was being shaken was no small thing, but the greatest of all realities: that man's begotten and perishable nature should be turned into the unbegotten, and whatever else seemed to have fashioned itself into a god—which he judged to be the most grievous of impieties (for it would be quicker for a god to change into a man than a man into a god)—apart from also taking on all the other highest vices, distrust together with ingratitude toward the benefactor of the whole world, who by his own power grants unstinting abundance of good things to every part of the universe.

So the greatest and undeclared war was being mounted against the nation. For what heavier evil could there be for a slave than a hostile master? And the subjects were slaves of the emperor, even if unlike any other previous emperor in this respect, because those before ruled with fairness and according to law—but Gaius had cut off all gentleness from his soul and set his heart on lawlessness, for, considering himself the law, he treated the laws of lawgivers everywhere as empty words and set them aside. And we were registered not merely among slaves, but among the most dishonored of slaves, since the ruler was turning into a master.

Perceiving this, the mixed and disorderly mob of Alexandria attacked us, supposing that the most opportune moment had presented itself, and brought to light the hatred that had long been smoldering, stirring and throwing everything into confusion.

For, treating us as though we had been handed over by the emperor to acknowledged and utter disaster, or as though we had been conquered in war, they set upon us with frenzied and utterly savage rage, rushing into our houses and driving the owners out along with their wives and children, so as to leave them empty of inhabitants.

Furniture and valuables they no longer stole like thieves, watching for night and darkness for fear of capture, but carried off openly, in broad daylight, displaying them to passersby, as though they were heirs or purchasers acting on behalf of the owners. And if several of them agreed to act together in the plunder, they divided the spoil in the middle of the marketplace, often before the very eyes of the owners, mocking and jeering at them.

These things, then, were terrible enough in themselves—how could they not be? To become poor from rich and destitute from prosperous, though guilty of no wrong, suddenly homeless and without hearth, driven out and exiled from their own houses, so that, remaining in the open day and night, they might perish either from the scorching of the sun or the chill of the nights.

But these were lighter matters compared to what is about to be told. For having herded so many tens of thousands of men, women, and children together like cattle and livestock from the whole city into the smallest possible quarter, as though into some pen, they expected within a few days to find heaps of corpses piled together, either destroyed by hunger for lack of necessities—since the necessary supplies had not been prepared in advance, as if in prophecy of the sudden catastrophe—

or through crushing and suffocation, since no open space was afforded, and the surrounding air itself was corrupted, along with whatever vital element it contained for breathing—or, to speak the truth, was infected by the very gasps of those breathing their last, by which, inflamed and, in a sense, pressed down by the onset of fever, they drew in through nostrils and mouth a hot and unnatural breath, bringing, as the proverb says, fire upon fire.

The organs inside the body are by nature the most fiery of all; when the breezes from outside blow moderately cool, the instruments of breathing proceed smoothly, thanks to the good mixture of the air, but when the air turns hotter, the passages must inevitably become obstructed,

as fire flows in upon fire. No longer able to endure the cramped confines, they poured themselves out into deserted places, beaches, and tombs, craving to draw in pure and harmless air. But those who had already been trapped in other parts of the city, or who came in from the countryside unaware of the disasters that had broken out, suffered calamities of every kind: some were stoned, some wounded by roof-tiles, others had the most vital parts of their bodies, and especially their heads, beaten to death with clubs of holm-oak and oak.

Meanwhile some of those who habitually have nothing to do and plenty of leisure sat in a circle watching the small remnant who had been driven and herded together into this remote corner, as I said, guarding them like men under siege, in case any should slip out unnoticed. And indeed, not a few, disregarding their own safety for lack of necessities, were bound to come out for fear that their whole households would perish of starvation. Watching for the moment these people broke ranks, the guards kept a lookout, and any they seized they destroyed at once, torturing them with every kind of outrage.

There was yet another company lying in wait at the river harbors to plunder the Jews coming down from their boats and whatever goods they were bringing in for trade; boarding the vessels, they carried off the cargo before the very eyes of its owners, and then, twisting the owners' arms behind them, set them on fire, using for fuel the rudders, tillers, poles, and the planks of the decks.

For those who were burned in the middle of the city, the death was most pitiful of all: for lack of wood they sometimes gathered brushwood, and having kindled it, threw it upon the wretched victims; these, half-burned, were destroyed more by the smoke than by the fire, since the brushwood kindled only a feeble, smoky flame that went out at once, being too light to turn to glowing coals.

Many who were still alive they bound with straps and nooses, tightened around the ankles, and dragged them through the middle of the marketplace, leaping upon them, and they did not even spare the bodies of the dead: tearing them apart limb by limb and trampling them, these men, more savage and brutal than untamed beasts, consumed every last shred, so that not even a remnant was left that could obtain the honor of burial.

The governor of the region — the one man who by his own will could have put down mob rule in a single hour — pretended not to see what he saw and not to hear what he heard, but instead gave free rein to warmongering and threw peace into confusion; and so the mob, further incited, rushed into shameless and even bolder schemes: banding together in enormous crowds, they attacked the synagogues — there are many in each district of the city — some they stripped of their wooden fittings, others they razed to their very foundations, and into others they threw fire and burned them down, in their frenzy and insane madness giving no thought even to the neighboring houses, for nothing moves faster than fire once it has taken hold of an entire building.

And I pass over in silence the honors of the emperors — the shields, the gilded crowns, the inscribed slabs and inscriptions — that were pulled down and burned along with the synagogues, honors which they were obligated to preserve even above all else; but they were emboldened because they had no fear of retribution from Gaius, whom they knew well to bear an unspeakable hatred toward the Jews, so much so that they suspected no one could do anything more pleasing to him than to heap every kind of evil upon the nation.

Wishing to worm their way into his favor with novel flatteries and to indulge, with total impunity, their outrages against us, what do they do? As for those synagogues they had not been able to obliterate by fire and demolition, because so many Jews lived clustered nearby, they ravaged them in a different way, one that overturned our laws and customs: for they set up images of Gaius in every one of them, and in the largest and most conspicuous, a bronze statue of him mounted on a four-horse chariot.

And such was the speed and the intensity of their zeal that, having no new chariot-and-four ready to hand, they brought one from the gymnasium, a very old one, worn out, its ears, tails, hooves, and a few other parts broken off, which, some say, had even been dedicated in honor of a woman, the elder Cleopatra, who was the great-grandmother of the last Cleopatra.

How great an accusation this in itself brought upon those who set it up is obvious to everyone. For what does it matter if it belonged to a woman? What does it matter if it was old and belonged to a man? What does it matter if, in general, it had been dedicated in someone else's name? Men who set up such a thing in honor of the emperor could hardly be expected to take care that no report of it should reach one who, above all others, makes everything about himself an object of solemn reverence.

But they, on the strength of their overwhelming confidence, expected to be praised, and to enjoy still greater and more splendid benefits, for having dedicated to Gaius new precincts by converting the synagogues — not for the sake of honoring him, but so that they might glut themselves in every way with acts of malice against our nation.

Clear proofs of this can be found. First, from the kings: in the course of roughly ten, or even more, kings in succession over three hundred years, they set up not a single image or statue in the synagogues, even though these kings were their own kin and relatives, whom they regarded, wrote of, and addressed as gods.

And why should they not have done so, being merely human, they who deified dogs, wolves, lions, crocodiles, and a great many other beasts, aquatic and terrestrial, and birds as well, for whom altars, shrines, temples, and precincts are established throughout all Egypt?

Perhaps they will now say — though they would not have said it then, since people are accustomed to court the good fortune of their rulers rather than the rulers themselves — that the emperors hold a higher rank and station than the Ptolemies, and are therefore owed still greater honors.

Then, O most foolish of all people — to avoid being forced to say anything more blasphemous — why did you not consider Tiberius, who came before Gaius and was even responsible for his succession to power, worthy of the same honor? For twenty-three years he held sway over land and sea, and did not allow even a seed of war to smolder either in Greece or among the barbarian nations, but provided peace and the blessings of peace, to the very end of his life, with a generous and open hand and mind. Was his lineage inferior?

No — he was of the noblest birth on both his parents' sides. Was it his education? And who among the men who flourished in his time was wiser or more eloquent than he? Was it his age? And what king or emperor grew old more gracefully? Indeed, even while still young, he was called an old man on account of the reverence people felt for his shrewdness. Was it he, then — a man so great and so distinguished — whom you overlooked and passed by? What of the other?

He who surpassed human nature in every virtue, who because of the greatness of his sole rule together with his nobility of character was the first to be named Augustus, receiving that title not as a portion of an inheritance passed down through his family line, but by himself becoming the beginning of reverence even for those who came after him — he who, when he first came forward to take charge of public affairs, found them in turmoil and confusion?

For islands were contending against continents, and continents against islands, over primacy, each having as their leaders and champions the most eminent men of Rome in office; and again the great regions of the inhabited world, Asia against Europe and Europe against Asia, were vying for supreme power, the nations of Europe and Asia having risen up from the ends of the earth and waging grievous wars against one another over the whole of land and sea, in battles by infantry and by fleet, so that the entire human race came close to being consumed in mutual slaughter and utterly annihilated, had it not been for one man and leader, Augustus, whom it is fitting to call the Averter of Evil.

This is the Caesar who calmed the storms crashing down on every side, who healed the diseases common to Greeks and barbarians alike, diseases that came down from the regions of the south and the east and ran their course all the way to the west and the north, sowing their unwanted seed across the border-lands and the seas between.

This is the man who loosed the chains that had bound and crushed the inhabited world, not merely slackening them; this is the man who destroyed both the open and the hidden wars caused by the raids of brigands; this is the man who cleared the sea of pirate vessels and filled it instead with merchant ships.

This is the one who set free every city that had lost its liberty, who brought disorder into order, who tamed and reconciled every savage and beastlike nation, who enlarged Greece with many new Greek cities, and who, in the most essential regions of the barbarian world, made it Greek as well; the guardian of peace, the distributor to each of what falls to them, the one who laid his benefits out in the open without holding any in reserve, who concealed no good or noble thing throughout the whole of his life.

Yet this man, so great a benefactor, they concealed from view in the synagogues for the forty-three years during which he ruled Egypt, setting up nothing on his behalf, no image, no carved statue, no painting.

And indeed, if new and exceptional honors needed to be voted for anyone, it was fitting that they should go to him — not only because he was in some sense the origin and source of the line of Augustus, nor only because he was the first, the greatest, and the common benefactor, who in place of a multiplicity of rulers entrusted the steering of the common vessel to a single pilot, himself, being wondrously skilled in the art of governing (for it has rightly been said that "the rule of many is not good," since a multiplicity of authorities is the cause of manifold evils) — but also because the whole inhabited world voted him honors equal to those of Olympian gods.

And temples, gateways, sacred precincts, and colonnades bear witness to this, so that whatever magnificent works the cities, whether new or old, possess are surpassed in beauty and grandeur by the Caesarea, and this is especially so in our own Alexandria.

Indeed no precinct is like the one called the Sebasteion, the temple of Caesar who first set foot here, which, opposite the safest harbors, rises high, greatest and most conspicuous, and is filled as nowhere else with dedications — encircled with paintings and statues and silver and gold — a precinct of the widest extent, with porticoes, libraries, banquet-halls, groves, gateways, open spaces, courts open to the sky, adorned with everything fashioned for the most lavish splendor: a saving hope for those setting sail and those returning to harbor.

Having then such grounds, and all people everywhere of one mind with us, did we introduce any innovation regarding our houses of prayer, or fail to preserve each observance? Or did we omit any honor owed to Caesar? Who in his right mind could say so? Why then were we deprived? I will say, holding nothing back.

They knew of his diligence and that he made as much account of confirming the ancestral customs of each people as he did those of the Romans, and that he accepted the honors given him not for the overthrow of the established laws among some who fashion themselves as gods, but as one following the greatness of so vast an empire, which by nature comes to be made solemn through such things.

The clearest proof that he was never bound and puffed up by excessive honors is that he never once wished to be addressed as god, and — though someone might say this was distasteful to him — that he welcomed the Jews, whom he knew precisely to hold all such things in abhorrence as impious.

How then did he approve of the great section of Rome across the Tiber, which he well knew was held and inhabited by Jews? Most of these were Romans who had been freed: brought as captives into Italy, they were set free by those who had owned them, without being compelled to alter any of their ancestral customs.

He knew, then, that they had houses of prayer and gathered in them, especially on the sacred seventh days, when they are publicly instructed in their ancestral philosophy. He knew too that they collected money from the first-fruits and sent it to Jerusalem by the hands of those who would conduct the sacrifices.

Yet all the same he neither expelled them from Rome nor took away their Roman citizenship because they were also mindful of their Jewish one, nor did he innovate against their houses of prayer, nor did he forbid their gathering for instruction in the laws, nor did he oppose those who offered first-fruits; rather, he was so reverent toward what is ours that he adorned our temple with the costliest of dedications all but from his whole household, and ordered that perpetual sacrifices of whole burnt offerings be brought continually every day, at his own expense, as a first-fruit to the Most High God — sacrifices which are performed even now and will be performed forever, a token of truly imperial character.

Moreover, even in the monthly distributions made to the people, when the whole populace received in turn either money or grain, he never once deprived the Jews of that favor; but if it happened that the distribution fell on the sacred seventh day, when it is forbidden to receive or to give or in general to transact any business of livelihood, and especially any that involves earning, he had ordered those in charge of the distributions to reserve for the Jews until the following day the common benefaction.

For this reason all people everywhere, even if by nature they were not favorably disposed toward the Jews, were cautious about laying a hand on any of the Jewish customs to overthrow it — and this held true in the same way even under Tiberius, though there had been disturbances stirred up in Italy, at the time when Sejanus was contriving his attack.

For he knew — he knew at once, right after that man's death — that the accusations brought against the Jews who inhabited Rome were false slanders, fabrications of Sejanus, who wished to destroy the nation, which he knew would, alone or above all others, resist his unholy designs and actions, in order to prevent the emperor from being betrayed and endangered.

And he instructed the governors appointed everywhere to reassure the members of the nation in each city, since the prosecution had not extended to all but only to the guilty — and these were few — and to disturb none of their customary practices, but to hold in trust both the men themselves, as peaceable by nature, and their laws, as tending toward stability.

But Gaius, utterly puffed up with vanity, not merely said but actually believed himself to be a god. Then he found no people, whether Greek or barbarian, more suited than the Alexandrians to confirm his boundless desire, one beyond human nature; for they are clever at flattery and deception and pretense, having prepared fawning speeches, and defiling everything with unrestrained and unbridled mouths.

The title 'god' is used among them so loosely that they have granted it even to ibises and to the venomous native asps and to many other of the savage beasts among them; so that, naturally, by using without restraint names that properly belong to god, they deceive the foolish and those unacquainted with Egyptian godlessness, while they are caught out by those who know the great folly — or rather impiety — of these people.

Gaius, being unacquainted with this, actually supposed that he was truly regarded as a god by the Alexandrians, since they used, not obliquely but directly and to excess, all the names that others are accustomed to attribute to gods.

Furthermore, he supposed that the innovation concerning the houses of prayer had arisen from a pure conscience freely given and from unmixed honor toward himself — partly through attending to the memorandum-diaries that certain persons kept sending from Alexandria (for this was his most delightful reading, so much so that, compared with the charm found in these, the writings of other authors and poets were reckoned most unpleasant), and partly through certain household servants who were forever mocking and jeering along with him.

Most of these were Egyptians, an evil breed, who had mixed into their souls the venom and rage of the native crocodiles and asps together. And leader of this whole chorus of the Egyptian troupe was a certain Helicon, an accursed and utterly execrable slave who had wormed his way into the imperial household; for he had tasted a smattering of general education, thanks to the ambition of his former master, who had presented him as a gift to Tiberius Caesar.

At that time, then, he enjoyed no special favor, since Tiberius detested such juvenile pleasantries, being inclined almost from his earliest years toward the more solemn and austere.

But when Tiberius died and Gaius succeeded to the rule — a young master given over through every sense to relaxation and luxury — Helicon said to himself, 'Now, Helicon, is your moment; rouse yourself. You have as your audience and spectator, for the display of your talents, the best of all men. You are naturally quick-witted; you can mock and jest better than others; you know playthings and silly, worn-out games; you are no less schooled in the frivolous side of general education than in its serious side; and you possess, besides, a glib tongue that is not without its charm.'

'If you further mix into your jibes a touch of malice, so as to stir not only laughter but bitterness through your ill-natured wit, you will have wholly and skillfully captured a master who is by nature disposed to listen eagerly to accusations delivered under cover of mockery; for his ears, as you know, are wide open and pricked up toward those who have made a practice of weaving slander together with false accusation.'

'And do not go looking for further material: you have the slanders against the Jews and Jewish customs, which you were taught from your very swaddling clothes — not from one man alone but from the most scurrilous element of the city of Alexandria. Put your lessons on display.'

Lifted up and emboldened by these irrational and accursed devices, he kept close to Gaius and attended him constantly, absent neither by night nor by day, but present everywhere, so that he might make use of the emperor's solitary and restful hours to bring charges against the nation — this most cunning of men stirring pleasure through his jibes, so that the slanders might wound all the more; for the accuser who speaks openly he neither admitted to being nor was able to be, but by proceeding obliquely and by his artful contrivance he was a harsher and heavier enemy than those who openly declared their hostility.

It is said, too, that the envoys of the Alexandrians, well aware of this, had secretly hired him for great fees — not only in money but also in the hopes of honors, which they had planted in him, promising to provide them before long, once Gaius should arrive in Alexandria.

And he, dreaming of that occasion when, with his master present and with him virtually the whole inhabited world — for it was no secret that the most distinguished and eminent people from the cities, gathered from their very ends, would come together in Gaius's train to pay court — he would be honored by the greatest and most illustrious city, promised everything.

Up to a certain point, then, not knowing of the enemy lurking within, we guarded only against those outside; but once we perceived him, we searched about, looking in every direction, to see whether by any means, in any manner or place, we might soften and tame the man who was shooting at us so accurately from every side.

For he would play ball with Gaius and exercise with him and bathe with him and dine with him, and he was present when Gaius was about to go to sleep, holding the position, granted to no one else, of bedtime attendant and chief bodyguard within the household — so that he alone had access to the emperor's leisure hours, free from outside disturbances, to whisper into ears at rest whatever he most desired him to hear.

Mockery was mixed in with the accusations, so that it would stir pleasure in some while doing us the greatest harm; for what seemed to be his principal business, the mockery, was really a mere by-product for him, while what appeared to be the by-product, the accusations, was his only and primary business.

Shaking out every rope, like men with a favorable wind at the helm, he ran on with sails full, driven by a fair breeze, piling up charge upon charge and stringing them together. And his mind was being stamped ever more firmly, so that the memory of these accusations became unforgettable.

Being at a loss and without resource, since though we moved every stone to win Helicon's favor, we could find no way through -- no one daring either to speak to him or approach him, because of the arrogance and harshness with which he treated everyone, and also because we did not know whether he harbored any hostility toward the Jewish race, given that he was constantly anointing his master and inciting him against our nation -- we let that avenue rest for the time being and turned instead to the more urgent matter: it seemed best to hand Gaius a memorandum containing a summary account of what we had suffered and of what we thought it right to obtain.

This was, in effect, an abridgment of a longer petition we had sent a little earlier through King Agrippa; for he happened to be visiting the city, about to set out for Syria to take up the kingdom that had been given him.

[...] But it seems we were still deceiving ourselves without realizing it -- just as we had before, when we first set sail thinking we would come before a judge and obtain justice. In fact he was an implacable enemy, luring us on with what looked like a cheerful expression and rather genial greetings.

For when he first greeted us kindly in the field near the Tiber -- he happened to be coming out of his mother's gardens -- he returned our greeting and waved his right hand, hinting at goodwill, and sent to us the man in charge of embassies, named Homilus, saying, 'I myself will hear your case when I find a suitable moment.' And so everyone standing round was delighted, as though we had already won -- including those of our own number who are taken in by superficial appearances.

I, however, thought I had rather more understanding, both because of my age and my other education, and so I was more cautious about the very thing that delighted the others. 'Why,' I kept asking, turning the thought over in my own mind, 'when there are so many envoys who have come from nearly every land, did he say he would hear only us? What did he mean by it? He was surely not unaware that we were Jews, for whom it is enough simply not to be treated worse than others.'

So is it not close to madness to suppose we were being granted a special privilege by a master who belonged to another nation, was young, and answered to no one? No -- it seems rather that he had already sided with the party of the other Alexandrians, and it was to grant them a privilege that he promised to judge the case so quickly -- unless, going beyond being an impartial and common listener, he becomes their ally instead of a judge, and our opponent.'

Turning these thoughts over, I was in turmoil and had no rest, by day or by night. And while I was despondent, bearing my distress in silence -- for it was not even safe to give it voice -- another calamity struck, suddenly and unexpectedly, the heaviest of all, bringing danger not to one part of the Jewish people but, taken together, to the whole nation.

We had traveled from Rome to Dicaearchia, following Gaius; for he had gone down to the coast and was spending his time around the bay, moving from one to another of his many lavishly appointed country houses.

While we were preoccupied with our case -- for we kept expecting to be summoned at any moment -- someone approached us with a bloodshot, agitated look and gasping for breath, and drawing us a little apart from the others (for some people were standing nearby) he said, 'Have you heard the news?' And just as he was about to tell us, he was checked, overcome by a sudden flood of tears.

He began again, and was checked a second time, and a third. Seeing this, we were alarmed and urged him to disclose the matter he claimed to have come to tell us. 'You have not come,' we said, 'merely to weep before witnesses; and if the matter deserves tears, do not keep the grief to yourself alone -- we are by now well accustomed to misfortune.'

With difficulty, sobbing, but at last, in a broken voice, he said: 'Our temple is lost. Gaius has ordered a colossal statue to be set up in the innermost sanctuary, bearing his own name under the title of Zeus.'

We were struck with astonishment at what he said, frozen by shock and unable even to move forward -- we stood speechless, our strength failing, our bodies collapsing beneath us, all bodily vigor drained away -- when others arrived, bringing the same agonizing news.

Then, shutting ourselves away all together, we lamented our private misfortunes and our common fate at once, and said whatever our minds suggested -- for a person in misfortune is most talkative -- struggling to keep from being abandoned altogether to lawlessness beyond remedy. We had sailed across in the dead of winter without realizing how much worse a storm was waiting for us on land than any at sea; for that storm has nature as its cause, which marks out the yearly seasons, and nature brings safety; but the author of this one is a man with nothing human in his thinking, young and bent on revolution, invested with an authority answerable to no one over everything -- and youth combined with absolute power, indulging unchecked impulses, is an evil hard to fight.

Will it even be possible to approach him, or to open our mouths about our houses of prayer, before the man who is ravaging the holiest of all shrines? It is obvious that he who insults the most renowned and illustrious temple -- toward which east and west alike turn their gaze, shining out everywhere as the sun does -- will spare no thought for the less conspicuous places held in lesser honor.

And even if some safe opportunity for access should arise, what should we expect except inescapable death? But so be it -- we shall die; for a most glorious death suffered in defense of the laws is itself a kind of life. But if our death will bring no benefit at all, is it not madness to perish uselessly, especially when we are supposed to be acting as envoys, so that the disaster would fall more on those who sent us than on those who endure it?

What is more, even those of our own people whose natures are most opposed to wrongdoing will accuse us of impiety, for remembering, out of self-love, some private concern of our own, while the whole community is being shaken by the utmost danger; for it is necessary to set aside small things for the sake of great ones, and private concerns for the sake of the common good -- and if these are lost, the whole community perishes with them.

For where would it be holy or right to contend instead for anything else -- to show that we are Alexandrians, when it is the far more universal community of the Jews as a whole that hangs in danger? For along with the destruction of the temple comes the fear that this man, bent on revolution and grand schemes, may also order the common name of our nation to vanish along with it.

Since, then, both matters for which we had been sent were now lost causes, perhaps someone will say: why then did they not see to arranging a safe return? To such a person I would reply: either you do not have the genuine feeling of a noble man, or you were not brought up in, nor trained in, the sacred writings. Those who are truly noble are full of hope, and the laws produce good hope in those who encounter them, not merely with the tips of their lips.

Perhaps this is a trial for the present generation, to test how it stands toward virtue and whether it has been trained to bear terrible things with firm and resolute reasoning, without collapsing beforehand. So then, let everything that comes from human beings perish, and let it go on perishing; but let the hope in God the savior remain unshaken in our souls -- he who has often rescued the nation from situations beyond resource and beyond hope.

We said all this, both mourning our unexpected misfortunes and at the same time comforting ourselves with the hope of a calmer change. Then, pausing a little, we said to those who had brought the news, 'Why are you sitting there quietly, throwing only sparks into our ears, by which we are being scorched and set ablaze, when you ought also to be explaining what moved Gaius to this?'

They said: 'You know the highest and first cause, which indeed all people know: he wants to be regarded as a god, and he has assumed that only the Jews will not be persuaded of it -- and he could inflict no greater harm on them than by defiling the sanctity of their temple. He has also been informed that it is the most beautiful of all shrines everywhere, adorned continually from ancient times at unceasing and lavish expense; and being quarrelsome and contentious by nature, he intends to appropriate it for himself.'

And this has now been confirmed more than before by a letter sent by Capito. Capito is the tax collector for the province of Judaea, and he bears a certain grudge against the local inhabitants; for he arrived poor, and by embezzlement and skimming has amassed a considerable and varied fortune, and then, becoming anxious that some accusation might be brought against him, he devised a scheme by which he could deflect the charges of those he had wronged through slander.

A certain coincidence gave him the opening he wanted for this purpose. Jamnia -- a city of Judaea, one of the most densely populated -- is inhabited by a mixed population: most are natives, but some are foreigners who have infiltrated from the neighboring districts; these, though in a sense resident aliens among the true natives, cause trouble and mischief, constantly undermining something of the ancestral customs of the Jews.

These people, hearing from those who frequently visited how much zeal Gaius employed regarding his own deification, and how utterly estranged he was from the whole Jewish nation, thought a suitable opportunity for attack had fallen their way, and hastily set up an altar of the most makeshift material, shaping clay into bricks, for no other purpose than to plot against those living alongside them; for they knew the Jews would not tolerate it once their customs were overturned — which is exactly what happened.

For when the Jews saw it and were indignant that something truly sacred in the holy land was being defaced, they gathered together and tore it down. The others went straight to Capito, who was the deviser of the whole drama. Thinking he had found a windfall he had been seeking for a long time, he wrote to Gaius, exaggerating and inflating the matter.

Gaius, reading it through, ordered something richer and more grandiose than the brick altar set up at Jamnia out of spite — a colossal gilded statue to be installed in the sanctuary of the mother-city — taking as his advisers the best and wisest of men: Helicon, a well-born slave, a gossip-monger, a piece of refuse, and a certain Apelles, a tragic actor, who in the prime of his youth, so they say, peddled his beauty, and once past his prime came onto the stage.

Are those who tread the boards, trading themselves to spectators and theaters, lovers of modesty and self-control, and not of the utmost shamelessness and disorder? For this reason Apelles was admitted to the rank of adviser, so that Gaius might deliberate with one about whom to mock, with the other about what to sing, bypassing all consideration of the whole world — of whether everything everywhere was at peace and quiet.

So Helicon, that scorpion-like slave, let loose Egyptian venom against the Jews, and Apelles the venom of Ascalon — for he was from there; and the people of Ascalon harbor an implacable and irreconcilable hostility toward the Jewish inhabitants of the holy land, since they are their neighbors. Hearing these things, we were wounded in our souls at every word and name.

But the fine advisers of these fine deeds soon found the wages of their impiety: the one was bound in iron by Gaius on other charges, racked and broken on the wheel in rotation, as in cyclical diseases; the other, Helicon, was put to death by Claudius Germanicus Caesar, for other wrongs that the madman had committed. But this happened later.

The letter concerning the dedication of the statue was written, and not carelessly, but as circumspectly as possible for security. For he ordered Petronius, the governor of all Syria, to whom he had also written the letter, to take half of the army stationed by the Euphrates — which guarded against the crossing of the eastern kings and nations — and lead it into Judea to escort the statue, not to lend solemnity to the dedication, but so that, if anyone tried to prevent it, he would be destroyed at once.

What are you saying, master? Having foreseen that they would not tolerate it, but would defend the law and die before abandoning their ancestral customs, you make war? You do not seem to be ignorant of what was likely to result from touching off revolution over the temple; rather, having learned in advance exactly what was to come, as though it were already present, and what was to happen, as though it were already in hand, you ordered the army brought in, so that the dedication might first be consecrated by accursed sacrifices — the slaughter of wretched men and women together.

Petronius, reading through what had been commanded, was at a loss, unable either to oppose it out of fear — for he knew the punishment would be unbearable, not only for those who did not carry out what was ordered, but even for those who did not do so at once — nor to undertake it easily; for he knew that instead of a single death, countless people, if it were possible, would be willing to endure it rather than allow anything forbidden to be done.

For all people are protective of their own customs, but the Jewish nation especially so; for holding that the laws are oracles given by God, and having been trained in this teaching from earliest youth, they carry the images of its ordinances enshrined like statues within their souls.

Then, always beholding clear impressions and forms of them in their reasoning, they are struck with awe; and those foreigners who hold these things in honor they welcome no less than their own citizens, while those who either destroy or mock them they hate as the worst enemies. They shudder at each of the things prescribed in this way, so that they would never exchange it, for the sake of transgression, for any success or happiness whatsoever among human beings, however great.

Beyond all this, they have an extraordinary and exceptional zeal for the temple. The greatest proof of it: death without appeal has been decreed against members of other nations who pass beyond the inner enclosures — for they admit into the outer courts all people from everywhere.

With his eyes on all this, Petronius was slow to act, considering what a monstrous deed was being carried out, and calling together, as though in council, all the reasonings of his soul, he examined the judgment of each and found them all in agreement that nothing of what had been consecrated from the beginning should be disturbed — first because of what is by nature just and pious, and then because of the danger hanging over him, not only from God but also from those who would be wronged.

The thought also came to him of how great this nation is in population, which has not been confined, as each of the other nations has, to the single territory allotted to it alone, but occupies, one might almost say, the whole inhabited world; for it has spread throughout both continents and every region, so that it seems scarcely inferior to the native inhabitants.

Was it not most perilous to draw so many tens of thousands of enemies upon oneself? But should it ever happen that they, acting in concert wherever they are, should come together in their own defense, an irresistible force would result — quite apart from the fact that those who inhabit Judea itself are countless in number, most noble in body, most bold in soul, and choose to die before their ancestral customs, out of a high-mindedness which some slanderers might call barbaric, but which, in truth, is the mark of a free and noble people.

He was also frightened by the forces beyond the Euphrates; for he knew of Babylon and many of the other satrapies inhabited by Jews, not merely by hearsay but by experience. For every year sacred envoys are sent, bringing a great quantity of gold and silver to the temple, gathered from the first-fruits, crossing roads that are hard to travel, untrodden, and endless, which they consider highways, because they seem to lead toward piety.

He was, understandably, terrified that, on learning of the newly devised dedication, they might suddenly come upon him and surround him, some from this side and some from that, forming a circle, and joining hands might do terrible things to those caught in the middle. Reasoning in this way, he hesitated.

But then again he was pulled the other way by opposite considerations, saying: "This is the command of a master — and a young one, who judges advantageous whatever he wishes, and whose decision, once made, must be carried out, even if it is most unprofitable and full of contentiousness and arrogance — a man who has even leapt beyond humanity and already writes himself among the gods. Danger to my life hangs over me whether I oppose or yield — but if I yield, it comes with war, and is perhaps uncertain and not wholly bound to result; if I oppose, it is inescapable and assured, coming from Gaius himself."

Many of the Romans who administered affairs in Syria along with him shared this opinion, knowing that Gaius's wrath and vengeance would fall on them first, as accomplices in the failure to carry out what was commanded.

The making of the statue itself afforded him room for more careful deliberation; for it was not sent from Rome — by God's providence, I think, secretly extending a hand over those who were being wronged — nor did he order it transported by whichever of the artisans of Syria might be judged the best, since, given the speed of this lawless act, war would have flared up just as quickly.

Having gained time for weighing what was advantageous — for sudden, great events, when they fall upon one all at once, crush the power of reasoning — he ordered that the making of the statue be carried out in one of the neighboring regions.

So Petronius, summoning the most skillful craftsmen among the Phoenicians, gave them the material; and they worked at Sidon. He also summoned the leading men of the Jews, both priests and rulers, at once to disclose to them Gaius's orders, and also to advise them to bear what was being commanded by their master and to keep the terrible consequences before their eyes; for the more warlike of the military forces in Syria stood ready, forces that would cover the whole land with corpses.

For he thought that if he could first soften these men, he might through them instruct the rest of the multitude not to oppose. But he was, understandably, mistaken in his judgment. For they say that, struck by his very first words, they were instantly transfixed by the account of this unaccustomed evil, and, struck speechless, poured out a flood of tears as if from springs all at once, tearing at their beards and the hair of their heads, and saying such things as this:

"We who have been altogether fortunate have contributed much toward a good old age, only so that we might see what none of our ancestors ever saw. With what eyes? Our eyes will be torn out first, along with our wretched souls and our life of suffering, before we see such an evil — a sight not to be seen, which it is not lawful either to hear of unwillingly or even to conceive."

Such were their lamentations. When those in the holy city and the rest of the country learned of what was afoot, as though at a single signal — the signal given by their shared suffering — they poured out all together, and leaving their cities, villages, and homes empty, rushed in a single surge toward Phoenicia; for Petronius happened to be there.

Some of Petronius's men, seeing an unimaginable crowd bearing down, ran ahead to report it, so that he might be on guard, expecting an attack. But while they were still telling their story, and he was still unguarded, the multitude of the Jews suddenly settled over all Phoenicia like a cloud, striking terror into those who did not know the vast numbers of the nation.

And at first so great a cry went up, with weeping and beating of breasts, that the ears of those present could not take in its magnitude; for it did not stop when the criers stopped, but even when they fell silent it went on echoing. Then came approaches and entreaties, of the kind the occasion suggested — for their very misfortunes were teaching them what to do. They divided themselves into six ranks: old men, young men, boys, and again in their turn old women, women of age, and young girls.

When Petronius came into view from a distance, all the ranks, as though under orders, fell to the ground, uttering a kind of mournful wailing together with supplications. When he urged them to rise and come nearer, they got up only with difficulty, and having poured much dust over themselves and streaming with tears, with both hands drawn back behind them in the manner of men bound at the elbows, they came forward.

Then the council of elders stood and spoke as follows: "We are unarmed, yet some accuse us, on our arrival, of being enemies. The parts that nature has assigned to each of us for defense, our hands, we have turned back, where they can do nothing, offering our bodies as an easy target for the missiles of those who wish to kill us.

We have brought with us our wives and children and whole families to you, and through you have thrown ourselves before Gaius, leaving no one behind at home, so that you may either save us all or destroy us all in one utter ruin. Petronius, we are peaceable both in our nature and in our deliberate choice, and our devotion to work, cultivated through the rearing of children, has trained us in this way of life from the beginning.

When Gaius took up the imperial office, we were the very first of all the people of Syria to rejoice with him, at the time when Vitellius, from whom you received the governorship in succession, was residing in the city and received the letters concerning these matters; and it was from our city that the good news ran out to spread the report to the others.

Was it our temple that first received the sacrifices offered for the rule of Gaius, only so that it should be the first — or even the only one — deprived of its ancestral form of worship? We give up our cities, we yield our houses and possessions; furniture, money, treasures, and all our other goods we will bring in willingly; we shall count this as receiving, not as giving.

One thing alone we ask in place of everything else: that nothing new be introduced into the temple, but that it be kept as we received it from our grandfathers and ancestors. But if we do not persuade you, we surrender ourselves to destruction, so that we may not live to see an evil worse than death. We hear that infantry and cavalry forces have been made ready against us, in case we should resist the dedication of the statue. No one is so mad as to oppose his master while being his slave; we offer our throats readily and at once — let them kill, let them sacrifice, let them cut us up limb by limb without a fight and without shedding of blood in battle, let them do all that conquerors do. What need is there of an army?

We ourselves will begin the sacrifice, fine priests that we are — we, the killers of our own wives, will present them to the temple; we, the killers of our own brothers, will present our brothers and sisters; we, the slayers of our children, will present our boys and girls, that innocent age. For tragic deeds need tragic names, for those who endure tragic misfortunes.

Then, in the midst of it all, having bathed ourselves in the poison-like blood of our own kin — for such are the baths for those who are cleansed for Hades — we will mix our own blood with theirs, slaughtering ourselves last of all.

Let the command be carried out once we are dead. Not even God could blame us, aiming as we do at both things at once — reverence toward the emperor, and loyal acceptance of our consecrated laws. And this will come about if we depart from a life not worth living, holding it in contempt.

We have received a report, a very ancient one handed down by the learned men of Greece, who affirmed that the head of the Gorgon had such power that those who looked upon it were turned instantly to stone and rock. This seems to be the invention of a myth, but the truth of it is brought about by great, unwilling, and irremediable calamities. The wrath of a master brings about death, or something as bad as death.

Do you imagine — may it never happen — that if any of our people, being led along, should see the statue set up in the temple, they would not be turned to stone, their joints fixed and their eyes fixed, so that they could not even move, the whole body's natural motions altered in each of its several parts that work together?

We will make one last request, Petronius, the most just of all: we do not say that what has been commanded should not be done, but we beg and supplicate for a delay, so that we may choose an embassy and send it to meet with our master.

Perhaps, having sent our embassy, we shall persuade him, either by setting out at length the matter of honor due to God, or the preservation of laws that must not be abolished, or by arguing that he should not treat us worse than even the nations at the ends of the earth, whose ancestral customs have been preserved — customs which his grandfather and great-grandfather themselves recognized, setting their seal upon our practices with the utmost care.

Perhaps, hearing these things, he will grow gentler; the resolutions of great men do not remain the same, and those made in anger are also the quickest to subside. We have been slandered; allow the slanders to be cured. It is a hard thing to be condemned without a hearing.

And if we fail to persuade him, is there then anything to stop you doing even now what you already intend? So long as we have not yet sent our embassy, will you cut off the better hopes of so many tens of thousands of people? Their zeal is not for gain but for piety. And yet we err in saying this — for what gain could be more profitable to human beings than holiness?"

They said all this in great distress and anguish, gasping heavily, their breath broken, streaming with sweat over every limb, with an unceasing flow of tears, so that those listening already shared their suffering — and Petronius too, for he was by nature kindly and gentle, was carried away by what was said and what he saw; for it seemed to him that what was said was entirely just, and that the suffering he witnessed was pitiable.

Rising up, he deliberated with his council on what should be done, and saw that those who a little before had been utterly opposed were now wavering, and those who had been undecided were now leaning, in greater part, toward mercy. At this he was pleased, though he knew the nature of his superior, and how implacable his anger was.

But he himself, it seems, had certain sparks of Jewish philosophy and piety as well, whether he had learned of it long before out of zeal for education, or ever since he had governed the regions in which Jews are present in great numbers in every city, both in Asia and Syria, or because his soul was by nature so disposed as to be self-taught, self-prompted, and self-instructed toward things worthy of study. To the good, God seems to whisper good resolutions, through which, by benefiting others, they are themselves benefited — and this is what happened to him too. What, then, were these resolutions?

Not to press the matter but to persuade the craftsmen well skilled to complete the statue, aiming as far as possible not to fall short of the renowned original models by taking too little time, since improvised work tends somehow to be cut short, while work done with effort and skill requires a longer length of time.

Not to grant the embassy they had requested, for it would not be safe. Not to oppose the matter for those who wished to appeal to the ruler and master of all. To neither agree with nor deny the crowd's petition.

For either course carried danger. To write to Gaius nothing that accused them, but not to conceal the truth of their supplications and entreaties either, and to attribute the delay in the dedication partly to the construction requiring a measured span of time, and partly to the occasion itself offering great and reasonable grounds for postponement — grounds to which even Gaius himself would agree, not perhaps willingly, but of necessity.

For the grain crop was at its peak, as were the other sown crops, and there was fear that men, driven to desperation over their ancestral customs and holding life itself in contempt, might either ravage the fields or set fire to the grain-bearing hill country and plain; and there was need of watchfulness for a more careful gathering-in of the harvest, not only of the sown crops but also of what the fruit-bearing trees provide.

For he had determined, it was said, to sail to Alexandria in Egypt, but so great a ruler would not think it worth risking the open sea, both because of the dangers and because of the size of the escorting fleet required, and also for the care of his health — all of which are managed easily by one who makes the journey by land through the circuit of Asia and Syria.

He had decided, so the story goes, to sail to Alexandria in Egypt; but so great a ruler could not think it fitting to trust himself to the open sea, both because of the dangers involved and because of the size of the escorting fleet, and also for the sake of his bodily comfort—considerations that are all easily satisfied by one who makes the circuit through Asia and Syria.

For by that route he will be able each day both to sail and to put in to shore, especially since he will bring along mostly warships rather than merchant vessels, for which coastal sailing is more practicable than sailing the open sea is for cargo ships.

It was therefore necessary that fodder for the animals and abundant provisions be made ready in all the cities of Syria, and especially in those along the coast.

For an enormous crowd would arrive both by land and by sea, setting out not only from Rome and Italy itself but also following along from the provinces all the way to Syria—partly officials, partly the military, cavalry, infantry, the men of the fleet, and a household staff no smaller than the army. And what was needed was supplies proportioned not merely to what was necessary but to the extravagant abundance that Gaius demands. If he should come upon this letter, perhaps, besides not taking offense, he will even commend our foresight, seeing that we made the delay not as a favor to the Jews but for the sake of gathering in the harvest.

When his council had approved the plan, he ordered the letters to be written and appointed men who traveled light and were accustomed to taking the shortest routes on their journeys to carry them.

And when the couriers arrived, they delivered the letters; but he, while still reading, swelled with rage and was full of anger, making a note at every point. When he had finished, he clapped his hands together and said, “Well done, Petronius! You have not learned how to listen to an emperor. Successive offices of command have puffed you up. Up to now you seem not even to know Gaius by hearsay—soon you will have direct experience of him.

For you care about Jewish customs—a nation most hateful to me—but you disregard the commands of your ruler, the emperor.

You feared the crowd? But were not the military forces present, forces which the eastern nations and their rulers the Parthians fear? No—you took pity. Was it then to pity rather than to Gaius that you yielded? Now you plead the harvest as your excuse—you who will soon receive, without excuse, the harvest upon your own head. You cite the gathering of the crops and the preparations for our arrival as your reason; but if total barrenness had gripped Judea, were not the neighboring regions, so numerous and so prosperous, sufficient to supply what was needed and to make good the deficiency of one land?

But why do I raise my hands before the blow falls? Why should anyone perceive my intention in advance? Let the one who is about to reap the rewards of what he has done be the first to learn it from what he suffers. I stop speaking, but I will not stop thinking.”

And after pausing a little while over one of his secretaries dealing with the correspondence, he dictated his reply to Petronius, praising him for what appeared to be his foresight and careful consideration of the future; for he was extremely wary of provincial governors, seeing that they had at hand every opportunity for revolution, especially those in command of large armies in important posts, such as the forces stationed on the Euphrates in Syria.

So then, tending to his rancor for a time with courteous words and phrases, he concealed it, though heavy with wrath beneath the surface. Then, at the end of everything, he wrote ordering that nothing be attended to so urgently as the swift erection of the statue; for by now, he said, the summer harvest—whether a plausible or a genuine excuse—could well have been gathered in.

Not long afterward King Agrippa arrived, as was his custom, to pay his respects to Gaius. He knew absolutely nothing of what Petronius had written, nor of what Gaius had said either earlier or later; yet from Gaius's disordered movements and the disturbance in his eyes he could infer a smoldering anger, and he searched and examined himself thoroughly, turning his thoughts to everything, small and great alike, to see whether he had done or said anything he should not have.

But when he could find nothing whatsoever, he supposed, as was reasonable, that Gaius's bitterness was directed against someone else. Yet when again he saw him glancing at him askance and fixing his gaze on no one present but himself alone, he grew afraid, and though he often intended to ask what was wrong, he held back, reasoning as follows: “Perhaps the threat, though aimed at others, I would draw upon myself, by giving the impression of meddlesome curiosity, of rashness, and of impudence.”

Seeing him, then, agitated and at a loss—for Gaius was skilled at reading from a person's visible expression the hidden wish and feeling within—he said, “You are at a loss, Agrippa? I will put an end to your perplexity.

After spending so much time in my company, have you failed to learn that I communicate each thing not by voice alone, but even more, or no less, by my eyes?

Your fine and upright fellow citizens, the only people out of the whole human race who do not consider Gaius a god, now seem to me to be courting death itself in their obstinacy. When I ordered a statue of Zeus to be set up in their temple, they conspired as an entire people and left the city and the countryside, pretending it was to offer supplication, but in truth intending to act against my orders.”

As he was about to add more, Agrippa, in his anguish, kept changing color in every way at once, becoming flushed, then pale, then livid.

Already a shudder had seized him from the crown of his head down to his feet; trembling and convulsion churned every part and limb of his body; as his bodily strength slackened and gave way, he collapsed inwardly and, in the end, going limp, very nearly fell, had not some of those standing by caught him. Ordered to do so, they carried him home on a litter, unconscious of anything, overcome by a stupor brought on by the sudden onset of these afflictions.

Gaius, for his part, was roused to still greater harshness, intensifying his hatred for the nation. “If Agrippa,” he said, “my closest companion and dearest friend, bound to me by so many benefits, is so overcome by their customs that he cannot even bear to hear about them, but from the shock very nearly died, what must one expect of the rest, who have no such counterweight of attachment pulling the other way?”

Agrippa, for the first day and most of the second, lay oppressed by a deep stupor and provided no sign of life; but toward evening he raised his head a little, and with heavy eyelids, opening them briefly and with difficulty, surveyed with dim and clouded sight those standing around him, still unable to make out clearly the features of each.

Then, sinking back into sleep, he rested in a condition healthier than before, as far as one could judge from his breathing and the disposition of his body. Rising up again afterward, he asked, “Where am I now?

Am I with Gaius? Is my master himself present?” When they answered, “Take heart, you are in your own house; Gaius is not here—

you have rested well enough, having sunk into sleep; but turn yourself, raise yourself up, prop yourself on your elbow, and recognize those present. They are all your own people—of your friends, freedmen, and household servants, those who honor you most and are honored by you in return”—

he—for he was beginning to come to his senses—observed the sympathy each one showed; and when the doctors ordered most of those present to withdraw, so that through ointments and timely nourishment his frail body might be restored, he said, “Must you really take such careful thought for my regimen?

Is it not enough for me, wretched as I am, to relieve my hunger through the plain and rigorously frugal use of necessities? Not even these would I have accepted, were it not for the sake of one last act of help which my mind dreams of providing for my suffering nation.”

And he, in tears and eating only under compulsion, would not tolerate food without a relish, nor would he take even diluted wine, but tasting only water, said, “My wretched belly may for now hold off the debt it demands; but what is fitting for me to do but entreat Gaius concerning the...”

And taking up a tablet, he wrote this letter: “A meeting with you face to face, my lord, fear and shame have taken from me — the one turning me aside from your threat, the other overwhelming me with awe at the greatness of your rank.”

“But a letter will make known my petition, which I offer in place of a suppliant's branch. In every man, Emperor, there is implanted by nature a love of his homeland and an acceptance of his own laws; and of this you have no need to be taught, since you cherish your own homeland with all your heart, and honor with all your heart the things of your father.”

“To each people its own customs appear excellent, even if this is not so in truth; for they judge them not so much by reasoning as by the passion of goodwill. I was born, as you know, a Jew. My homeland is Jerusalem, in which the holy temple of the Most High God stands. I was allotted grandfathers and ancestors who were kings, most of whom were called high priests, who ranked kingship second to the priesthood, holding that just as God surpasses men in excellence, so the high priesthood surpasses kingship; for the one is the service of God, the other the care of men.”

“Allotted, then, to such a nation, and to such a homeland and temple, I make my petition on behalf of all three together: on behalf of the nation, that it may not carry away a reputation contrary to the truth, when from the beginning it has been most reverently and most devoutly disposed toward your whole house;”

“for in whatever is granted and permitted to them, they practice piety according to their own laws. They fall short of no people, neither of Asia nor of Europe, at all — in prayers, in the furnishing of dedicatory offerings, in the abundance of sacrifices, not only those offered at the public festivals but also those performed continually day by day; by which they show their piety not with mouth and tongue so much as by the resolves of an unseen soul — men who do not merely say that they are lovers of Caesar, but truly are.”

“Concerning the holy city, I must say what is fitting for me to say. As I said, this is my homeland, and it is the mother-city not of one country, Judea, but of most countries, because of the colonies it has sent out at various times — to the neighboring lands, Egypt, Phoenicia, Syria in general and the part called Coele-Syria in particular; and to lands settled far away, Pamphylia, Cilicia, and the greater part of Asia as far as Bithynia and the recesses of Pontus; and in the same way into Europe, Thessaly, Boeotia, Macedonia, Aetolia, Attica, Argos, Corinth, and the greatest and best parts of the Peloponnese.”

“And not only are the mainlands full of Jewish colonies, but also the most highly regarded of the islands — Euboea, Cyprus, Crete. And I say nothing of the lands beyond the Euphrates; for all of them, apart from a small portion — Babylon and the other satrapies that possess fertile land round about — have Jews among their inhabitants.”

“So that if my homeland receives a share of your goodwill, it is not one city but countless others that are benefited, established in every region of the inhabited world — the European, the Asian, the Libyan, those on the mainlands, those on the islands, those on the coast and those inland.”

“And it befits the greatness of your so great fortune, through benefits done to a single city, to benefit countless others at the same time, so that through every part of the inhabited world your renown may be sung, and praises joined with thanksgiving may resound together.”

“You have deemed whole homelands of some of your friends worthy of Roman citizenship, and men who a short time before were slaves have become masters over others; and those over whom this has come to pass rejoice no less than those who have enjoyed the favor itself.”

“And I too am one of those who know that I have a master and lord, yet who have been judged worthy of a place in the rank of your companions — inferior to few in standing, and second to none in goodwill, not to say first.”

“Therefore, both because of my birth and because of the abundance of the benefits with which you have enriched me, I too might perhaps have taken courage to ask something for my homeland — if not Roman citizenship, then at least freedom or remission of tribute. Yet I have ventured to ask nothing of the kind, but rather the most bearable request of all: that you grant a favor which costs you nothing, and that my homeland receive the most profitable of gifts. For what greater good could come to subjects from the goodwill of their ruler than this?”

“In Jerusalem first, Emperor, your longed-for accession was announced, and from the holy city the report went out to the mainlands on either side; and for this reason too it deserves to receive a privilege from you.”

“For just as in families the eldest children obtain seniority of honor, because they were the first to give their parents the name of father and mother, in the same way, since this city was the first of the eastern cities to hail you as Emperor, it is right that it should obtain a greater share of good things — or, failing that, at least an equal share.”

“Having made these pleas and this petition on behalf of my homeland, I come at last to the petition concerning the temple. This temple, Gaius my lord, made by human hands, admitted from the beginning no image of any kind, because it is the dwelling-place of the true God; for the works of painters and sculptors are likenesses of gods perceived by the senses, but to portray or fashion an image of the invisible God was not”

considered holy by our ancestors. Agrippa, your grandfather, honored the temple by coming to it; and Augustus honored it by commanding, in his letters, that first-fruits be sent there from every place, and by the continual sacrifice offered on his behalf;

and your great-grandmother [honored it] ... [text lost here]. For this reason no one — not Greek, not barbarian, not satrap, not king, not implacable enemy, not civil strife, not war, not capture of the city, not sack, nothing else that exists — ever introduced so great an innovation into the temple as to set up in it a statue, a carved image, or anything else made by hands.

For even where people were hostile and hated the inhabitants of the country, still a certain reverence or fear kept them from abolishing any of the customs established from the beginning in honor of the Maker and Father of the universe; for they knew, from these and similar cases, the incurable disasters that spring from calamities sent by God. For this reason they were cautious about sowing an impious seed, fearing that they might be forced to reap a harvest leading to utter destruction.

But why should I call foreigners as witnesses, when I can bring forward many of those closest to you? Marcus Agrippa himself, your grandfather on your mother's side, when he was in Judea, at the time when Herod, my grandfather, was king of the country, thought it worth his while to go up from the coast to the mother-city, which lies inland;

and when he had seen the temple, and the adornment of the priests, and the sanctity of the rites of the people of the land, he was filled with wonder, believing that he had beheld something surpassingly majestic and greater than any account of it; and he had no other story to tell to the companions who were with him at the time than praise of the temple and of everything connected with it.

Indeed, for as many days as he stayed in the city, out of regard for Herod, he went to the temple, delighting in the sight of its construction, of the sacrifices, of the ministry and order surrounding the sacred rites, and of the dignity of the high priest whenever he was arrayed in the sacred vestments and officiated at the holy rites.

And after he had adorned the temple with as many dedicatory offerings as were permitted, and had done good to the inhabitants with gifts that would cause no harm, and had spoken much in praise of Herod and been praised by him in return countless times over, he was escorted all the way to the harbors — not by one city, but by the whole country — showered with leaves and admired for his piety. And what of your other grandfather, Tiberius Caesar?

Does he not appear to have chosen the very same course? For in the twenty-three years during which he was Emperor, he preserved the worship handed down at the temple from the most ancient times, abolishing or disturbing no part of it.

I have, moreover, an instance of his scrupulousness to add — although I suffered countless wrongs from him while he lived; but the truth is dear, and it is precious to you as well. Pilate was one of the prefects appointed governor of Judea. He, not so much to honor Tiberius as to vex the populace, dedicated in Herod's palace in the holy city gilded shields bearing no image and nothing else that was forbidden, except for a necessary inscription, which stated two things: the name of the one who dedicated them, and the name of him on whose behalf the dedication was made.

But when the people at large learned of it — and the matter had already become the talk of the town — they put forward the king's four sons, who fell short of kings neither in rank nor in fortune, together with his other descendants and the officials among them, and begged that the innovation concerning the shields be set right, and that he not disturb the ancestral customs which had been kept inviolate through every age before, undisturbed by kings and emperors alike.

But since he opposed them stubbornly — for he was inflexible by nature and, along with his self-will, unyielding —, they cried out: “Do not cause a rebellion, do not make war, do not overturn the peace. Dishonor of ancient laws is no honor to the emperor. Do not let Tiberius be your pretext for insulting our nation; he wishes none of our institutions to be overturned. If you claim otherwise, produce yourself either an edict or a letter or something of the kind, so that we may stop troubling you, choose envoys, and appeal to our master.”

This last point above all exasperated him, for he was terrified that if they really did send an embassy they would also expose the rest of his administration — the bribes, the acts of insolence, the robberies, the outrages, the wanton abuses, the unjudged and repeated murders, the endless and most grievous cruelty — going through it all in detail.

Being, then, such a resentful and heavy-wrathed man, he was in two minds: he had no courage to take down what had once been dedicated, yet he had no wish to do anything that would please his subjects, while at the same time he was well aware of Tiberius’s firmness in such matters. Seeing this, and understanding that he regretted what he had done but did not want to seem to, the officials—

—wrote most entreating letters to Tiberius. And he, on reading them, said such things to Pilate, and made such threats — how angry he became, though he was not easily provoked to anger, it is superfluous to relate, since the matter itself gives voice to it.

For at once, without even putting it off to the next day, he wrote back, reproaching and rebuking him at length for the newly ventured act of daring, and ordering him immediately to take down the shields and have them moved from the capital to Caesarea-on-the-Sea, named Sebaste after his great-grandfather, so that they might be dedicated in the Sebasteum; and they were so dedicated. Thus both things were preserved: the honor of the emperor, and the ancient custom concerning the city.

At that time, then, there were shields, on which no image had been painted; but now there is a colossal statue. And at that time the dedication was in the house of the procurators; but the one now expected, they say, is to take place in the innermost part of the sanctuary itself, in the very holy of holies, into which, once a year, the high priest enters — on the day called the Fast — only to burn incense and to pray according to ancestral custom for an abundant supply of good things, prosperity, and peace for all mankind.

And if anyone at all — I do not mean any of the other Jews, but even one of the priests, and not the lowest of them but those who hold the rank immediately after the first — should enter along with him, either on his own or even together with him; or rather, even if the high priest himself should go in on two days of the year, or even three or four times on the same day,

he suffers inescapable death; so great is the guard that the lawgiver has set around the holy of holies, having willed that it alone, of all places, remain untrodden and untouched. How many deaths, then, do you suppose those consecrated to these rites would willingly undergo, if they should see the statue being brought in? For my part, I think they would slaughter whole generations, together with their very wives and children, and finally offer up themselves as a last sacrifice upon the fallen bodies of their own kin. These things Tiberius understood.

And what of your great-grandfather, the best of all emperors who ever lived, the first to be named Augustus for his virtue and his fortune, who poured out peace everywhere over land and sea to the very ends of the world?

Not learning by hearsay about the things concerning the sanctuary — that there is in it no image made by hand, a visible likeness of an invisible nature — he marveled and paid homage, having tasted philosophy not with the mere tips of his lips but having feasted on it more fully, and feasting on it almost every day, recalling in part from the memories of what his mind had learned beforehand about philosophy, and in part from his constant living together with learned men who were always at his side. For at his dinner gatherings the greater part of the time was devoted to matters of education, so that not only the body but also—

—the soul might be nourished with what belonged to it. Though I could confirm the will of Augustus, your great-grandfather, with abundant proofs, I will content myself with two. First, he wrote to the procurators of the provinces, on learning that the sacred first-fruits were being neglected, instructing them to allow the Jews alone to assemble in their synagogues,

for these gatherings, he said, were not drunken and disorderly assemblies got up so as to harm the peace, but schools of self-control and justice, of men who practiced virtue and who contributed their yearly first-fruits, from which they offer sacrifices, sending sacred envoys to the temple in Jerusalem.

Then he commanded that no one should stand in the way of the Jews, whether in assembling, or in contributing money, or in sending it according to ancestral custom to Jerusalem; for this, even if not in so many words, was at least commanded in effect.

I have appended below, for your persuasion, my lord, a single letter, which Gaius Norbanus Flaccus wrote, making known what Caesar had written to him.

The copy of the letter is as follows: ‘Gaius Norbanus Flaccus, proconsul, to the magistrates of the Ephesians, greetings. Caesar has written to me that the Jews, wherever they may be, are accustomed by their own ancient custom to gather together and bring money, which they send to Jerusalem; these he did not wish to be prevented from doing. I have therefore written to you, that you may know that he commands this to be done accordingly.’

Is this not, O Emperor, clear proof of Caesar’s policy, which he maintained regarding the honor of our sanctuary, in that he did not wish the common form applied to associations generally to abolish the gatherings of the Jews, which they hold for the sake of their first-fruits and their other acts of piety?

There is another proof, no less clear, of Augustus’s intention. For he ordained that whole burnt offerings should be brought each day at his own expense to the Most High God, and these are still performed even now; the victims are two lambs and a bull, with which Caesar adorned the altar, knowing well that there is no image there, whether visible or hidden;

but rather this great leader and philosopher, second to none, reasoned within himself that it is necessary, among the things of this earth, to set apart a special sacred place for the invisible God, containing no visible representation, for a share in good hopes and the enjoyment of perfect blessings.

Having such a man as her guide in piety, your great-great-grandmother Julia Augusta also adorned the temple with golden bowls and libation vessels and a great multitude of other most costly offerings — and why did even she do this, when there was no image within? For the minds of women are somehow weaker, unable to grasp anything beyond what is perceived by the senses.

But she, just as she surpassed her whole sex in other respects, excelled in this as well, having risen above them by unmixed education, both by nature and by practice, her reasoning made masculine — so sharp-sighted had it become that it grasped things intelligible more than things perceptible,

and considered even these latter to be but shadows of the former. Having, then, my lord, such examples of a gentler policy — all most closely akin to you, from whom you were sown and sprang up and grew so great — preserve what each of them preserved.

Emperors plead with an emperor on behalf of these laws, Augusti with an Augustus, grandfathers and ancestors with a descendant, many with one, all but saying: ‘Do not overturn, in accordance with our own wishes, the customs that have been preserved down to this very day; for even if nothing ill-omened should result from their abolition, still the uncertainty of the future is not entirely free from fear, even for the most confident, unless they are contemptuous of divine things.’

If I were to recount the benefits I have received from you, the day would fail me — not to mention that it would not even be fitting to make a foremost matter a mere addendum to another speech. And yet, even if I keep silent, the facts themselves cry out and give voice: you released me from bondage in iron; who does not know it?

But do not, O Emperor, bind me with harsher chains; for those who were released were bound only in a part of the body, but those now expected are of the soul, and are about to press upon it wholly, through and through.

You banished the fear of death that always hung over me, and, when I was already dead with dread, you rekindled me and raised me up as if by a new birth. Preserve this favor, O Emperor, so that your Agrippa may not depart from life; for I shall seem not to have been released for the sake of being saved, but rather, having received heavier misfortunes, to have died all the more conspicuously.

You have granted me the greatest and most fortunate lot among men, kingship—first of one region, then also of another, greater one, joining to it what is called Trachonitis and Galilee. Do not, my lord, having granted me the means for abundance, take away the necessities, nor, having led me up into the clearest light, throw me back from the beginning into the deepest darkness.

I renounce those splendors; I do not refuse the fortune I had a little while ago; I would exchange everything for one thing alone—that our ancestral customs not be disturbed. For what account would there be of me, either among my own people or among all other men? Of necessity one of two things must follow: either I am judged a traitor to my own people, or I am no longer thought your friend in the same way. And what evil could be greater than either of these?

For if I am still counted among the rank of your companions, I will bear the reputation of betrayal, should neither my homeland be kept unharmed from every evil nor the temple be left untouched. For it is you great ones who preserve the interests of your companions and of those who take refuge in imperial protection.

But if some hidden hostility toward me lurks in your mind, do not imprison me as Tiberius did, but rather, having removed even the hope of ever being released again, order that I be put out of the way at once. For what good is life to me, when my one hope of safety was your goodwill?"

Having written this and sealed it, he sent it to Gaius, and shutting himself up at home he remained there, in anguish and turmoil, worrying above all how it would be received. For no small danger had been thrown at him, but one involving destruction, enslavement, and utter devastation—not only for those who inhabit the sacred land but for the Jews everywhere in the inhabited world.

Gaius, taking the letter and reading it through, at each thought at once knew that his wish would not be carried out, and at the same time was moved by the pleas mixed with justifications; and he praised Agrippa in one respect,

but blamed him in another. He found fault with him for his excessive devotion to his own people, who alone among men resisted and turned away from his deification, but he praised him for concealing and hiding nothing of himself, which he said were signs of the most noble and freeborn character.

So, softened as far as it seemed by these more gracious responses, he deemed Agrippa worthy of the highest and greatest gift, granting that the dedication should no longer take place; and he ordered that it be written to Publius Petronius, the governor of Syria, that he should no longer make any innovation regarding the temple of the Jews.

Yet even in giving this favor, he did not give it unmixed, but blended into it a most grievous fear. For he added in writing: “But if in the districts bordering the metropolis, outside it alone, some people wish to set up altars or shrines or certain images or statues in my honor and that of my family, and are prevented from doing so, those who hinder them are either to be punished on the spot or brought before me.”

This was nothing other than the beginning of factions and civil wars, and a crooked way of taking back, in effect, the gift he seemed to be giving outright. For some, out of rivalry against the Jews rather than out of piety toward Gaius, were bound to fill the whole land with dedicatory offerings, while others, seeing in their own villages the dissolution of their ancestral customs—even if they were the gentlest of all people—would not tolerate it; and Gaius, judging those who were provoked worthy of the greatest punishment, would order the statue to be set up again in the temple.

But by some providence and care of God, who watches over all things and governs with justice, none of the neighboring peoples stirred up any trouble, so that no occasion arose by which, ahead of a milder complaint, an inescapable calamity was bound to be met.

But what good was that, one might say? For even while they remained quiet, Gaius did not remain quiet, already repenting of the favor and rekindling the desire he had felt a little before. For he ordered that another statue be made, a colossal one, of bronze overlaid with gold, in Rome, no longer moving the one in Sidon, so that he might not disturb the populace by its movement, but that it might be carried secretly and at great leisure by ship, while remaining undisturbed and free of suspicion, and be set up suddenly, unnoticed by the crowd.

This he intended to do on his voyage along the coast during his journey to Egypt. For an unspeakable longing for Alexandria possessed him, which he was eager to reach with all haste and, once arrived, to dwell in for a very long time, believing that this one city alone had given birth to and would foster the deification he dreamed of, and had become a model of reverence for the others—being both the greatest city and situated in the finest part of the inhabited world. For it is characteristic of great men or great cities that lesser men and peoples attempt to emulate them.

He was, moreover, by nature untrustworthy in all other matters as well, so that even if he did some good deed, he would immediately repent and seek some way by which even this would be undone, to greater grief and harm.

Here is an example of what I mean: he released some prisoners for no particular reason, then imprisoned them again, bringing upon them a heavier calamity than before—the calamity of dashed hope.

Again he condemned to exile others who had expected death, not because they were conscious of having done anything deserving death, or indeed any lesser punishment at all, but because, owing to the judge's excessive cruelty, they had not expected to escape at all. To these men exile was a windfall, and, thinking they had escaped the utmost danger to their lives, they held it as good as a return home.

But not much time passed before he sent some of his soldiers, though nothing new had occurred, and destroyed all at once the best and noblest of them, who were already living as if in their homelands on the islands and bearing their misfortune most happily, inflicting a most pitiable and unexpected grief upon the households of the great men in Rome.

And if he gave money to some as a gift, he did not later exact it back as a loan, collecting interest and additional charges, but rather as stolen goods, to the greatest ruin of those who had received it. For it was not enough for the wretched recipients to repay what had been given; they had to bring in their entire estates besides, whether they had inherited them from parents, relatives, or friends, or had acquired them themselves by choosing a life of business.

The men of high rank, who thought themselves held in the very highest esteem, were harmed in a different way—one accompanied by pleasure, under a pretense of friendship—spending vast sums on undetermined, disorderly, and sudden journeys, and vast sums on banquets; for they exhausted entire estates in preparing a single dinner, so that they even had to borrow money—such was the extravagance.

Accordingly, some now prayed against the very favors he had granted them, supposing them to be not a benefit but a bait and a trap for unbearable ruin.

So great, then, was this unevenness of character toward everyone, but especially toward the race of the Jews. Being harshly hostile to them, he began by seizing for himself the synagogues in the other cities, starting with those in Alexandria, filling them with images and statues of his own form—for while he let others set up such dedications, he himself installed his own by force—and he sought to convert and transform the shrine in the holy city, which alone remained untouched, having been deemed worthy of complete inviolability, into a private temple of his own, so that it might be called the temple of Zeus, the Manifest, the New, Gaius. What do you say to that?

You, though a man, seek to lay claim to the ether and heaven, not content with the multitude of so many continents, islands, nations, and climates over which you have kindled your rule. Yet you do not deem God worthy of anything here among us—not a country, not a city—but you intend to take away even that small enclosure that has been consecrated and dedicated to him by oracles and divine utterances, so that within the enclosure of so vast an earth no trace or memorial might be left of the honor and reverence due to the truly existing, true God.

You inscribe fine hopes for the human race! You do not realize that you are opening up fountains of massed evils, inventing and contriving on a grand scale things that are not lawful either to do or even to conceive.

It is also worth recalling what we ourselves saw and heard when we were summoned to contend the struggle concerning our citizenship. For as soon as we entered, we knew at once, from his look and his movements, that we had come not before a judge but before an accuser—one more hostile than those arrayed against us.

For these were the tasks of a judge: to sit with assessors chosen for their merit, examining a case of the greatest importance, one that had lain undisturbed for four hundred years and was now being brought forward for the first time, with many tens of thousands of Alexandrian Jews at stake; to have the opposing parties stand on either side with their advocates; to hear the accusation in turn, then the defense, measured by water-clock; and, having risen, to deliberate with the assessors what should be openly declared as the most just judgment. But the tasks actually performed were those of a merciless tyrant, wielding a despot's brow.

For besides doing none of the things I have just described, he summoned the stewards of two gardens, those of Maecenas and of Lamia — they lie near each other and near the city, and he had been staying there for three or four days, since it was there, with us present, that the drama against the whole nation was to be staged — and he ordered all the grounds to be opened up for him.

He wanted, he said, to inspect each one closely. We were brought in before him, and the moment we saw him we bowed to the ground with every mark of reverence and awe, and greeted him as Augustus Imperator. But he returned the greeting with such mildness and courtesy that we despaired not only of our case but of our very lives.

For with a sneering, mocking grin he said, "So you are the men who hate god — you who do not believe me to be a god, though I am now acknowledged as such by everyone else, and instead you cling to the one you dare not even name." And raising his hands to heaven, he uttered an invocation which it is not lawful even to hear, let alone repeat word for word.

At once the envoys of the opposing party were filled with what delight, thinking that through this first outburst of Gaius's they had already won the embassy. They clapped their hands, they danced about, they invoked the names of all the gods upon him.

upon him. And seeing him delighted at being addressed in terms beyond human nature, the bitter informer Isidorus said, "You will hate these men here, master, and their fellow tribesmen still more, once you learn their ill will and impiety toward you: while all other people offer sacrifices of thanksgiving for your safety, these alone have refused to sacrifice. And when I say 'these,' I include all the other Jews as well."

But we all cried out with one voice, "Lord Gaius, we are slandered. We did sacrifice, and we offered whole hecatombs — not pouring the blood on the altar and taking the meat home for a feast and celebration, as some are accustomed to do, but delivering the victims whole to be consumed by the sacred flame, and that three times, not once: first when you succeeded to the principate, second when you recovered from that grave illness which the whole inhabited world suffered along with you, and third in hope of your victory in Germany." "Granted,"

he said, "all this is true, but it was offered to another, even if on my behalf. What good is it, then? For you did not sacrifice to me." A deep shudder seized us at once, hearing this on top of what had gone before, and it spread even to our faces.

And saying this he went on through the grounds, inspecting the men's quarters, the women's quarters, the rooms at ground level, the upper rooms — everything — finding fault with some as inadequate constructions, and himself devising and prescribing others more costly.

Then we, driven along, followed him up and down, mocked and jeered at by our opponents as though in a theatrical farce — and indeed the whole affair was a kind of mimicry: the judge had taken on the role of an accuser, and the accusers that of a base judge who looks to enmity rather than to the nature of the truth.

And when so great a man makes accusations against the one on trial, silence is the only recourse; for there is a way of defending oneself even through silence, especially when one is able to answer nothing of what he sought and demanded, since custom and law hold the tongue back and stitch the mouth shut.

Then, having given some orders concerning the buildings, he put to us a grave and solemn question: "Why do you abstain from pork?" At this question laughter again broke out from our opponents so loud — some genuinely amused, others cultivating it out of flattery, so that the remark might seem to have been said with wit and charm — that one of the attendants following him grew indignant at such contempt shown for an emperor, before whom even a modest smile was not safe for those not on close terms with him.

When we answered that different peoples have different customs, and that the use of certain things is forbidden to us just as it is to our opponents, and someone remarked, "Yes, and many people don't eat lamb either, though it's the readiest food of all," he laughed and said, "Quite right — for it isn't tasty."

Having been mocked and derided with such nonsense, we were at our wits' end. Then at last, offhandedly, he said, "We want to learn what principles of justice you use in your civic life."

But when we began to speak and to instruct him, having had a taste of our legal argument and realizing it was not to be despised, before we could bring forward our stronger points he cut short even what we had already said and dashed off at a run into the great hall, and going around it he ordered the windows all around to be fitted with panes of a translucent stone resembling white glass, which do not block the light but keep out wind and the sun's blazing heat.

Then he came forward again, without haste, and asked more moderately, "What were you saying?" But when we began to take up the thread of our argument, he ran off again into another room, where he was directing that original paintings be set up.

So, as our just cause was being torn apart, pulled to pieces, cut short and crushed, we grew exhausted and had no strength left, and expected nothing but death; we no longer had our souls within us, but in our anguish they had already gone forth ahead of us to beseech the true God to check the wrath of the falsely-named one.

But he, taking pity on us, turned his anger to mercy; and having relented toward a gentler mood, he said only this — "These men seem to me not so much wicked as unfortunate and foolish, in not believing that I have been allotted the nature of a god" — and departed, ordering us to leave as well.

Having escaped such a place — at once a theater and a prison — for as in a theater there was the din of those hissing, mocking, jeering without measure, and as in a jail there were blows falling upon our very vitals, tortures, the racking of the whole soul through blasphemies against the divine and through the threats which so great an emperor kept holding over us, bearing a grudge not on behalf of anyone else — for he would easily have changed his mind about that — but on his own behalf and for his desire for deification, which he supposed the Jews alone neither assented to nor could subscribe to — we could scarcely draw breath, and not because, loving life, we had cowered before death.

Death we would gladly have chosen as though it were immortality, if indeed any of our laws were going to receive redress; but knowing that we would be sacrificed to no advantage and with much disgrace besides — for whatever envoys suffer is charged back to those who sent them —

for this reason we were able to hold our heads up to some degree, but everything else terrified us, bewildered and at a loss as we were over what he would decide, what he would pronounce, what sort of judgment it would be; for did he even listen to the case, he who paid no heed even to some matters of state? And was it a small thing that in the persons of us five envoys the fate of all Jews everywhere hung in the balance?

for if he showed favor to our enemies, what other city would remain quiet? Who would not attack those who dwelt among them? What synagogue would be left untouched? What civic right established for those who live according to the ancestral customs of the Jews would not be overturned? All their special privileges and the common rights granted them in each of the cities would be overturned, shipwrecked, sent to the bottom.

Overwhelmed by such reasonings, we were swept along as though drowning; for even those who had previously seemed to be on our side had given up. When we were summoned, though present within, they did not stay but slipped away out of fear, knowing full well the passion with which he pursued being regarded as a god.

So the cause of Gaius's hostility toward the whole Jewish nation has now been told, in summary at least; and the recantation must also be told.

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