man whom I honour so very greatly, that I am not able to contradict what he would have, or what he desires me to do for him." And this was what Caius wrote to Petronius: which was before he received his letter, informing him that the Jews were ready to revolt about the statue; and that they seemed resolved to threaten war against the Romans, and nothing else. When, therefore, Caius was much displeased that any attempt should be made against his government, as he was a slave to base and vicious actions on all occasions, and had no regard to what was virtuous and honourable; and against whomsoever he resolved to show his anger, and that for any cause whatsoever, he suffered not himself to be restrained by any admonition, but thought the indulging his anger to be a real pleasure; he wrote thus to Petronius: "Seeing thou esteemest the presents made thee by the Jews to be of greater value than my commands, and art grown insolent enough to be subservient to their pleasure, I charge thee to become thy own judge; and to consider what thou art to do, now thou art under my displeasure: for I will make thee an example to the present and to all future ages, that they may not dare to contradict the commands of their emperor.

This was the epistle which Caius wrote: but Petronius did not receive it while Caius was alive; that ship which carried it sailing so slow, that other letters came to Petronius before this, by which he understood that Caius was dead: for God would not forget the dangers Petronius had undertaken on account of the Jews, and of his own honour. But when he had taken Caius away, out of his indignation of what he had so insolently attempted, in assuming to himself divine worship; both Rome and all that dominion conspired with Petronius, especially those that were of the senatorian order, to give Caius his due reward, because he had been unmercifully severe to them: for he died not long* after he had written to Petronius that epistle which threatened him with death. But as for the occasion of his death, and the nature of the plot against him, I shall relate them in the progress of this narration. Now that epistle which informed Petronius of Caius's death came first; and a little afterward

*A. D. 41

came that which commanded him to kill himself with his own hands. Hereupon he rejoiced at this coincidence as to the death of Caius; and admired God's providence, who, without the least delay, gave him a reward for the regard he had for the temple, and the assistance he afforded the Jews for their avoiding the dangers they were in. And by this means Petronius escaped the danger of death, which he could not foresee.*

* I have hitherto compared Josephus's history with the pretended legation to Caius, as if it were genuine; as I, with all learned men, supposed it to be when I wrote the preceding notes. But upon this occasion I shall produce some reasons, which have since occurred to me, on a comparison of this pretended Philo and the real Josephus, why I strongly suspect that neither this satirical legation, nor its second part, as Photius esteemed it, I mean the satire upon Flaccus, are genuine.

I. Josephus, who gives us here a most honourable testimony to Philo, the principal of the three Alexandrian ambassadors to Caius; when he writes the history of the madness of Caius, in resolving to be honoured as a God, and, accordingly, as a God, to have his statue erected in the Jewish temple by Petronius; and hints at the great danger the Jews were in at Alexandria, under Flaccus, about the very same time; says not one word of any writings of Philo on either of these subjects. Whence yet, had he known of any such genuine writings of this Philo, he would naturally have taken both those histories, as from the most authentic records in the world.

II. Josephus is not only entirely silent about such writings of Philo's; but, as he never mentions Flaccus at all, so does he, as we have seen all along, greatly differ from the legation to Caius; not only in a few circumstantials, but in the main contexture of the history itself. Which it is next to impossible for him to have done, had he read these histories, and believed them to be written by Philo himself; for whom he appears to have had the greatest esteem.

III. The time of this legation to Caius, and command to Petronius in Josephus, cannot be till the third year of the reign of Caius; because he says his two first years were very good, chap. 7. Whereas the legation brings them on not long after the sickness Caius had when he had reigned seven months only. So that still Josephus and this author seem irreconcileable.

IV. What is put into Caius's mouth in the legation, upon occasion of Petronius's letter to him, page 1027, 1028, 1029, is more agreeable to the contents of that letter in Josephus, than in the legation: which affords no small suspicion of some prevarication in this case, and confirms the authority of Josephus's accounts against itself in other matters also.

V. The title, the whole pompous, tedious style: the long, juvenile, swelling, romantic, and paganish composition of the introduction; the strange exaggeration of circumstances in the narrative as to Agrippa's fainting away, and the very long letter of Agrippa to Caius, are highly improbable, very unlike to an honest and plain narration, and every way disagreeable to the grave style of Philo the

CHAP. IX.

OF WHAT BEFELL THE JEWS THAT WERE IN BABYLON, ON OCCASION OF TWO BRETHREN, CALLED ASINEUS AND ANILEUS.

A SAD calamity now befell the Jews that were in Mesopotamia, and especially those that dwelt in Babylonia. Inferior it was to none of the calamities which had gone before; and came together with a great slaughter of them, and that greater than any upon record before. Concerning all which I shall speak accurately, and shall explain the occasions whence these miseries came upon them. There was a city of Babylonia called Neerda; not only a very populous one, but one that had a good and large territory ahout it; and, besides its other advan

Jew: especially when he is herein described as an old man at this time also, page 1018.

VI. What Eusebius says, on occasion of the writings against Caius, ascribed to Philo, which he informs us were five, though we have now but two remaining: viz. that they were said to be recited by the author, with great applause, before the Roman senate, in the days of Claudius; and were thereupon solemnly laid up in their public libraries; Hist. Eccl. II. 18, seems to afford us a key to this whole matter: viz. that some other Philo, who was in favour at Rome, in the days of Claudius, having procured some imperfect accounts of these affairs belonging to Egypt and Judea, wrought them up into their present form, in order to expose Caius, and his governor of Alexandria, Flaccus, to the utmost contempt possible. Nor could the honours done to this author at Rome, be at all supposed done to the Jewish genuine allegorical Philo: but might be easily done to some rhetorical grammarian, who fell in with the humour of the time and place, and largely exposed wicked Caius, now dead and despised, to the indignation of all men. But those that consider the great contempt and hatred the Romans bore to the Jews in this age, will find any such encouragement or respect to Philo the Jew, by the senate and people of Rome, to be perfectly incredible.

VII. Photius's account of these two books of Philo's, Cod. cv. is this, “That they are more rhetorical than Philo's other works, but that the author is guilty, in many respects, as to the wildness of his supposals, and the insertion of what is remote from the philosophical reasoning of Jews." Which very just censure is a strong confirmation of my opinion; that both these works, as we now have them, belong to some other Philo, a rhetorician; and not to the grave and allegorical Philo, the Jew, so famous in antiquity; which seems to be the truth of the case before us. Herennius Philo of Byblus, who lived somewhat later than

tages, full of men also: it was besides not easily to be assaulted by enemies, from the river Euphrates encompassing it all round, and from the walls that were built about it. There was also the city of *Nesibis, situated on the same current of the river. For which reason the Jews, depending on the natural strength of these places, deposited in them that half shekel which every one, by the custom of our country, offers unto God; as well as they did their other things devoted to him for they made use of these cities as a treasury, whence, at a proper time, they were transmitted to Jerusalem: and many thousand men undertook the carriage of those donations, out of fear of the ravages of the Parthians, to whom the Babylonians were then subject. Now there were two men, Asineus and Anileus, of the city Neerda by birth, and brethren to one another. They were destitute of a father, and their mother put them to learn the art of weaving curtains: it not being esteemed a disgrace among them for men to be weavers of cloth. Now he that taught them that art, and was set over them, complained that they came too late to their work, and punished them with stripes. But they took this just punishment as an affront; and carried off all the weapons which were kept in that house, which were not a few : and went into a certain place, where was a partition of the rivers, and a place naturally fit for the feeding of cattle, and for preserving such fruits as were usually laid up against winter. The poorest sort of the young men also resorted to them; whom

Josephus, and wrote a treatise about the Jews, (perhaps one of those very treatises now under our consideration,) and was a learned grammarian also, seems to be more likely the author of these two satirical treatises, as we now have them, than Philo of Alexandria, who was considerably older than Josephus. Yet might he make those orations at Rome before the death of Claudius: though they might not be published till towards the end of the reign of Domitian; which was the very time when this Herennius Philo began to be famous for his writings. See Fabricius's Bibliotheca Græca, lib. IV. page 120. Possibly the preface, and three or four chapters, may be the genuine Philo's; though this is very uncertain; but the most part of the rest of this legation is little to the purpose, spurious, and additional.

* Nesibi, on the coins, as Spanheim assures us. Although Josephus seems to be here mistaken in its situation; for it stood, not upon Euphrates, but upon Mygdonius, a river which ran into the Tigris, as Dr. Hudson here observes.

they armed with the weapons they had gotten, and became their captains. And nothing hindered them from being their leaders into mischief: for as soon as they were become invincible, and had built them a citadel, they sent to such as fed cattle, and ordered them to pay them so much tribute out of them as might be sufficient for their maintenance; proposing also that they would be their friends, if they would submit to them; and that they would defend them from all their other enemies on every side; but that they would kill the cattle of those that refused to obey them. So they hearkened to their proposals, (for they could do nothing else,) and sent them as many sheep as they required of them. Hereby their forces grew greater, and they became lords over all they pleased; because they marched suddenly, and did them a mischief: insomuch that every body who had to do with them chose to pay them respect; and they became formidable to such as came to assault them; till the report about them came to the ears of the king of Parthia.

But when the governor of Babylonia understood this, and had a mind to check them, before they grew greater, and before greater mischiefs should arise from them, he got together as great an army as he could both of Parthians and Babylonians, and marched against them, thinking to attack and destroy them, before any one should carry them the news, that he had got an army together. He then encamped at a lake, and lay still. But on the next day, it was the Sabbath, (which is among the Jews a day of rest from all sorts of work,) he supposed that the enemy would not dare to fight him thereon; but that he should take them, and carry them away prisoners, without fighting. He therefore proceeded gradually, and thought to fall upon them on a sudden. Now Asineus was sitting with the rest, and their weapons lay by them: upon which he said, "Sirs, I hear a neighing of horses; not of such as are feeding, but such as bave men on their backs: I also hear such a noise of their bridles, that I am afraid that some enemies are coming upon us, to encompass us round. However, let somebody go to look about, and make report of what reality there is in the present state of things. And may what I have said prove a false alarm."