be set up, it would not be for their advantage; and in case any one of those already in the government should obtain the supreme power, it would in all respects be to their grief, if they were not assisting to him in that advancement. That it would therefore be right for them, while the public affairs were unsettled, to choose Claudius emperor; who was uncle to the deceased Caius, and of a superior dignity and worth to every one of those that were assembled in the senate; both on account of the virtues of his ancestors, and of the learning he had acquired in his education; and who if once settled in the empire would reward them according to their deserts, and bestow largesses upon them. These were their consultations, and they executed the same immediately. Claudius was therefore seized upon suddenly by the soldiery. But Cneus Sentius Saturninus, although he understood that Claudius was seized, and that he intended to claim the government, unwillingly indeed in appearance, but in reality by his own free consent; stood up in the senate, and without being dismayed, made an oration to them; and such a one as was fit for men of freedom and generosity; and spake thus :

"Although it be a thing incredible, O Romans, because of the great length of time, that so unexpected an event hath happened, yet we are now in possession of liberty. How long indeed this will last is uncertain; and lies at the disposal of the gods, whose grant it is. Yet such it is as is sufficient to make us rejoice and be happy for the present; although we may soon be deprived of it. For one hour is sufficient to those that are exercised in virtue, wherein we may live with a mind accountable only to ourselves, in our own country, now free, and governed by such laws as this country once flourished under. As for myself, I cannot remember our former time of liberty, as being born after it was gone; but am beyond measure filled with joy at the thoughts of our present freedom. I also esteem those that were born and brought up in that our former liberty happy men; and that those men are worthy of no less esteem than the gods themselves, who have given us a taste of it in this age. And I heartily wish that this quiet enjoyment. of it which we have at present might continue to all ages.

However, this single day may suffice for our youth, as well as for us that are in years. It will seem an age to our old men, if they might die during its happy duration. It may also be for the instruction of the younger sort, what kind of virtue those men, from whose loins we are derived, were exercised in. As for ourselves, our business is, during this space of time, to live virtuously than which nothing can be more to our advantage : which course of virtue it is alone that can preserve our liberty. For as to our ancient state, I have heard of it by the relation of others; but as to our later state, during my life time, I have known it by experience; and learned thereby what mischiefs tyrannies have brought upon this commonwealth; discouraging all virtue, depriving persons of magnanimity of their liberty, and proving the teachers of flattery, and slavish fear; because it leaves the public administration not to be governed by wise laws, but by the humour of those that govern. For since Julius Cæsar took it into his head to dissolve our democracy, and, by overbearing the regular system of our laws, to bring disorders into our administration, and to get above right and justice, and to be a slave to his own inclinations, there is no kind of misery but what hath tended to the subversion of this city. While all those that have succeeded him have striven, one with another, to overthrow the ancient laws of their country, and have left it destitute of such citizens as were of generous principles; because they thought it tended to their safety to have vicious men to converse with; and not only to break the spirits of those that were best esteemed for their virtue, but to resolve upon their utter destruction. Of all which emperors, who have laid upon us insufferable hardships during the times of their government, this Caius, who hath been slain to-day, hath brought more terrible calamities upon us than did all the rest; not only by exercising his ungoverned rage upon his fellowcitizens, but also upon his kindred and friends, and alike upon all others; and by inflicting still greater miseries upon them, as punishments, which they never deserved; he being equally furious against men, and against the gods. For tyrants are not content to gain their pleasure, and this by acting injuriously, and in the vexation they bring both upon men's estates, and

their wives; but they look upon that to be their principal advantage, when they can utterly overthrow the entire families of their enemies. While all lovers of liberty are the enemies of tyranny: nor can those that patiently endure what miseries they bring on them gain their friendship. For as they are conscious of the abundant mischiefs they have brought on these men, and how magnanimously they have borne their hard fortunes, they cannot but be sensible what evils they have done; and thence only depend on security from what they are suspicious of, if it may be in their power to take them quite out of the world.

Since then we are now gotten clear of such great misfortunes, and are only accountable to one another; which form of government affords us the best assurance of our present concord, and promises us the best security from evil designs, and will be most for our own glory in settling the city in good order; you ought, every one of you in particular, to make provision for his own, and in general for the public utility; or, on the contrary, they may declare their dissent to such things as have been proposed; and this without any hazard of danger to come upon them, because they have now no lord set over them, who, without fear of punishment, could do mischief to the city, and had an uncontrolable power to take off those that freely declared their opinions. Nor has any thing so much contributed to this increase of tyranny of late, as sloth, and a timorous forbearance of contradicting the emperor's will. While men had an over great inclination to the sweetness of peace, and had learned to live like slaves; and as many of us as either heard of intolerable calamities that happened at a distance from us, or saw the miseries that were near us, out of the dread of dying virtuously, endured a death joined with the utmost infamy. We ought, then, in the first place, to decree the greatest honours we are able to those that have taken off the tyrant, especially to Cherea Cassius: for this one man, with the assistance of the gods, hath, by his counsel and by his actions, been the procurer of our liberty. Nor ought we to forget him, now we have recovered our liberty, who, under the foregoing tyranny, took counsel beforehand, and hazarded himself for our liberty; but ought to decree him proper honours, and thereby freely declare

that he from the beginning acted with our approbation. And certainly it is a very excellent thing, and what becomes freemen, to requite their benefactors; as this man hath been a benefactor to us all though not at all like Cassius and Brutus, who slew Caius Julius Cæsar: for those men laid the foundations of sedition and civil wars in our city; but this man, together with his slaughter of the tyrant, hath set our city free from all those sad miseries which arose from the tyranny. 99%

This was the purport of Sentius's oration; which was received with pleasure by the senators, and by as many of the equestrian order as were present. And now one Trebellius Maximus rose up hastily, and took off Sentius's finger a ring, which had a stone with the image of Caius engraved on it; and which, in his zeal in speaking, and his earnestness in doing what he was about, as it was supposed, he had forgotten to take off himself. This sculpture was broken immediately. But as it was now far in the night, Cherea demanded of the consuls the watch-word; who gave him this word, Liberty. These facts were the subjects of admiration to themselves, and almost incredible: for it was a fhundred years since the democracy had been laid aside, when this giving the watch-word returned to the consuls. For before the city was subject to tyrants, they were the commanders of the soldiers but when Cherea had received that watch-word, he delivered it to those who were on the senate's side; which were four regiments, who esteemed the government without emperors to be preferable to tyranny: so these went away with their tribunes. The people also now departed, full of hope and of courage; as having recovered their former democracy, and be

* In this oration of Sentius Saturninus, we may see the great value virtuous men put upon public liberty, and the sad misery they underwent, while they were tyrannized over by such emperors as Caius. See Josephus's own short but pithy reflection, at the end of the chapter: "So difficult," says he, "it is for those to obtain the virtue that is necessary to a wise man, who have the absolute power to do what they please, without control."

+ Hence we learn, that, in the opinion of Saturninus, the sovereign authority of the consuls and senate had been taken away just 100 years before the death of Caius, A. D. 41. or on the sixtieth year before the Christian era, when the first triumvirate began, under Cæsar, Pompey, and Crassus.

ing no longer under an emperor: and Cherea was in very great esteem with them.

Now Cherea was very uneasy that Caius's daughter and wife were still alive, and that all his family did not perish with him; since whosoever was left of them must be left for the ruin of the city, and of the laws. In order to finish this matter, therefore, with the utmost zeal, and in order to satisfy his hatred against Caius, he sent Julius Lupus, one of the tribunes, to kill Caius's wife and daughter. They proposed this office to Lupus, as to a kinsman of Clement's; that he might be so far a partaker of this murder of the tyrant, and might rejoice in the virtue of having assisted his fellow-citizens; and that he might appear to have been a partaker with those that were first in their designs against him. Yet did this action appear to some of the conspirators to be too cruel, as to this using such severity to a woman; because Caius did more indulge his own ill nature, than use her advice in all that he did; from which ill nature it was that the city was in so desperate a condition with the miseries that were brought upon it. But others accused her of giving her consent to these things; nay, they ascribed all that Caius had done to her as the cause of it; and said she had given a potion to Caius, which had tied him down to love her by such evil methods: insomuch that she, having rendered him distracted, was become the author of all the mischiefs that had befallen the Romans, and that habitable world which was subject to them. So that at length it was determined that she must die: nor could those of the contrary opinion at all prevail to have her saved; and Lupus was sent accordingly. Nor was any delay made in executing what he went about; but he was subservient to those that sent him, on the first opportunity; as desirous to be no way blameable in what might be done for the advantage of the people. So when he was come into the palace, he found Cesonia, who was Caius's wife, lying by her husband's dead body; which also lay on the ground, and destitute of all such things as the law allows to the dead; and herself besmeared with the blood of her husband's wounds, and bewailing the great afflictions she was under; her daughter lying by her also. And nothing else was heard in these circumstances, but her complaint of Caius ·