who appeared to be accurate in the knowledge of the law. His name was Simon. This man got together an assembly, while the king was absent at Cesarea, and had the insolence to accuse him as not living holily, and that he might justly be excluded out of the temple, since it belonged only to native Jews. But the general of Agrippa's army informed him, that Simon had made such a speech to the people. So the king sent for him; and, as he was sitting in the theatre, he bade him sit down by him, and said to him with a low and gentle voice, 64 What is there done in this place that is contrary to law?" But he had nothing to say for himself, but begged his pardon. So the king was more easily reconciled to him than one could have imagined, as esteeming mildness a better quality in a king than anger, and knowing that moderation is more becoming in great men than passion. So he made Simon a small present, and dismissed him. 5. Now, as Agrippa was a great builder in many places, he paid a peculiar regard to the people of Berytus; for he erected a theatre for them, superior to any other of that sort, both in sumptuousness and elegance, as also an amphitheatre, built at vast expenses; and besides these, he built them baths and porticoes, and spared for no cost in any of his edifices to render them both handsome and large. He also spent a great deal upon their dedication, and exhibited shows among them, and brought thither musicians of all sorts, and such as made the most delightful music of the greatest variety. He also showed his magnificence upon the theatre, in his great number of gladiators; and there it was that he exhibited the several antagonists, in order to please the spectators; no fewer indeed than seven hundred men to fight with seven hundred other men,* and allotted all the malefactors he had for this exercise, that both the malefactors might receive their punishment, and that this operation of war might be a recreation in peace. And thus were these criminals all destroyed at once.

CHAP. VIII.

What other Acts were done by Agrippa until his Death; and after what manner he died.

§ 1. WHEN Agrippa had finished what I have above related at Berytus, he removed to Tiberius, a city of Galilee. Now he was in great esteem among other kings. Accordingly, there came to him Antiochus, king of Commagena, Sampsigeramus, king of Emesa, and Cotys, who was king of the Lesser Armenia, and Polemo, who was king of Pontus, as also Herod his brother, who was king of Chalcis. All these he treated with agreeable entertainments, and after an obliging manner, and so as to exhibit the greatness of his mind, and to appear worthy of those respects which the kings paid to him, by coming thus to see him. However, while these kings stayed with him, Marcus the president of Syria came thither. So the king, in order to preserve that respect that was due to the Romans, went out of the city to meet him, as far as seven furlongs. But this proved to be the beginning of a difference between him and Marcus; for he took with him in his chariot those other kings as his assessors. But Marcus had a suspicion what the meaning could be of so great a friendship of these kings one with another, and did not think so close an agreement of

• A strange number of condemned criminals to be under the sentence of death at once; no fewer, it seems than 1400.

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so many potentates to be for the benefit of the Romans. He therefore sent some of his domestics to every one of them, and enjoined them to go their ways home without further delay. This was very ill taken by Agrippa, who after that became his enemy. And now he took the high priesthood away from Matthias, and made Elioneus, the son of Cantheras, high priest in his stead.

2. Now, when Agrippa had reigned three years all over Judea, he came to the city Cesarea, which was formerly called Strato's Tower; and there he exhibited shows in honour of Cæsar, upon his being informed that there was a certain festival celebrated to make vows for his safety. At which festival a great multitude was gotten together of the principal persons, and such as were of dignity through his province. On the second day of which shows he put on a garment made wholly of silver, and of a contexture truly wonderful, and came into the theatre early in the morning; at which time the silver of his garment being illuminated by the fresh reflection of the sun's rays upon it, shone out after a surprising manner, and was so resplendent as to spread a horror over those that 66 he looked intently upon him; and presently his flatterers cried out, one from one place, and another from another, (though not for his good,) that was a god;" and they added, "Be thou merciful to us; for although we have hitherto reverenced thee only as a man, yet shall we henceforth own thee as superior to mortal nature." Upon this the king did neither rebuke them, nor reject their impious flattery. But as he presently afterwards looked up, he saw an owl* sitting on a certain rope over his head, and immediately understood that this bird was the messenger of ill tidings as it had once been the messenger of good tidings to him; and fell into the deepest sorrow. A severe pain also arose in his belly, and began in a most violent manner. He therefore looked upon his friends, and said, "I whom ye call a god, am commanded presently to depart this life; while Providence thus reproves the lying words you just now said to me; and I, who

We have a mighty cry made here by some critics, as if the great Eusebius had on purpose falsified this account of Josephus, so as to make it agree with the parallel account in the Acts of the Apostles; because the present copies of his citation of it, Hist. Eccles. b. ii. chap. x. omit the words boubona-epi schoinioutinos, i. e. ' an owl-on a certain rope,' which Josephus's present copies retain, and only have the explicatory word angelon, or angel; as if he meant that angel of the Lord which St. Luke mentions as smiting Herod, Acts xii. 23. and not that owl which Josephus called an angel or messenger, formerly of good, but now of bad news, to Agrippa. This accusation is a somewhat strange one in the case of the great Eusebius, who is known to have so accurately and faithfully produced a vast number of other ancient records, and par ticularly not a few out of our Josephus also, without any suspicion of prevarication. Now, not to allege how uncertain we are, whether Josephus's and Eusebius's copies of the fourth century were just like the present in this clause, which we have no distinct evidence of, the following words, preserved still in Eusebius, will not admit of any such exposition. This [bird] (says Eusebius) Agrippa presently perceived to be the 'cause of ill fortune,' as it was once of good fortune to him;" which can only belong to that bird, the owl, which, as it had formerly foreboded this happy deliverance from imprisonment, Antiq. b. xviii. chap. vi. § 7. so was it then foretold to prove afterward the unhappy forerunner of his death in five days' time. If the improper words signifying cause, be changed for Josephus's proper word angelon,' angel or messenger, and the foregoing words, 'boubona-epi schoinioutinos,' be inserted, Eusebius's text will truly represent that in Josephus. Had this imperfection been in some heathen author that was in good esteem with our modern critics, they would have readily corrected these as barely errors in the copies; but being in an ancient Christian writer, not so well relished by many of these critics, nothing will serve but the ill-grounded supposal of wilful corruption and prevarication,

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was by you called immortal, am immediately to be hurried away by death. But I am bourru to accept of what providence allots, as it pleases God; for we have by no means lived ill, but in a splendid and happy manner." When he had said this, his pain was become violent. Accordingly, he was carried into the palace, and the rumour went abroad every where, that he would certainly die in a little time. But the multitude presently sat in sackcloth, with their wives and children, after the law of their country, and ɔesought God for the king's recovery. All places were also full of mournng and lamentation. Now the king rested in a high chamber, and as he saw them below lying prostrate on the ground, he could not himself forbear weeping. And when he had been quite worn out by the pain in his belly for five days, he departed this life, being in the fifty-fourth year of his age, and in the seventh year of his reign; for he reigned four years under Caius Cæsar; three of them were over Philip's tetrarchy only, and on the fourth he had that of Herod added to it; and he reigned, beside those, three years under the reign of Claudius Cæsar. In which time he reigned over the forementioned countries, and also had Judea added to them, as well as Samaria and Cæsarea. The revenues that he received out of them were very great, no less than twelve millions of drachmæ.* Yet did he borrow great sums from others; for he was so very liberal that his expenses exceeded his income, and his generosity was boundless.†

3. But before the multitude were made acquainted with Agrippa's being expired, Herod the king of Chalcis, and Helcias the master of his horse, and the king's friend, sent Aristo, one of the king's most faithful servants, and slew Silas, who had been their enemy, as if it had been done by the king's own command.

CHAP. IX.

What things were done after the Death of Agrippa; and how Claudius, on account of the Youth and Unskilfulness of Agrippa junior, sent Cuspius Fadus to be Procurator of Judea, and of the entire Kingdom.

§ 1. AND thus did king Agrippa depart this life. But he left behind him a son, Agrippa by name, a youth in the seventeenth year of his age, and three daughters; one of whom, Bernice, was married to Herod his father's brother, and was sixteen years old; the other two, Mariamne and Drusilla, were still virgins; the former was ten years old, and Drusilla six. Now these his daughters were thus espoused by their father, Mariamne to Julius Archelaus Epiphanes, the son of Antiochus, the son of Chelcias, and Drusilla to the king of Commagena. But when it was known that Agrippa was departed this life, the inhabitants of Cesarea and of Sebaste forgot the kindnesses he had bestowed on them, and acted the part of the bitterest enemies for they cast such reproaches upon the deceased as were not fit

This sum of 12,000,000 drachmæ, which is equal to 3,000,000 shekels, i. e. at 2s. 10d. a shekel, equal to 425,000l. sterling, was Agrippa the Great's yearly income, or about three quarters of his grandfather Herod's income; he having abated the tax upon houses at Jerusalem, chap. vi. § 3. and was not so tyrannical as Herod had been to the Jews. See the note on Antiq. ú. xvii. chap. xi. § 4. A large sum this! but not, it seems, sufficient for his extravagant expenses.

+ Reland ta es notice here, not improperly, that Josephus omits the reconciliation of this Herod Agrippa to the Tyrians and Sidonians, by the means of Blastus, the king's chamberlain, mentioned Acts xii. 20. Nor is there any history in the world so complete, as to omit nothing that other historians take notice of, unless the one be taken out of the other, and accommodated to it.

to be spoken of; and so many of them as were then soldiers, which were a great number, went to his house, and hastily carried off the statues* of this king's daughters, and all at once carried them into the brothel-houses, and, when they had set them on the tops of those houses, they abused them to the utmost of their power, and did such things to them as are too indecent to be related. They also laid themselves down in public places and celebrated general feastings, with garlands on their heads, and with ointments and libations to Charon, and drinking to one another for joy that the king was expired. Nay, they were not only unmindful of Agrippa, who had extended his liberality to them in abundance, but of his grandfather Herod also, who had himself rebuilt their cities, and had raised them havens and temples at vast expenses.

2. Now Agrippa, the son of the deceased, was at Rome, and brought up with Claudius Cæsar. And when Cæsar was informed that Agrippa was dead, and that the inhabitants of Sebaste and Cesarea had abused him, he was sorry for the first news, and was displeased with the ingratitude of those cities. He was therefore disposed to send Agrippa junior away presently to succeed his father in the kingdom, and was willing to confirm him in it by his oath. But those freed men and friends of his, who had the greatest authority with him, dissuaded him from it, and said, that “it was a dangerous experiment to permit so large a kingdom to come under the government of so very young a man. and one hardly yet arrived at years of discretion, who would not be able to take sufficient care of its administration; while the weight of a kingdom is heavy enough to a grown man." So Cæsar thought what they said to be reasonable. Accordingly, he sent Cuspius Fadus to be procurator of Judea, and of the entire kingdom; and paid that respect to the deceased, as not to introduce Marcus, who had been at variance with him, into his kingdom. But he determined, in the first place, to send orders to Fadus, that he should chastise the inhabitants of Cesarea and Sebaste for those abuses they had offered to him that was deceased, and their madness towards his daughters that were still alive; and that he should remove that body of soldiers that were at Cesarea and Sebaste, with the five regiments, into Pontus, that they might do their military duty there, and that he should choose an equal number of soldiers out of the Roman legions that were in Syria, to supply their place. Yet were not those that had such orders actually removed; for by sending ambassadors to Claudius, they mollified him, and got leave to abide in Judea still; and these were the very men that became the source of very great calamities to the Jews in after times, and sowed the seeds of that war which began under Florus; whence it was, that when Vespasian had subdued the country, he removed them out of his province, as we shall relate hereafter.†

Photius, who made an extract out of this section, says, they were not the statues or images, but the ladies themselves, who were thus basely abused by the soldiers. Cod. ccxxxviii.

This history is now wanting.

BOOK XX.

CONTAINING THE INTERVAL OF TWENTY-TWO YEARS.-FROM FADUS THE PROCURATOR, TO FLORUS.

CHAP. I.

A Sedition of the Philadelphians against the Jews; and also concerning the Vestments of the High Priest.

§ 1. UPON the death of king Agrippa, which we have related in the foregoing book, Claudius Cæsar sent Cassius Longinus as successor to Marcus, out of regard to the memory of king Agrippa, who had often desired of him by letters, while he was alive, that he would not suffer Marcus to be any longer president of Syria. But Fadus, as soon as he was come procurator into Judea, found quarrelsome doings between the Jews that dwelt in Perea, and the people of Philadelphia, about their borders, at a village called Mia, that was filled with men of a warlike temper; for the Jews of Perea had taken up arms without the consent of their principal men, and had destroyed many of the Philadelphians. When Fadus was informed of this procedure, it provoked him very much that they had not left the determination of the matter to him, if they thought that the Philadelphians had done them any wrong, but had rashly taken up arms against them. So he seized upon three of their principal men, who were also the causes of this sedition, and ordered them to be bound, and afterward had one of them slain, whose name was Hannibal, and he banished the other two, Amram and Eleazar. Tholomy also, the arch robber, was, after some time, brought to him bound, and slain, but not till he had done a world of mischief to Idumea and the Arabians. And indeed, from that time, Judea was cleared of robberies by the care and providence of Fadus. He also at this time sent for the high priests and the principal citizens of Jerusalem, and this at the command of the emperor, and admonished them, that they should lay up the long garment, and the sacred vestment, which it is customary for nobody but the high priest to wear, in the tower of Antonia, that it might be under the power of the Romans, as it had been formerly. Now the Jews durst not contradict what he had said, but desired Fadus, however, and Longinus, (which last was come to Jerusalem, and had brought a great army with him, out of a fear that the [rigid] injunctions of Fadus should force the Jews to rebel,) that they might, in the first place, have leve to send ambassadors to Caesar, to petition him that they may have the holy vestments under their own power, and that, in the next place, they would tarry till they knew what answer Claudius would give to that their request. So they replied, that they would give them leave to send their ambassadors, provided they would give them their sons as pledges [for their peaceable behaviour.] And when they had agreed so to do, and had given them the pledges they desired, the ambassadors were sent accordingly. But when, upon their coming to Rome, Agrippa junior, the son of the de ceased, understood the reason why they came, (for he dwelt with Claudius Cæsar, as we said before.) he besought Cæsar to grant the Jews their request about the holy vestment, and to send a message to Fadus accordingly.

2. Hereupon Claudius called for the ambassadors, and told them, that "he granted their request;" and bade them to return their thanks to