CHAP. VIII.

How Herod took up Alexander, and bound him; whom yet Archelaus, king of Cappadocia, reconciled to his father Herod again.

1. BUT still the affairs of Herod's family were no better, but perpetually more troublesome. Now this accident happened which arose from no decent occasion, but proceeded so far as to bring great difficulties upon him. There were certain eunuchs which the king had, and on account of their beauty was very fond of them; and the care of bringing him drink was entrusted to one of them, of bringing him his supper to another, and of putting him to bed to the third, who also managed the principal- affairs of the government and there was one told the king that these eunuchs were corrupted by Alexander, the king's son, with great sums of money: and when they were asked, whether Alexander had criminal conversation with them, they confessed it, but said they knew of no farther mischief of his against his father; but when they were more severely tortured, and were in the utmost extremity, and the tormentors, out of compliance with Antipater, stretched the rack to the very utmost, they said, that Alexander bare great ill-will and innate hatred to his father; and that he told them, that Herod despaired to live much longer; and that in order to cover his great age, he coloured his hair black, and endeavoured to conceal what would discover how old he was; but that if he would apply himself to him, when he should attain the kingdom, which in spite of his father, could come to no one else, he should quickly have the first place in that kingdom under him, for that he was now ready to take the kingdom, not only as his birth-right, but by the preparations he had made for obtaining it, because a great many of the rulers, and a great many of his friends, were of his side, and those no ill men neither, ready both to do and to suffer whatsoever should come on that account.

2. When Herod heard this confession, he was all over anger and fear, some parts seeming to him reproachful, and some made him suspicious of dangers that attended him, insomuch that on both accounts he was provoked, and bitterly afraid lest some more heavy plot was laid against him than he should be then able to escape from; whereupon he

did not now make an open search, but sent about spies to watch such as he suspected, for he was now overrun with suspicion and hatred against all about him; and indulging abundance of those suspicions, in order to his preservation, he continued to suspect those that were guiltless: nor did he set any bounds to himself; but supposing that those who staid with him had the most power to hurt him, they were to him very frightful; and for those that did not use to come to him, it seemed enough to name them [to make them suspected,] and he thought himself safer when they were destroyed and at last his domestics were come to that pass, that being no way secure of escaping themselves, they fell to accusing one another, and imagining that he who first accused another was most likely to save himself; yet when any had overthrown others, they were hated, and they were thought to suffer justly, who-unjustly accused others, and they only thereby prevented their own accusation; nay, they now executed their own private enmities by this means, and when they were caught they were punished in the same way. Thus these men contrived to make use of this opportunity as an instrument and a snare against theirenemies; yet, when they tried it, were themselves caught also in the same snare which they laid for others: and the king soon repented of what he had done, because he had no clear evidence of the guilt of those whom he had slain; and yet what was still more severe in him, he did not make use of his repentance in order to leave off doing the like again, but in order to inflict the same punishment upon their accusers.

3. And in this state of disorders were the affairs of the palace: and he had already told many of his friends directly, that they ought not to appear before him, nor come into the palace; and the reason of this injunction was, that [when they were there] he had less freedom of acting, or a greater restraint on himself on their account: for at this time it was that he expelled Andromachus and Gemellus, men who had of old been his friends, and been very useful to him in the affairs of his kingdom, and been of advantage to his family by their embassages and counsels; and had been tutors to his sons, and had in a manner the first degree of freedom with him. He expelled Andromachus, because his son Demetrius was a companion to Alexander; and Gemellus, because he knew that he wished him well, which arose from his having been with him in his youth, when he was at school, and

saw Alexander in bonds, she beat her head, and, in a great consternation, gave a deep and a moving groan. The young man also fell into tears. This was so miserable a spectacle to those present that, for a great while, they were not able to say or to do any thing; but at length Ptolemy, who was ordered to bring Alexander, bid him say, whether his wife were conscious of his actions: he replied, "How is it possible that she, whom I love better than my own soul, and by whom I have had children, should not know what I do ?" Upon which she cried out, that "she knew of no wicked designs of his; but that yet if her accusing herself falsely would tend to his preservation, she would confess it all." Alexander replied, "There is no such wickedness as those (who ought the least of all so to do,) suspect, which either I have imagined, or thou knowest of, but this only, that we had resolved to retire to Archelaus, and from thence to Rome." Which she also confessed upon which Herod, supposing that Archelaus's ill-will to him was fully proved, sent a letter by Olympus and Volumnius, and bid them, as they sailed by, to touch at Eleusa, of Cilicia, and give Archelaus the letter. And that when they had expostulated with him, that he had a hand in his son's treacherous design against him, they should from thence sail to Rome; and that, in case they found Nicolaus had gained any ground, and that Caesar was no longer displeased at him, he should give him his letters, and the proofs which he had ready, to show against the young men. As to Archelaus, he made this defence for himself, that he had promised to receive the young men, because it was both for their own and their father's advantage so to do, lest some too severe procedure should be gone upon in that anger and disorder they were in on occasion of the present suspicions; but that still he had not promised to send them to Caesar; and that he had not promised any thing else to the young men that could show any ill-will to him."

8. When these ambassadors were come to Rome, they had a fit opportunity of delivering their letters to Caesar, because they found him reconciled to Herod: for the circumstances of Nicolaus's embassage had been as follows: as soon as he was come to Rome, and was about the court, he did not first of all set about what he was come for only, but he thought fit also to accuse Sylleus. Now the Arabians, even before he came to talk with them, were quarrelling one with

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another; and some of them left Sylleus's party, and joining themselves to Nicolaus, informed him of all the wicked things that had been done; and produced to him evident demonstrations of the slaughter of a great number of Obodas's friends by Sylleus; for when these men left Sylleus, they had carried off with them those letters whereby they could convict him. When Nicolaus saw such an opportunity afforded him, he made use of it, in order to gain his own point afterward, and endeavoured immediately to make a reconciliation between Caesar and Herod; for he was fully satisfied, that if he should desire to make a defence for Herod directly, he should not be allowed that liberty; but that if he desired to accuse Sylleus, there would an occasion present itself of speaking on Herod's behalf. So when the cause was ready for a hearing, and the day was appointed, Nicolaus, while Aretas's ambassadors were present, accused Sylleus, and said that "he imputed to him the destruction of the king [Obodas,] and of many others of the Arabians: that he had borrowed money for no good design: and he proved that he had been guilty of adultery, not only with the Ara bians, but Roman women also." And he added, that "above all the rest he had alienated Caesar from Herod; and that all that he had said about the actions of Herod were falsities." When Nicolaus was come to this topic, Caesar stopped him from going on, and desired him only to speak to this affair of Herod's, and to show that "he had not led an army into Arabia, nor slain two thousand five hundred men there, nor taken prisoners, nor pillaged the country." To which Nicolaus made this answer: "I shall principally demonstrate, that either nothing at all, or but a very little of those imputations are true, of which thou hast been informed; for had they been true, thou mightest justly have.been still more angry at Herod." At this strange assertion, Caesar was very attentive; and Nicolaus said, that "there was a debt due to Herod of five hundred talents, and a bond wherein it was written, that if the time appointed be elapsed, it should be lawful to make a seizure out of any part of his country. As for the pretended army, he said it was no army, but a party sent out to require the just payment of the money: that it was not sent immédiately, nor so soon as the bond allowed, but that Sylleus had frequently come before Saturninus and Volumnius, the presidents of Syria; and

that at last he had sworn at Berytus, * by the fortune of Caesar, that he would certainly pay the money within thirty days, and deliver up the fugitives that were under his dominion. And that when Sylleus had performed nothing of this, Herod came again before the presidents; and upon their permission to make a seizure for his money, he with difficulty went out of his country with a party of soldiers for that purpose. And this is all the war which these men so tragically describe; and this is the affair of the expedition into Arabia. And how can this be called a war, when thy. presidents permitted it? the covenants allowed it; and it was not executed till thy name, O Caesar, as well as that of the other gods had been profaned. And now I must speak in order about the captives. There were robbers that dwelt in Trachonites: at first their number was no more than forty, but they became more afterwards, and they escaped the punishment Herod would have inflicted on them, by making Arabia their refuge. Sylleus received them, and supported them with food, that they might be mischievous to all manHind, and gave them a country to inhabit, and himself received the gains they made by robbery; yet did he promise that he would deliver up these men, and that by the same baths, and by the same time that he sware and fixed for payment of his debt: nor can he by any means show that any other persons have at this time been taken out of Arabia besides these, and indeed not all these neither, but only so many as could not conceal themselves. And thus does the calumny of the captives, which hath been so odiously represented, appear to be no better than a fiction and lie, made on purpose to provoke thy indignation: for I venture to affirm, that when the forces of the Arabians came upon us, and one or two of Herod's party fell, he then only defended himself, and there fell Nacebus their general, and, in all, about twenty-five others, and no more; whence Sylleus, by multiplying every single soldier to an hundred, reckons the slain to have been two thousand five hundred."

7. This provoked Caesar more than ever: so he turned to Sylleus full of rage, and asked him, how many of the Arabians were slain. Hereupon he hesitated, and said he had

*This oath, by the fortune of Caesar, was put to Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, by the Roman governor, to try whether he were a Christian, as they were then esteemed who refused to swear that oath. Martyr. Polycarp, § 9.