the detriment of others. The inclination of the king was of great weight also, and still excited Agrippa, who was himself ready to do good; for he made a reconciliation between the people of Ilium, at whom he was angry, and paid what money the people of Chius owed Cæsar's procurators, and discharged them of their tributes; and helped all others according as their several necessities required.

3. But now, when Agrippa and Herod were in Ionia, a great multitude of Jews, who dwelt in their cities, came to them, and laying hold of the opportunity and the liberty now given them, laid before them the injuries which they suffered; while they were not permitted to use their own laws; but were compelled to prosecute their law-suits, by the ill usage of the judges, upon their holy days; and were deprived of the money they used to lay up at Jerusalem; and were forced into the army, and upon such other offices as obliged them to spend their sacred money: from which burdens they always used to be freed by the Romans, who had still permitted them to live according to their own laws. When this clamour was made, the king desired of Agrippa that he would hear their cause, and assigned Nicolaus, one of his friends, to plead for those their privileges. Accordingly, when Agrippa had called the principal of the Romans, and such of the kings and rulers as were there, to be his assessors, Nicolaus stood up, and pleaded for the Jews, as follows: "It is of necessity incumbent on such as are in distress to have recourse to those that have it in their power to free them from those injuries they lie under; and for those that now are complainants, they approach you with great assurance; for as they have formerly often obtained your favour, so far as they have even wished to have it, they now only entreat that you who have been the donors, will take care that those favours you have already granted them may not be taken away from them. We have received these favours from you, who alone have power to grant them; but have them taken from us by such as are no greater than ourselves, and by such as we know are as much subjects as we are: and certainly, if we have been vouchsafed great favours, it is to our commendation, who have obtained them, as having been found deserving of such great favours; and if those favours be but small ones, it would be barbarous for the donors not to confirm them to us: and for those that are the hinderance of the Jews, and use them reproachfully, it is evident that they affront both the receivers, while they will not allow those to be worthy men to whom their excellent rulers themselves have borne their testimony; and the donors, while they desire those favours already granted may be abrogated. Now, if any one

should ask these Gentiles themselves, which of the two things they would choose to part with, their lives, or the customs of their forefathers; their solemnities, their sacrifices, their festivals, which they celebrated in honour of those they suppose to be gods? I know very well that they would choose to suffer any thing whatsoever rather than a dissolution of any of the customs of their forefathers; for a great many of them have rather chosen to go to war on that account, as very solicitous not to transgress in those matters: and indeed we take an estimate of that happiness which all mankind do now enjoy by your means from this very thing; that we are allowed every one to worship as our own institutions require, and yet to live [in peace]: and although they would not be thus treated themselves, yet do they endeavour to compel others to comply with them; as if it were not as great an instance of impiety profanely to dissolve the religious solemnities of any others, as to be negligent in the observation of their own toward their gods. And let us now consider the one of these practices: Is there any people, or city, or community of men, to whom your government and the Roman power does not appear to be the greatest blessing? Is there any one that can desire to make void the favours they have granted? No one is certainly so mad; for there are no men but such as have been partakers of their favours, both public and private; and indeed those that take away what you have granted can have no assurance; but every one of their own grants made them by you may be taken from them also; which grants of yours can yet never be sufficiently valued; for if they consider the old government under kings, together with your present government, besides the great number of benefits which this government hath bestowed on them, in order to their happiness, this is instead of all the rest, that they appear to be no longer in a state of slavery but of freedom. Now the privileges we desire, even when we are in the best circumstances, are not such as deserve to be envied; for we are indeed in a prosperous state by your means, but this is only in common with others; and it is no more than this which we desire, to preserve our religion without any prohibition; which as it appears not in itself a privilege to be envied us, so it is for the advantage of those that grant it to us for if the divinity delights in being honoured, it must delight in those that permit them to be honoured: and there are none of our customs which are inhuman; but all tending to piety, and devoted to the preservation of justice: nor do we conceal those injunctions of ours, by which we govern our lives; they being memorials of piety, and of a friendly conversation among men.

And the seventh day* we set apart for labour; it is dedicated to the learning of our customs and laws; we thinking it proper to reflect on them, as well as on any [good] thing else, in order to our avoiding of sin. If any one therefore examine into our observances, he will find they are good in themselves, and that they are ancient also, though some think otherwise; insomuch that those who have received them cannot easily be brought to depart from them, out of that honour they pay to the length of time they have religiously enjoyed them and observed them. Now our adversaries take these our privileges away in the way of injustice: they violently seize upon that money of ours which is offered to God, and called sacred money; and this openly, after a sacrilegious manner: and they impose tributes upon us; and bring us before tribunals on holy days; and then require other like debts of us: not because the contracts require it, and for their own advantage; but because they would put an affront on our religion, of which they are conscious as well as we; and have indulged themselves in an unjust, and, to them, involuntary hatred. For your government over all is one tending to the establishing of benevolence, and abolishing of ill-will among such as are disposed to it. This is therefore what we implore from the most excellent Agrippa, that we may not be ill treated; that we may not be abused; that we may not be hindered from making use of our own customs; nor be despoiled of our goods; nor be forced by these men to do what we ourselves force nobody to do; for these privileges of ours are not only according to justice, but have formerly been granted us by you: and we are able to read to you many decrees of the senate, and the tables that contain them; which are still extant in the Capitol, concerning these things, which it is evident were granted after you had experience of our fidelity towards you, which ought to be valued, though no such fidelity had been; for you have hitherto preserved what people were in possession of, not to us only, but almost to all men; and have added greater advantages than they could have hoped for, and thereby your government is become a great advantage to them. And if any one were able to enumerate the prosperity you have conferred on every nation, which they possess by your means, he could never put an end to his discourse; but that we may demonstrate that we are not unworthy of all those advantages we have obtained, it will be

* We may here observe the ancient practice of the Jews, of dedicating the Sabbath-day not to idleness, but to the learning their sacred rites and religious customs, and to the meditation on the law of Moses. The like to which we meet with elsewhere in Josephus also, against Appion, B. i.

sect. 22.

sufficient for us to say nothing of other things, but to speak freely of this king who now governs us, and is now one of thy assessors and indeed in what instance of good will, as to your house, hath he been deficient? What mark of fidelity to it hath he omitted? What token of honour hath he not devised? What occasion for his assistance of you hath he not regarded at the very first? What hindereth, therefore, but that your kindness may be as numerous as his so great benefits to you have been? It may also, perhaps, be fit not here to pass over in silence the valour of his father Antipater, who, when Cæsar made an expedition into Egypt, assisted him with two thousand armed men, and proved inferior to none, neither in the battles on land, nor in the management of the navy; and what need I say any thing of how great weight those soldiers were at that juncture? or how many, and how great presents they were vouchsafed by Cæsar? And truly I ought before now to have mentioned the epistles which Cæsar wrote to the senate; and how Antipater had honours, and the freedom of the city of Rome bestowed upon him; for these are demonstrations both that we have received these favours by our own deserts, and do on that account petition thee for thy confirmation of them, from whom we had reason to hope for them, though they had not been given us before, both out of regard to our king's disposition towards you, and your disposition towards him. And farther, we have been informed by those Jews that were there, with what kindness thou came into our country, and how thou offered the most perfect sacrifices to God, and honoured him with remarkable vows, and how thou gave the people a feast, and accepted of their own hospitable presents to thee. We ought to esteem all these kind entertainments, made both by our nation and our city, to a man who is the ruler and manager of so much of the public affairs, as indications of that friendship which thou hast returned to the Jewish nation, and which hath been procured them by the family of Herod. So we put thee in mind of these things in the presence of the king, now sitting by thee, and make our request for no more but this, that what you have given us yourselves you will not see taken away by others from us.

5. When Nicolaus had made this speech, there was no opposition made to it by the Greeks, for this was not an inquiry made, as in a court of justice, but an intercession to prevent violence to be offered to the Jews any longer; nor did the Greeks make any defence of themselves, or deny what it was supposed they had done. Their pretence was no more than this, that while the Jews inhabited in their country they were entirely unjust to them [in not joining in

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their worship]; but they demonstrated their generosity in this, that though they worshiped according to their own institutions, they did nothing that ought to grieve them. So when Agrippa perceived that they had been oppressed by violence, he made this answer; "That on account of Herod's good will and friendship, he was ready to grant the Jews whatso ever they should ask him, and that their requests seemed to him in themselves just; and that if they requested any thing farther, he should not scruple to grant it them, provided they were no way to the detriment of the Roman government; but that, while their request was no more than this, that what privileges they had already given them might not be abrogated; he confirmed this to them that they might continue in the observation of their own customs, without any one's offering them the least injury." And when he had said thus, he dissolved the assembly: upon which Herod stood up and saluted him, and gave him thanks for the kind disposition he showed to them. Agrippa also took this in a very obliging manner, and saluted him again, and embraced him in his arms; after which he went away from Lesbos, but the king determined to sail from Samos to his own country; and when he had taken his leave of Agrippa, he pursued his voyage, and landed at Cesarea in a few days time, as having favourable winds; from whence he went to Jerusalem, and there gathered all the people together to an assembly, not a few being there out of the country also. So he came to them, and gave them a particular account of all his journey, and of the affairs of all the Jews in Asia, how by his means they would live without injurious treatment for the time to come. He also told them of the entire good fortune he had met with, and how he had administered the government, and had not neglected any thing which was for their advantage; and as he was very joyful, he now remitted to them the fourth part of their taxes for the last year. Accordingly, they were so pleased with his favour and speech to them, that they went their ways with great gladness, and wished the king all manner of happiness.

CHAP. HI.

How great Disturbances arose in Herod's Family on his preferring Antipater, his eldest Son, before the Rest, till Alexander took that Injury very heinously.

§ 1. BUT now the affairs in Herod's family were in more and more disorder, and became more severe upon him, by the hatred of Salome to the young men [Alexander and Aristobulus], which descended as it were by inheritance