Page images
PDF
EPUB

mans at Emmaus, who were bringing corn and weapons to the army, and fell upon Arius, the centurion, who commanded the company, and shot forty of the best of his foot soldiers; but the rest of them were affrighted at their slaughter, aud left their dead behind them, but saved themselves by means of Gratus, who came with the king's troops that were about him to their assistance. Now these four brethren continued the war a long while by such sort of expeditions, and much grieved the Romans; but did their own nation also a great deal of mischief. Yet were they afterward subdued; one of them in a fight with Gratus, another with Ptolemy; Archelaus also took the eldest of them prisoner; while the last of them was so dejected at the other's misfortune, and saw so plainly that he had no way now left to save himself, his army being worn away with sickness and continual labours, that he also delivered himself up to Archelaus, upon his promise and oath to God [to preserve his life]. But these things came to pass a good while afterward.

8. And now Judea was full of robberies; and, as the several companies of the seditious light upon any one to head them, he was created a king immediately, in order to do mischief to the public. They were in some small measure indeed, and in small matters, hurtful to the Romans; but the murders they committed upon their own people lasted a long while.

9. As soon as Varus was once informed of the state of Judea by Sabinus's writing to him, he was afraid for the legion he had left there; so he took the two other legions, (for there were three legions in all belonging to Syria,) and four troops of horsemen, with the several auxiliary forces which either the kings or certain of the tetrarchs afforded him, and made what haste he could to assist those that were then besieged in Judea. He also gave order, that all that were sent out for this expedition, should make haste to Ptolemais. The citizens of Berytus also gave him 1500 auxiliaries, as he passed through their city. Aretus also, the king of Arabia Petrea, out of his hatred to Herod, and in order to purchase the fayour of the Romans, sent him no small assistance, besides their footmen and horsemen : and, when he had now collected all his forces together, he committed part of them to his son, and to a friend of his, and sent them upon an expedition into Galilee, which lies in the neighbourhood of Ptolemais; who made an attack upon the enemy, and put them to flight, and took Sepphoris, and made its inhabitants slaves, and burnt the city. But Varus himself pursued his march for Samaria with his whole army: yet did not he meddle with the city of that name, because it had not at all joined with the sedi

tious; but pitched his camp at a certain village that belonged to Ptolemy, whose name was Arus, which the Arabians burnt, out of their hatred to Herod, and out of the enmity they bore to his friends; whence they marched to another village, whose name was Sampho, which the Arabians plundered and burnt, although it was a fortified and a strong place; and all along this march nothing escaped them, but all places were full of fire and of slaughter. Emmaus was also burnt by Varus's order, after its inhabitants had deserted it, that he might avenge those that had there been destroyed. From thence he now marched to Jerusalem; whereupon those Jews whose camp lay there, and who had besieged the Roman legion, not bearing the coming of this army, left the siege imperfect : But as to the Jerusalem-Jews, when Varus reproached them bitterly for what had been done, they cleared themselves of the accusation, and alleged, that the conflux of the people was occasioned by the feast; that the war was not made with their approbation, but the rashness of the strangers, while they were on the side of the Romans, and besieged together with them, rather than having any inclination to besiege them. There also came before-hand to meet Varus, Joseph, the cousin-german of king Herod, as also Gratus and Rufus, who brought their soldiers along with them, together with those Romans who had been besieged: but Sabinus did not come into Varus's presence, but stole out of the city privately, and went to the sea-side.

10. Upon this Varus sent a part of his army into the country, to seek out those that had been the authors of the revolt; and when they were discovered, he punished some of them that were most guilty, and some he dismissed: now the number of those that were crucified on this account, were two thousand. After which he disbanded his army, which he found noways useful to him in the affairs he came about; for they behaved themselves very disorderly, and disobeyed his orders, and what Varus desired them to do, and this out of regard to that gain which they made by the mischief they did. As for himself, when he was informed that ten thousand Jews had gotten together, he made haste to catch them; but they did not proceed so far as to fight him, but, by the advice of Achiabus, they came together, and delivered themselves up to him; hereupon Varus forgave the crime of revolting to the multitude, but sent their several commanders to Cæsar, many of whom Cæsar dismissed; but for the several relations of Herod who had been among these men in this war, they were the only persons whom he punished, who, without the least regard to justice, fought against their own kindred.

CHAP. XI.

An ambassage of the Jews to Caesar; and how Cæsar confirmed Herod's testament.

*

1. So when Varus had settled these affairs, and had placed the former legion at Jerusalem, he returned back to Antioch ; but as for Archelaus, he had new sources of trouble came upon him at Rome, on the occasions following: for an ambassage of the Jews was come to Rome, Varus having permitted the nation to send it, that they might petition for the liberty of living by their own laws. Now the number of the ambassadors that were sent by the authority of the nation was fifty, to which they joined above eight thousand of the Jews that were at Rome already. Hereupon Cæsar assembled his friends, and the chief men among the Romans in the temple of Apollo,† which he had built at a vast charge; whither the ambassadors came, and a multitude of the Jews that were there already, came with them, as did also Archelaus and his friends; but as for the several kinsmen which Archelaus had, they would not join themselves with him, out of their hatred to him; and yet they thought it too gross a thing for them to assist the ambassadors [against him], as supposing it would be a disgrace to them in Cæsar's opinion to think of thus acting in opposition to a man of their own kindred. Philip also was come hither out of Syria, by the persuasion of Varus, with this principal intention to assist his brother [Archelaus]; for Varus was his great friend; but still so, that if there should any change happen in the form of government (which Varus suspected there would,) and if any distribution should be made on account of the number that desired the liberty of living by their own laws, that he might not be disappointed, but might have his share in it.

2. Now, upon the liberty that was given to the Jewish ambassadors to speak, they who hoped to obtain a dissolution of kingly government betook themselves to accuse Herod of his iniquities; and they declared, "That he was indeed in name "aking, but that he had taken to himself that uncontroulable "authority which tyrants exercise over their subjects, and “had made use of that authority for the destruction of the "Jews, and did not abstain from making many innovations "among them besides, according to his own inclinations; and "that whereas there were a great many who perished by

* See of the War, B. II. ch. ii. sect. 3. Vol. III.

+ See the note, Of the War, B. II. ch. vi. sect. 1. Vol. III. He was tetrarch afterward.

"that destruction he brought upon them, so many indeed as 66 no other history relates, they that survived were far more "miserable than those that suffered under him, not only by "the anxiety they were in from his looks and disposition to"wards them, but from the danger, their estates were in of "being taken away by him. That he did never leave off "adorning those cities that lay in their neighbourhood, but "were inhabited by foreigners; but so that the cities be"longing to his own government were ruined, and utterly "destroyed that whereas, when he took the kingdom, it was "in an extraordinary flourishing condition, he had filled the "nation with the utmost degree of poverty; and when, upon "unjust pretences, he had slain any of the nobility, he "took away their estates; and when he permitted any of "them to live, he condemned them to the forfeiture of what "they possessed. And besides the annual impositions which "he laid upon every one of them, they were to make "liberal presents to himself, to his domestics and friends, "and to such of his slaves as were vouchsafed the favour "of being his tax-gatherers; because there was no way "of obtaining a freedom from unjust violence, without

giving either gold or silver for it. That they would say "nothing of the corruption of the chastity of their virgins, "and the reproach laid on their wives for incontinency, and "those things acted after an insolent and inhuman manner;

66

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

:

because it was not a smaller pleasure to the sufferers to "have such things concealed, than it would have been not to have suffered them. That Herod had put such abuses upon them as a wild beast would not have put on them, if "he had power given him to rule over us; and that although "their nation had passed through many subversions and alterations of government, their history gave no account of any calamity they had ever been under, that could be compared with this which Herod had brought upon their na❝tion that it was for this reason, that they thought they "might justly and gladly salute Archelaus as king, upon this supposition, that whosoever should be set over their kingdom, he would appear more mild to them than Herod had "been: and that they had joined with him in the mourning "for his father, in order to gratify him, and were ready to oblige him in other points also, if they could meet with any degree of moderation from him; but that he seemed be afraid lest he should not be deemed Herod's own son; and so, without any delay, and immediately, he let the nation understand his meaning, and this before his dominion was well established, since the power of disposing of it belonging to Cæsar, who could either give it to him, or not,

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

66

46

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

66

to

66 as he pleased. That he had given him a specimen of his "future virtue to his subjects, and with what kind of mode"ration and good administration he would govern them, by "that his first action which concerned them, his own citi"zens, and God himself also, when he made the slaughter of "three thousand of his own countrymen at the temple. How "then could they avoid the just hatred of him, who, to the "rest of his barbarity, hath added this as one of our crimes, "that we have opposed and contradicted him in the exer"cise of his authority" Now the main thing they desired was this, "That they might be delivered from kingly and "the like forms of government, and might be added to Syria, and be put under the authority of such presidents of "theirs as should be sent to them; for that it would thereby "be made evident, whether they be really a seditious peo"ple, and generally fond of innovations, or whether they "would live in an orderly manner, if they might have governors of any sort of moderation set over them."

66

[ocr errors]

3. Now when the Jews had said this, Nicolaus vindicated the kings from those accusations, and said, That "as for "Herod, since he had never been thus accused + all the time "of his life, it was not fit for those that might have accused "him for lesser crimes than those now mentioned, and "might have procured him to be punished during his life"time, to bring an accusation against him now he is dead. "He also attributed the actions of Archelaus to the Jews' in"juries to him, who affecting to govern contrary to the laws, "and going about to kill those that would have hindered "them from acting unjustly, when they were by him punish"ed for what they had done, made their complaints against "him; so he accused them of their attempts for innovation, "and of the pleasure they took in sedition, by reason of "their not having learned to submit to justice, and to the

* If any one compare that divine prediction concerning the tyrannical power which Jewish kings would exercise over them, if they would be so foolish as to prefer it before their ancient theocracy or aristocracy, 1 Sam. viii. 1-22. Antiq. B. VI. ch. iv. sect. 4. Vol. I. he will soon find that it was super-abundantly fulfilled in the days of Herod, and that to such a degree, that the nation now at last seem sorely to repent of such their ancient choice, in opposition to God's better choice for them, and had much rather be subject to even a Pagan Roman government, and their deputies, than to be any longer under the oppression of the family of Herod; which request of theirs Augustus did not now grant them, but did it for the one-half of that nation in a few years afterward, upon fresh complaints made by the Jews against Archelaus, who, under the more humble name of an ethnarch, which Augustus only would now allow him, soon took upon him the insolence and tyranny of his father king Herod, as the remaining part of this book will inform us, and particularly chap. xiii. sect. 2.

+ This is not true. See Antiq. B. XIV. ch. ix. sect. 3. 4. and. ch. xii. sect. 2, and ch. xiii. sect. 1. 2. Antiq. B. XV. ch. iii. sect. 5. and chap. x. sect. 2. 3.. Antiq. B. XVI. ch. ix. sect. 3. Vol. II.

« PreviousContinue »