reported, that when Aretas heard of the coming of Vitellius to fight him, he said, upon his consulting the diviners, that it was impossible that this army of Vitellius's could enter Petra; for that one of the rulers would die, either be that gave orders for the war, or he that was marching at the other's desire, in order to be subservient to his will, or else he against whom this army was prepared. So Vitellius truly retired to Antioch; but Agrippa the son of Aristobulus, went up to Rome a year before the death of Tiberius, in order to treat of some affairs with the emperor, if he might be permitted so to do. I have now a mind to describe Herod and his family, how it fared with them, partly because it is suitable to this history, to speak of that matter, and partly because this thing is a demonstration of the interposition of Providence, how a multitude of children is of no advantage, no more than any other strength that mankind set their hearts upon, besides those acts of piety which are done towards God: for it happened, that, within the revolution of an hundred years, the posterity of Herod, which were a great many in number, were, excepting a few, utterly destroyed. One may well apply this for the instruction of mankind, and learn thence how unhappy they were; it will also shew us the history of Agrippa, who, as he was a person most worthy of admiration, so was he from a private man, beyond all the expectation of those that knew him, advanced to great power and authority. I have said something of them formerly, but I shall now also speak accurately about them.

4. Herod the Great had two daughters by Mariamne, the [grand] daughter of Hyrcanus; the one was Salampsio, who was married to Phasaelus her first cousin, who was himself the son of Phasaelus, Herod's brother, her father making the match; the other was Cypros, who was herself married also to her first cousin Antipater, the son of Salome, Herod's sister. Phasaelus had five children by Salampsio, Antipater, Herod, and Alexander, and two daughters, Alexandra and Cypros, which last Agrippa, the son of Aristobulus, married, and Timius of Cyprus married Alexandra; he was a man of note, but bad by her no children. Agrippa had by Cypros two sons and three daughters, which daughters were named, Bernice, Marianne, and Drusilla; but the names of the sons were Agrippa and Drusus, of which Drusus died before he came to the years of puberty; but their father Agrippa was

* Whether this sudden extinction of almost the entire lineage of Herod the Great, which was very numerous, as we are both here and in the next section informed, was not in part as a punishment for the gross incests they were frequently guilty of, in marrying their own nephews and nieces, well deserves to be considered. See Levit. xviii. 6, 7. xxi. 10. and Noldius, De Herod, No. 269, 270,

brought up with his other brethren, Herod and Aristobulus, for these were also the sons of the son of Herod the Great, by Bernice; but Bernice was the daughter of Costobarus and of Salome, who was Herod's sister. Aristobulus left these infants, when he was slain by his father, together with his brother Alexander, as we have already related. But when they were arrived at years of puberty, this Herod, the brother of Agrippa, married Mariamne, the daughter of Olympias, who was the daughter of Herod the king, and of Joseph, the son of Joseph who was brother to Herod the king, and had by her a son, Aristobulus; but Aristobulus, the third brother of Agrippa, married Jotape, the daughter of Sampsigeramus, king of Emesa; they had a daughter who was deaf, whose name also was Jotape; and these hitherto were the children of the male line. But Herodias, their sister, was married to Herod [Philip], the son of Herod the Great, who was born of Mariamne, the daughter of Simon the highpriest, who had a daughter Salome; after whose birth Herodias took upon her to confound the laws of our country, and divorced herself from her husband while he was alive, and was married to Herod [Antipas]], her husband's brother by the father's side; he was tetrarch of Galilee; but her daughter Salome was married to Philip, the son of Herod, and tetrarch of Tranchonitis, and as he died childless, Aristobulus, the son of Herod, the brother of Agrippa, married her; they had three sons, Herod, Agrippa, and Aristobulus, and this was the posterity of Phasaelus and Salampsio. But the daughter of Antipater by Cypros, was Cypros, whom Alexis Selcias, the son of Alexas, married; they had a daughter, Cypros; but Herod and 'Alexander, who, as we told you, were the brothers of Antipater, died childless. As to Alexander, the son of Herod the king, who was slain by his father, he had two sons, Alexander and Tigranes, by the daughter of Archelaus, king of Cappadocia ; Tigranes, who was king of Armenia, was accused at Rome, and died childless; Alexander had a son of the same name with his brother Tigranes, and was sent to take possession of the kingdom of Armenia by Nero he had a son, Alexander, who married Jotape,† the daughter of Antiochus, king of Commagena; Vespasian made him king of an island in Cilicia. But these descendants of Alexander, soon after their birth, deserted the Jewish religion, and went over to that of the Greeks; but for the rest of the daughters of Herod the king, it happened that they died childless. And as these descendants of Herod, whom we have enumerated,

*There are coins still extant of this Emesa, as Spanheim informs us.

+ Spanheim also informs us of a coin still extant of this Jotape, daughter of the king of Commagena.

were in being at the same time that Agrippa the Great took the kingdom, and I have now given an account of them, it now remains that I relate the several hard fortunes which befel Agrippa, and how he got clear of them, and was advanced to the greatest height of dignity and power.

CHAP. VI.

Of the navigation of king Agrippa to Rome, to Tiberius Cæsar; and how, upon his being accused by his own freed-man, he was bound: how also he was set at liberty by Caius, after Tiberius's death, and was made king of the tetrarchy of Philip.

§ 1. A LITTLE before the death of Herod the king, Agrippa lived at Rome, and was generally brought up and conversed with Drusus, the emperor Tiberius's son, and contracted a friendship with Antonia, the wife of Drusus the Great, who had his mother Bernice in great esteem, and was very desirous of advancing her son. Now, as Agrippa was by nature magnanimous and generous in the presents he made, while his mother was alive, this inclination of his mind did not appear, that he might be able to avoid her anger for such his extravagance; but when Bernice was dead, and he was left to his own conduct, he spent a great deal extravagantly in his daily way of living, and a great deal in the immoderate presents he made, and those chiefly among Caesar's freedmen, in order to gain their assistance, insomuch that he was in a little time reduced to poverty, and could not live at Rome any longer. Tiberius also forbade the friends of his deceased son to come into his sight, because on seeing them he should be put in mind of his son, and his grief would thereby be revived.

2. For these reasons he went away from Rome, and sailed to Judea, but in evil circumstances, being dejected with the loss of that money, which he once had, and because he had not wherewithal to pay his creditors, who were many in number, and such as gave him no room for escaping them. Whereupon he knew not what to do; so, for shame of his present condition, he retired to a certain tower, at Malatha, in Idumea, and had thoughts of killing himself; but his wife Cypros perceived his intentions, and tried all sorts of methods to divert him from his taking such a course: so she sent a letter to his sister Herodias, who was now the wife of Herod the tetrarch, and let her know Agrippa's present design, and what necessity it was which drove him thereto, and desired her as a kinswoman of his, to give him her help, and to

engage her husband to do the same, since she saw how she alleviated these her husband's troubles ail she could, although she had not the like wealth to do it withal. So they sent for him, and allotted him Tiberias for his habitation, and appointed him some income of money for his maintenance, and made him a magistrate of that city, by way of honour to him. Yet did not Herod long continue in that resolution of supporting him, though even that support was not sufficient for him; for as once they were at a feast at Tyre, and in their cups, and reproaches were cast upon one another, Agrippa thought that was not to be borne, while Herod hit him in the teeth with his poverty, and with his owing his necessary food to him. So he went to Flaccus, one that had been consul, and had been a very great friend to him at Rome formerly, and was now president of Syria.

3. Hereupon Flaccus received him kindly, and he lived with him. Flaccus had also with him there Aristobulus, who was indeed Agrippa's brother, but was at variance with him; yet did not their enmity to one another hinder the friendship of Flaccus to them both, but still they were honourably treated by him. However, Aristobulus did not abate of his illwill to Agrippa, till at length he brought him into ill terms with Flaccus: the occasion of bringing on which estrangement was this: The Damascens were at difference with the Sidonians about their limits, and when Flaccus was about to hear the cause between them, they understood that Agrippa had a mighty influence upon him; so they desired that he would be of their side, and for that favour promised him a great deal of money; so he was zealous in assisting the Damascens as far as he was able. Now Aristobulus had gotten intelligence of this promise of money to him, and accused him to Flaccus of the same; and when, upon a thorough examination of the matter, it appeared plainly so to be, he rejected Agrippa out of the number of his friends. So he was reduced to the utmost necessity, and came to Ptolemais; and because he knew not where else to get a livelihood, he thought to sail to Italy; but as he was restrained from so doing by want of money, he desired Marsyas, who was his freed-man, to find some method for procuring him so much as he wanted for that purpose, by borrowing such a sum of some person or other. So Marsyas desired of Peter, who was the freedman of Bernice, Agrippa's mother, and by the right of her testament was bequeathed to Antonia, to lend him so much upon Agrippa's own bond and security; but he accused Agrippa of having defrauded him of certain sums of money, and so obliged Marsyas, when he made the bond of 20,000 Attic

drachmæ, to accept of 2500 drachmæ less than what he desired, which the other allowed of, because he could not help it. Upon the receipt of this money, Agrippa came to Anthedon, and took shipping, and was going to set sail; but Herennius Capito, who was the procurator of Jamnia, sent a band of soldiers to demand of him 300,000 drachmæ of silver, which were by him owing to Caesar's treasury while he was at Rome, and so forced him to stay. He then pretended that he would do as he bid him; but when night came on, he cut his cables, and went off, and sailed to Alexandria, where he desired Alexander the Alabarch + to lend him 200,000 drachma; but he said he would not lend it to him, but would. not refuse it Cypros, as greatly astonished at her affection to her husband, and at the other instances of her virtue, so she undertook to repay it. Accordingly Alexander paid them five talents at Alexandria, and promised to pay him the rest of that sum at Dicearchia [Puteoli]; and this he did out of the fear he was in that Agrippa would soon spend it. So this Cypros set her husband free, and dismissed him to go on with his navigation to Italy, while she and her children departed for Judea.

4. And now Agrippa was come to Puteoli, whence he wrote a letter to Tiberius Cæsar, who then lived at Capreæ, and told him, that he was come so far in order to wait on him, and to pay him a visit; and desired that he would give him leave to come over to Capreæ ; so Tiberius made no difficulty, but wrote to him in an obliging way in other respects, and withal told him, he was glad of his safe return, and desired him to come to Caprex; and when he was come, he did not fail to treat him as kindly as he had promised him in his letter to do. But the next day came a letter to Cæsar from Herennius Capito, to inform him, that Agrippa had borrowed 300,000 drachmæ, and not paid it at the time appointed; but, when it was demanded of him, he ran away like a fugitive, out of the places under his government, and put it out of his power to get the money of him. When Cæsar had read this letter, he was much troubled at it, and gave order that Agrippa should be excluded from his presence, until he had paid that debt upon which he was no way daunted at Cæsar's anger, but entreated Antonia, the mother of Germanicus, and of Claudius, who was afterwards Cæsar himself, to lend him those 300,000 drachmæ, that he might not be deprived of Tiberius's friendship; so, out of regard to the memory of Bernice his

* Spanheim observes, that we have here an instance of the Attic quantity of use money, which was the eighth part of the original sam, or 12 per cent. for such is the proportion of 2500 to 20,000.

The governor of the Jews there.