tion which the Samaritans brought against the Jews. But the Jews affirmed that the Samaritans were the authors of this tumult and fighting; and that, in the first place, Cumanus had been corrupted by their gifts, and passed over the murder of those that were slain, in silence. Which allegation when Quadratus heard, he put off the hearing of the cause, and promised that he would give sentence when he should come into Judea, and should have a more exact knowledge of the truth of that matter. So these men went away without success. Yet it was not long ere Quadratus came to Samaria; where, upon hearing the cause, he supposed that the Samaritans were the authors of that disturbance. But, when he was informed that certain of the Jews were making innovations, he ordered those to be crucified whom Cumanus had taken captives. From whence he went to a certain village called Lydda, which was not less than a city in largeness, and there heard the Samaritan cause a second time before his tribunal; and there learned from a certain Samaritan, that one of the chief of the Jews, whose name was Dortus, and some other innovators with him, four in number, persuaded the multitude to a revolt from the Romans; whom Quadratus ordered to be put to death: but still he sent away Ananias the high priest, and Ananus the commander [of the temple,] in bonds to Rome, to give an account of what they had done to Claudius Cæsar. He also ordered the principal men, both of the Samaritans and of the Jews, as also Cumanus the procurator, and Celer the tribune, to go to Italy to the emperor, that he might hear their cause, and determine their differences one with another. But he came again to the city of Jérusalem, out of his fear that the multitude of the Jews should attempt some innovations; but he found the city in a peaceable state, and celebrating one of the usual festivals of their country to God. So he believed that they would not attempt any innovations, and left them at the celebration of the festival, and returned to Antioch.

3. Now Cumanus, and the principal of the Samaritans, who were sent to Rome, had a day appointed them by the emperor, whereon they were to have pleaded their cause about the quarrels they had one with another. But now Cæsar's freed-men and his friends, were very zealous on the behalf of Cumanus and the Samaritans; and they had prevailed over the Jews, unless Agrippa junior, who was then at Rome, had seen the principal of the Jews hard set, and had earnestly entreated Agrippina, the emperor's wife, to persuade her husband to hear the cause, so as was agreeable to his justice, and to condemn those to be punished who were really the authors of this revolt from the Roman government. Whereupon Claudius was so well disposed

beforehand, that when he had heard the cause, and found that the Samaritans had been the ringleaders in those mischievous doings, he gave order that those who came up to him should be slain, and that Cumanus should be banished. He also gave order, that Celer the tribune should be carried back to Jerusalem, and should be drawn through the city in the sight of all the people, and then should be slain.

CHAP. VII.

Felix is made procurator of Judea; as also concerning Agrippa junior, and his sisters.

§ 1. So Claudius sent Felix, the brother of Pallans, to take care of the affairs of Judea; and when he had already completed the twelfth year of his reign, he bestowed upon Agrippa the tetrarchy of Philip and Batanea, and added thereto Trachonitis, with Abila ; which last had been the tetrarchy of Lysanias; but he took from him Chalcis, when he had been governor thereof four years. And, when Agrippa had received these countries as the gift of Cæsar, he gave his sister Drussilla in marriage to Azizus, king of Emesa, upon his consent to be circumcised; for Epiphanes, the son of king Antiochus, had refused to marry her, because, after he had promised her father formerly to come over to the Jewish religion, he would not now perform that promise. He also gave Mariamne in marriage to Archelaus, the son of Helcias, to whom she had been betrothed formerly by Agrippa her father; from which marriage was derived a daughter, whose name was Bernice.

2. But for the marriage of Drusilla with Azizus, it was in no long time afterward dissolved upon the following occasion: while Felix was procurator of Judea, he saw this Drusilla, and fell in love with her; for she did indeed exceed all other women in beauty; and he sent to her a person whose name was Simon,* one of his friends, a Jew he was, and by birth a

*This Simon, a friend of Felix, a Jew, born in Cyprus, though he pretended to be a magician, and seems to have been wicked enough, could hardly be that famous Simon the magician, in the Acts of the Apostles, viii. 9, &c. as some are ready to suppose. This Simon mentioned in the Acts was not properly a Jew, but a Samaritan, of the town of Gitta, in the country of Samaria, as the Apostolical Constitutions, vi. 7. the Recognitions of Clement, ii. 6. and Justin Martyr, himself born in the country of Samaria, Apology, i. 34. inform us. He was also the author, not of any ancient Jewish, but of the first Gentile heresies, as the fore-mentioned author assures us. I suppose him a different person from the other. I mean this only upon the hypothesis, that Josephus was not misinformed as to his being a Cypriot Jew; for otherwise the time, the name, the profession, and the wickedness of them both, would strongly incline one to believe them the very same. As to that Drusilla the sister of Agrippa, junior, as Josephus informs us here,

So

Cypriot, and one that pretended to be a magician, and endeavoured to persuade her to forsake her present husband, and marry him; and promised, that if she would not refuse him, he would make her a happy woman. Accordingly she acted ill; and because she was desirous to avoid her sister Bernice's envy, (for she was very ill treated by her on account of her beauty) was prevailed upon to transgress the laws of her forefathers, and to marry Felix ; and, when he had had a son by her, he named him Agrippa. But after what manner that young man, with his wife, perished at the conflagration* of the mountain Vesuvius, in the days of Titus Cæsar, shall be related hereafter.+

3. But as for Bernice, she lived a widow a long while after the death of Herod [king of Chalcis,] who was both her husband and her uncle; but, when the report went that she had criminal conversation with her brother [Agrippa junior,] she persuaded Polemo, who was king of Cilicia, to be circumcised, and to marry her, as supposing, that by this means she should prove those calumnies upon her to be false: and Polemo was prevailed upon, and that chiefly on account of her riches. Yet did not this matrimony endure long; but Bernice left Polemo, and, as was said, with impure intentions. So he forsook at once this matrimony and the Jewish religion and at the same time Mariamne put away Archelaus, and was married to Demetrius, the principal man among the Alexandrian Jews, both for his family and his wealth; and indeed he was then their alabarch. So she named her son, whom she had by him, Aggrippinus. But of all these particulars we shall hereafter treat more exactly.‡

:

and a Jewess, as St Luke informs us, Acts xxiv. 24, whom this Simon mentioned by Josephus, persuaded to leave her former husband, Azizus, king of Emesa, a proselyte of Justice, and to marry Felix, the heathen procurator of Judea; Tacitus, Hist. v. 9. supposes her to be an heathen, and the granddaughter of Antonius and Cleopatra, contrary both to St Luke and Josephus. Now Tacitus lived somewhat too remote, both as to time and place, to be compared with either of those Jewish writers, in a matter concerning the Jews in Judea in their own days, and concerning a sister of Agrippa junior, with which Agrippa, Josephus was himself so well acquainted. It is probable that Tacitus may say true when he informs us that this Felix (who had in all three 'wives, or queens, as Suetonius in Claudius, sect. 28, assures us,) did once marry such a grandchild of Antonius and Cleopatra, and finding the name of one of them to have been Drusilla, he mistook her for that other wife, whose name he did not know.

*This eruption of Vesuvius was one of the greatest we have in history. See Bianchini's curious and important observations on this Vesuvius, and its seven several great eruptions, with their remains vitrified, and still existing, in so many different strata under ground, till the diggers came to the antediluvian waters, with their proportionable interstices, implying the deluge to have been above 2500 years before Christian æra, according to our exactest chronology. This also is now wanting.

This is now wanting.

CHAP. VIII.

After what manner, upon the death of Claudius, Nero succeeded in the government; as also what barbarous things he did. Concerning the robbers, murderers, and impostors, that arose while Felix and Festus were procurators of Judea.

§ 1. Now Claudius Cæsar died when he had reigned thirteen years eight months and twenty days; and a report went about, that he was poisoned by his wife Agrippina. Her father was Germanicus, the brother of Cæsar. Her husband was Domitius Enobarbus, one of the most illustrious persons that was in the city of Rome; after whose death, and her own long continuance in widowhood, Claudius took her to wife. She brought along with her a son, Domitius, of the same name with his father. He had before this slain his wife Messalina out of jealousy, by whom he had had his children Britannicus and Octavia; their eldest sister was Antonia, whom he had by Pelina his first wife. He also married Octavia to Nero; for that was the name that Cæsar gave him afterward, upon his adopting him for his son.

2. But now Agrippina was afraid, lest, when Britannicus should come to man's estate, he should succeed his father in the government, and desired to seize upon the principality beforehand for her own son [Nero ;] upon which the report went, that she thence compassed the death of Claudius. Accordingly she sent Burrhus, the general of the army, immediately, and with him the tribunes, and such also of the freedmen as were of the greatest authority, to bring Nero away into the camp, and to salute him emperor. And when Nero had thus obtained the government, he got Britannicus to be so poisoned, that the multitude should not perceive it; although he publicly put his own mother to death not long afterward, making her this requital, not only for being born of her, but for bringing it so about by her contrivances, that he obtained the Roman empire. He also slew Octavia his own wife, and many other illustrious persons, under this pretence, that they plotted against him.

3. But I omit any farther discourse about these affairs; for there have been a great many who have composed the history of Nero; some of which have departed from the truth of facts out of favour, as having received benefits from him

7

* This duration of the reign of Claudius agrees with Dio, as Dr Hudson here remarks; as he also remarks, that Nero's name, which was at first L. Domitius nobarbus, after Claudius had adopted him, was Nero Claudius Cæsar Drusus Germanicus.

while others, out of hatred to him, and the great ill-will which they bare him, have so impudently raved against him with their lies, that they justly deserve to be condemned. Nor do I wonder at such as have told lies of Nero, since they have not in their writings preserved the truth of history as to those facts that were earlier than his time, even when the actors could have no way incurred their hatred, since those writers lived a long time after them. But as to these that have no regard to truth, they may write as they please; for in that they take delight: but as to ourselves who have made truth our direct aim, we shall briefly touch upon what only belongs remotely to this undertaking, but shall relate what hath happened to us Jews with great accuracy, and shall not grudge our pains in giving an account both of the calamities we have suffered, and of the crimes we have been guilty of. I will now, therefore, return to the relation of our own affairs.

4. For in the first year of the reign of Nero, upon the death of Azizus, king of Emesa, Söemus* his brother suc ceeded in his kingdom, and Aristobulus the son of Herod, king of Chalcis, was intrusted by Nero with the government of the lesser Armenia. Cæsar also bestowed on Agrippa a certain part of Galilee, Tiberiast and Tiracheæ, and ordered them to submit to his jurisdiction. He gave him also Julias, a city of Perea, with fourteen villages that lay about it.

5. Now, as for the affairs of the Jews, they grew worse and worse continually, for the country was again filled with robberies, and impostors, who deluded the multitude. Yet did Felix catch, and put to death, many of those impostors every day, together with the robbers. He also caught Elea zar, the son of Dinaes, who had gotten together a company of robbers; and this he did by treachery, for he gave him assurance, that he should suffer no harm, and thereby persuaded him to come to him; but when he came he bound him, and sent him to Rome. Felix also bore ill-will to Jonathan the high priest, because he frequently gave him admonitions about governing the Jewish affairs better than he did, lest he should himself have complaints made of him by the multitude, since it was he who had desired Cæsar to send him as procurator of Judea. So Felix contrived a method whereby he might get rid of him, now he was become so continually troublesome to him: for such continual admonitions are grievous to those who are disposed to act unjustly.

* This Söemus is elsewhere mentioned [by Josephus in his own Life, sect. 11. vol. ii. as also] by Dio Cassius and Tacitus, as Dr Hudson informs us.

+ This agrees with Josephus's frequent accounts elsewhere in his own Life, that Tiberias, and Tirachea, and Gamala, were under this Agrippa junior, till Justus, the son of Pistus, seized upon them for the Jews, upon the breaking out of the war.