and there was reason to fear that those that came first might have been in danger, before Claudius could know what violence the soldiers were going to offer them, had not Agrippa run before, and told him what a dangerous thing they were going about; and that unless he restrained the violence of these men, who were in a fit of madness against the patricians, he would lose those on whose account it was most desirable to rule, and would be emperor over a desert.

5. When Claudius heard this, he restrained the violence of the soldiery, and received the senate into the camp, and treated them after an obliging manner, and went out with them presently to offer their thank-offerings to God, which were proper upon his first coming to the empire. Moreover, he bestowed on Agrippa his whole paternal kingdom immediately; and added to it, besides those countries that had been given by Augustus to Herod, Trachonitis and Auranitis, and still besides these that kingdom which was called the kingdom of Lysanias. This gift he declared to the people by a decree, but ordered the magistrates to have the donation engraved on tables of brass, and to be set up in the capitol. He be. stowed on his brother Herod, who was also his son-in-law, by marrying [his daughter] Bernice, the kingdom of Chalcis.

6. So now riches flowed in to Agrippa by his enjoyment of so large a dominion, nor did he abuse the money he had on small matters, but he began to encompass Jerusalem with such a wall which, had it been brought to perfec tion, had made it impracticable for the Romans to take it by siege; but his death, which happened at Cæsarea, before he had raised the walls to their due height, prevented him. He had then reigned three years, as he had governed his tetrar. chies three other years. He left behind him three daughters, born to him by Cypros, Bernice, Mariamne, and Drusilla, and a son born of the same mother, whose name was Agrippa: he was left a very young child, so that Claudius made the country a Roman province, and sent Cuspius Fadus to be its procurator, and after him Tiberius Alexander, who, making no alteration of the ancient laws kept the nation in tranquillity. Now after this Herod the king of Chalcis died, and left behind him two sons, born to him of his brother's daughter Bernice their names were Bernicianus and Hyrcanus. [He also left behind him] Aris tobulus, whom he had by his former wife Mariamne. There was besides another brother of his that died a private person; his name was also Aristobulus, who left behind him a daughter whose name was Jotape: and these, as I have for. merly said, were the children of Aristobulus the son of Herod, which Aris. tobulus and Alexander were born to Herod by Mariamne, and were slain by him But as for Alexander's posterity, they reigned in Armenia.

CHAP. XII.

Many Tumults under Cumanus, which were composed by Quadratus. Felix is Procurator of Judea. Agrippa is advanced from Chalcis to a greater Kingdom.

1. Now after the death of Herod, king of Chalcis, Claudius set Agrippa, the son of Agrippa, over his uncle's kingdom, which Cumanus took upon him the office of procurator of the rest, which was a Roman province, and therein he suc ceeded Alexander, under which Cumanus began the troubles, and the Jews' ruin came on; for when the multitude were come together to Jerusalem, to the feast of unleavened bread, and a Roman cohort stood over the cloisters of the temple (for they always were armed, and kept guard at the festivals, to prevent any innovation which the multitude thus gathered together might make,) one of the soldiers pulled back his garment, and, cowering down after an indecent manner, turned his breech to the Jews, and spake such words as you may expect upon such a posture. At this the whole multitude had indignation, and made a cla

mcur to Cumanus, that he would punish the soldier; while the asher part of the youth, and such as were naturally the most tumultuous, fell to fighting, and caught up stones, and threw them at the soldiers: upon which Cumanus was afraid lest all the people should make an assault upon him, and sent to call for more armed men, who when they came in great numbers into the cloisters, the Jews were in a very great consternation; and being beaten out of the temple, they ran into the city; and the violence with which they crowded to get out was so great that they trod upon each other, and squeezed one another, till ten thousand of them were killed, insomuch that this feast became the cause of mourning to the whole na tion, and every family lamented [their own relations.]

2. Now there followed after this another calamity, which arose from a tumult made by robbers; for at the public road of Bethhoron, one Stephen, a servant of Cæsar, carried some furniture, which the robbers fell upon and seized: upon this Cumanus sent men to go round about to the neighbouring villages, and to bring their inhabitants to him bound, as laying it to their charge that they had not pursued after the thieves and caught them. Now here it was that a certain soldier finding the sacred book of the law, tore it to pieces, and threw it into the fire.* Hereupon the Jews were in great disorder, as if their whole country were in a flame, and assembled themselves so many of them by their zeal for their religion as by an engine, and ran together with united clamour to Cæsarea to Cumanus, and made supplication to him, that he would not overlook this man, who had of fered such an affront to God, and to his law, but punish him for what he had done Accordingly, he perceiving that the multitude would not be quiet unless they had a comfortable answer from him, gave order that the soldier should be brought, and drawn through those that required to have him punished to execution, which being done, the Jews went their ways.

3. After this there happened a fight between the Galileans and the Samaritans⚫ it happened at the village called Geman, which is situate in the great plain of Samaria, where, as a great number of Jews were going up to Jerusalem to the feast [of tabernacles,] a certain Galilean was slain and besides a vast number of people ran together out of Galilee, in order to fight with the Samaritans; but the principal men among them came to Cumanus, and besought him, that, before the evil became incurable, he would come into Galilee, and bring the authors of this murder to punishment; for that there was no other way to make the multitude separate without coming to blows. However, Cumanus postponed their suppli cations to the other affairs he was then about, and sent the petitioners away with out success.

4 But when the affair of this murder came to be told at Jerusalem, it put the multitude into disorder, and they left the feast, and without any generals to conduct them they marched with great violence to Samaria; nor would they be ruled by any of the magistrates that were set over them, but they were managed by one Eleazar, the son of Dineus, and by Alexander, in these their thievish and seditious attempts. These men fell upon those that were in the neighbourhood of the Acrabatene toparchy, and slew them, without sparing any age, and set the villages on fire.

5. But Cumanus took one troop of horsemen, called the troop of Sebaste, out of Cæsarea, and came to the assistance of those that were spoiled: he also seized upon a great number of those that followed Eleazar, and slew more of them. And as for the rest of the multitude of those that went so zealously to fight with the Samaritans, the rulers of Jerusalem ran out clothed with sackcloth and having ashes on their heads, and begged of them to go their ways, lest by their attempt to revenge themselves upon the Samaritans they should provoke the Romans to come against Jerusalem; to have compassion upon their country and temple, their children and their wives, and not bring the utmost dangers of

Reland notes here, that the Talmud, in recounting ten sad accidents for which the Jews ought to rend their garments, reckons this for one. "When ey hear that the law of God is burnt." 22*

VOL. II

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destruction upon them, in order to avenge themselves upon one Galilean only. The Jews complied with these persuasions of theirs, and dispersed themselves; but still there were a great number who betook themselves to robbing, in hopes of impunity, and rapines and insurrections of the bolder sort happened over the whole country; and the men of power among the Samaritans came to Tyre, to Ummidius Quadratus,* the president of Syria, and desired that they that had laid waste the country might be punished: the great men also of the Jews, and Jonathan the son of Ananus, the high priest, came thither, and said, that the Samaritans were the beginners of the disturbances, on account of that murder they had committed; and that Cumanus had given occasion to what had happened, by his unwillingness to punish the original authors of that murder.

6. But Quadratus put both parties off for that time, and told them, that when he should come to those places, he would make a diligent inquiry after every cir cumstance. After which he went to Cæsarea, and crucified all those whom Cumanus had taken alive; and when from thence he was come to the city Lydda he heard the affair of the Samaritans, and sent for eighteen of the Jews whom he had learned to have been concerned in that fight, and beheaded them but he sent two others of those that were of the greatest power amongst them, and both Jonathan and Ananias, the high priests, as also Ananus, the son of this Ananias, and certain others that were eminent among the Jews, to Cæsar; as he did in like manner by the most illustrious of the Samaritans. He also ordered that Cumanus [the procurator,] and Celer the tribune, should sail to Rome, in order to give an account of what had been done, to Cæsar. When he had finished these matters, he went up from Lydda to Jerusalem, and finding the multitude celebrating their feast of unleavened bread without any tumult, he returned to Antioch.

7. Now when Cæsar at Rome had heard what Cumanus and the Samaritans had to say (where it was done in the hearing of Agrippa, who zealously espoused the cause of the Jews, as in like manner many of the great men stood by Cu manus,) he condemned the Samaritans, and commanded that three of the mos powerful men among them should be put to death: he banished Cumanus, and sent Celer bound to Jerusalem, to be delivered over to the Jews to be tormented that he should be drawn round the city, and then beheaded.

8. After this Cæsar sent Felix,† the brother of Pallas, to be procurator of Galilee, and Samaria, and Perea, and removed Agrippa from Chalcis unto a greater kingdom; for he gave him the tetrarchy which had belonged to Philip, which contained Batanea, Trachonitis, and Gaulanitis: he added to it the kingdom of Lysanias, and that province [Abilene] which Varus had governed. But Claudius himself, when he had administered the government thirteen years * This Ummidius, or Numidius, or, as Tacitus calls him, Vinidius Quadratus, is mentioned in an ancient inscription, still preserved, as Spanheim here informs us, which calls him UMMIDIUS QUADRATUR Take the character of this Felix, (who is well known from the Acts of the Apostles, particularly from his trembling, when St. Paul discoursed of righteousness, chastity, and judgment to come, Acts, xxiv. 25, and no wonder, when we have elsewhere seen that he lived in adultery with Drusilla, another man's wife, Antiq. B. xx. ch. vii. sect. 1,) in the words of Tacitus, produced here by Dean Aldrich :"Felix exercised," says Tacitus, "the authority of a king, with the disposition of a slave, and relying upon the great power of his brother Pallas at court, thought he might safely be guilty of all kinds of wicked practices." Observe also the time when he was made procurator, A. D. 52, that when St. Paul pleaded his cause before him, A D. 58, he might have been many years a judge unto that nation, as St. Paul says he had then been, Acts, xxiv. 10. But as to what Tacitus here says, that before the death of Cumanus, Felix was procurator over Samaria only, does not well agree with Št. Paul's words, who would hardly have called Samaria a Jewish nation. In short, since what Tacitus here says, is about countries very remote from Rome, where he lived; since what he says of two Roman procurators, the one over Galilee, the other over Samaria, at the same time, is without all example elsewhere; and since Jo sephus, who lived at that very time in Judea, appears to have known nothing of this procuratorship of Felix, before the death of Cumanus, I much suspect the story itself is nothing better than a mistake of Tacitus, especially when it seems not only omitted, but contradicted by Josephus; as any one may find that compare their histories together. Possibly Felix might have been a subordinate judge among the Jews some time before under Cumanus; but that he was in earnest a procurator of Samaria before, I do not believe. Bishop Pearson, as well as Bishop Lloyd, quote this account, but with a doubtful lause: fides Tacito, If we may believe Tacitus. Pears. Annal. Paulin oage 8, Marshal's Tables, a A. E. 49.

eight months and twenty days, died, and left Nero to be his successor in the empire, whom he had adopted by his wife Agrippina's delusions, in order to be his successor, although he had a son of his own, whose name was Bri tannicus, by Messalina his former wife, and a daughter whose name ws Octavia, whom he had married to Nero; he had also another daughter by Petina, whose name was Antonia.

CHAP. XIII

Nero adds four cities to Agrippa's Kingdom; but the other parts of Judea were under Felix. The disturbances which were raised by the Sicarii, the Magi. cians, and an Egyptian false Prophet. The Jews and Syrians have a

Contest at Cæsarea.

1. Now as to the many things in which Nero acted like a madman, out of the extravagant degree of the felicity and riches which he enjoyed, and by that means used his good fortune to the injury of others; and after what manner he slew his brother, and wife, and mother, from whom his barbarity spread itself to others that were most nearly related to him; and how, at last, he was so distracted, that he became an actor in the scenes, and upon the theatre, I omit to say any more about them, because there are writers enough upon those subjects everywhere; but I shall turn myself to those actions of his time in which the fews were concerned.

2. Nero, therefore, bestowed the kingdoms of the Lesser Armenia upon Arissobulus, Herod's son, and he added to Agrippa's kingdom four cities, with the toparchies to them belonging; I mean Abila, and that Julias which is in Perea, Tarichea also, and Tiberias of Galilee; but over the rest of Judea he made Felix procurator. This Felix took Eleazar the arch-robber, and many that were with him, alive, when they had ravaged the country for twenty years together, and sent them to Rome: but as to the number of the robbers whom he caused to be crucified, and of those who were caught among them, and whom he brought to punishment, they were a multitude not to be enumerated.

3. When the country was purged of these, there sprang up another sort of robbers in Jerusalem, which were called Sicarii, who slew men in the daytime, and in the midst of the city: this they did chiefly at the festivals, when they mingled themselves among the multitude, and concealed daggers under their gar. ments, with which they stabbed those that were their enemies; and when any fell down dead, the murderers became a part of those that had indignation against them, by which means they appeared persons of such reputation, that they could by no means be discovered. The first man who was slain by them was Jonathan the high priest, after whose death many were slain every day, while the fear men were in of being so served was more afflicting than the calamity itself, and while every body expected death every hour, as men do in war, so men were obliged to look before them, and to take notice of their enemies at a great dis tance; nor, if their friends were coming to them, durst they trust them any onger; but, in the midst of their suspicions and guarding of themselves, they were slain. Such was the celebrity of the plotters against them, and so cunning was their contrivance.

4. There was also another body of wicked men gotten together, not so impure in their actions, but more wicked in their intentions, which laid waste the happy state of the city no less than did these murderers. These were such men as deceived and deluded the people under pretence of divine inspiration, but were for procuring innovations and changes of the government; and these prevailed with

e. Herod, king of Chalcis.

the multitude to act like madmen, and went before them into the wilderness as pretending that God would there show them the signals of liberty. But Felix thought this procedure was to be the beginning of a revolt; so he sent some horsemen and footmen, both armed, who destroyed a great number of them.

5. But there was an Egyptian false prophet that did the Jews more mischief than the former; for he was a cheat, and pretended to be a prophet also, and got together thirty thousand men that were deluded by him: these he led round about from the wilderness to the mount which was called the Mount of Olives and was ready to break into Jerusalem by force from that place; and if he could but once conquer the Roman garrison, and the people, he intended to domineer over them by the assistance of those guards of his that were to break into the city with him. But Felix prevented his attempt, and met him with his Roman soldiers, while all the people assisted him in his attack upon them, insomuch that, when it came to a battle, the Egyptians ran away, with a few others, whilst the greatest part of those that were with him were either destroyed or taken alive; but the rest of the multitude were dispersed every one to their own homes, and there concealed themselves.

6. Now when these were quieted, it happened, as it does in a diseased body, that another part was subject to an inflammation; for a company of deceivers and robbers got together, and persuaded the Jews to revolt, and exhorted them to assert their liberty, inflicting death on those that continued in obedience to the Roman government, and saying, that such as willingly chose slavery, ought to be forced from such their desired inclinations; for they parted themselves into different bodies, and lay in wait up and down the country, and plundered the houses of the great men, and slew the men themselves, and set the villages on fire; and this till all Judea was filled with the effects of their madness. And thus the flame was every day more and more blown up, till it came to a direct war. 7. There was also another disturbance at Cæsarea, those Jews who were mixed with the Syrians that lived there raising a tumult against them. The Jews pretended that the city was theirs, and said that he who built it was a Jew, meaning King Herod. The Syrians confessed also, that its builder was a Jew, but they still said, however, that the city was a Grecian city; for that he who set up statues and temples in it could not design it for Jews: on which account both parties had a contest with one another; and this contest increased so much, that it came at last to arms, and the bolder sort of them marched out to fight; for the elders of the Jews were not able to put a stop to their own people that were disposed to be tumultuous, and the Greeks thought it a shame for them to be over. come by the Jews. Now these Jews exceeded the others in riches and strength of body; but the Grecian part had the advantage of assistance from the soldiery: for the greatest part of the Roman garrison was raised out of Syria, and, being thus related to the Syrian part, they were ready to assist it. However, the gover nors of the city were concerned to keep all quiet, and whenever they caught those that were most for fighting on either side, they punished them with stripes and bonds. Yet did not the sufferings of those that were caught affright the remainder, or make them desist; but they were still more and more exasperated, and deeper engaged in the sedition. And as Felix came once into the market-place, and commanded the Jews, when they had beaten the Syrians, to their ways, and threatened them if they would not, and they would not obey him, he sent his soldiers out upon them, and slew a great many of them, upon which it fell out that what they had was plundered. And as the sedition still continued, he chose out the most eminent men on both sides, as ambassadors to Nero, to argue about their several privileges.

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