THE WARS OF THE JEWS
OR
THE HISTORY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM
Book II: Chapter 2
ARCHELAUS GOES TO ROME WITH A GREAT NUMBER OF HIS
KINDRED. HE IS THERE ACCUSED BEFORE CAESAR BY
ANTIPATER; BUT IS SUPERIOR TO HIS ACCUSERS IN JUDGMENT
BY THE MEANS OF THAT DEFENSE WHICH NICOLAUS MADE FOR
HIM.
1. ARCHELAUS went down now to the sea-side, with
his mother and his friends, Poplas, and Ptolemy, and
Nicolaus, and left behind him Philip, to be his
steward in the palace, and to take care of his
domestic affairs. Salome went also along with him with
her sons, as did also the king’s brethren and
sons-in-law. These, in appearance, went to give him
all the assistance they were able, in order to secure
his succession, but in reality to accuse him for his
breach of the laws by what he had done at the temple.
2. But as they were come to Cesarea, Sabinus, the
procurator of Syria, metthem; he was going up to
Judea, to secure Herod’s effects; but Varus,
[president of Syria,] who was come thither, restrained
him from going any farther. This Varus Archelaus had
sent for, by the earnest entreaty of Ptolemy. At this
time, indeed, Sabinus, to gratify Varus, neither went
to the citadels, nor did he shut up the treasuries
where his father’s money was laid up, but promised
that he would lie still, until Caesar should have
taken cognizance of the affair. So he abode at Cesarea;
but as soon as those that were his hinderance were
gone, when Varus was gone to Antioch, and Archclaus
was sailed to Rome, he immediately went on to
Jerusalem, and seized upon the palace. And when he had
called for the governors of the citadels, and the
stewards [of the king’s private affairs], he tried to
sift out the accounts of the money, and to take
possession of the citadels. But the governors of those
citadels were not unmindful of the commands laid upon
them by Archelaus, and continued to guard them, and
said the custody of them rather belonged to Caesar
than to Archelaus.
3. In the mean time, Antipas went also to Rome, to
strive for the kingdom,and to insist that the former
testament, wherein he was named to be king,
was valid before the latter testament. Salome had
also promised to assist him, as had many of
Archelaus’s kindred, who sailed along with Archelaus
himself also. He also carried along with him his
mother, and Ptolemy, the brother of Nicolaus, who
seemed one of great weight, on account of the great
trust Herod put in him, he having been one of his most
honored friends. However, Antipas depended chiefly
upon Ireneus, the orator; upon whose authority he had
rejected such as advised him to yield to Archelaus,
because he was his elder brother, and because the
second testament gave the kingdom to him. The
inclinations also of all Archelaus’s kindred, who
hated him, were removed to Antipas, when they came to
Rome; although in the first place every one rather
desired to live under their own laws [without a king],
and to be under a Roman governor; but if they should
fail in that point, these desired that Antipas might
be their king.
4. Sabinus did also afford these his assistance to
the same purpose byletters he sent, wherein he accused
Archelaus before Caesar, and highly commended Antipas.
Salome also, and those with her, put the crimes which
they accused Archelaus of in order, and put them into
Caesar’s hands; and after they had done that,
Archelaus wrote down the reasons of his claim, and, by
Ptolemy, sent in his father’s ring, and his father’s
accounts. And when Caesar had maturely weighed by
himself what both had to allege for themselves, as
also had considered of the great burden of the
kingdom, and largeness of the revenues, and withal the
number of the children Herod had left behind him, and
had moreover read the letters he had received from
Varus and Sabinus on this occasion, he assembled the
principal persons among the Romans together, (in which
assembly Caius, the son of Agrippa, and his daughter
Julias, but by himself adopted for his own son, sat in
the first seat,) and gave the pleaders leave to speak.
5. Then stood up Salome’s son, Antipater, (who of
all Archelaus’santagonists was the shrewdest pleader,)
and accused him in the following speech: That
Archelaus did in words contend for the kingdom, but
that in deeds he had long exercised royal authority,
and so did but insult Caesar in desiring to be now
heard on that account, since he had not staid for his
determination about the succession, and since he had
suborned certain persons, after Herod’s death, to move
for putting the diadem upon his head; since he had set
himself down in the throne, and given answers as a
king, and altered the disposition of the army, and
granted to some higher dignities; that he had also
complied in all things with the people in the requests
they had made to him as to their king, and had also
dismissed those that had been put into bonds by his
father for most important reasons. Now, after all
this, he desires the shadow of that royal authority,
whose substance he had already seized to himself, and
so hath made Caesar Lord, not of things, but of words.
He also reproached him further, that his mourning for
his father was only pretended, while he put on a sad
countenance in the day time, but drank to great excess
in the night; from which behavior, he said, the late
disturbance among the multitude came, while they had
an indignation thereat. And indeed the purport of his
whole discourse was to aggravate Archelaus’s crime in
slaying such a multitude about the temple, which
multitude came to the festival, but were barbarously
slain in the midst of their own sacrifices; and he
said there was such a vast number of dead bodies
heaped together in the temple, as even a foreign war,
that should come upon them [suddenly], before it was
denounced, could not have heaped together. And he
added, that it was the foresight his father had of
that his barbarity which made him never give him any
hopes of the kingdom, but when his mind was more
infirm than his body, and he was not able to reason
soundly, and did not well know what was the character
of that son, whom in his second testament he made his
successor; and this was done by him at a time when he
had no complaints to make of him whom he had named
before, when he was sound in body, and when his mind
was free from all passion. That, however, if any one
should suppose Herod’s judgment, when he was sick, was
superior to that at another time, yet had Archelaus
forfeited his kingdom by his own behavior, and those
his actions, which were contrary to the law, and to
its disadvantage. Or what sort of a king will this man
be, when he hath obtained the government from Caesar,
who hath slain so many before he hath obtained it!
6. When Antipater had spoken largely to this
purpose, and had produced agreat number of Archelaus’s
kindred as witnesses, to prove every part of the
accusation, he ended his discourse. Then stood up
Nicolaus to plead for Archelaus. He alleged that the
slaughter in the temple could not be avoided; that
those that were slain were become enemies not to
Archelaus’s kingdom, only, but to Caesar, who was to
determine about
him. He also demonstrated that Archelaus’s accusers
had advised him to perpetrate other things of which he
might have been accused. But he insisted that the
latter testament should, for this reason, above all
others, be esteemed valid, because Herod had therein
appointed Caesar to be the person who should confirm
the succession; for he who showed such prudence as to
recede from his own power, and yield it up to the Lord
of the world, cannot be supposed mistaken in his
judgment about him that was to be his heir; and he
that so well knew whom to choose for arbitrator of the
succession could not be unacquainted with him whom he
chose for his successor.
7. When Nicolaus had gone through all he had to
say, Archelaus came, andfell down before Caesar’s
knees, without any noise; — upon which he raised him
up, after a very obliging manner, and declared that
truly he was worthy to succeed his father. However, he
still made no firm determination in his case; but when
he had dismissed those assessors that had been with
him that day, he deliberated by himself about the
allegations which he had heard, whether it were fit to
constitute any of those named in the testaments for
Herod’s successor, or whether the government should be
parted among all his posterity, and this because of
the number of those that seemed to stand in need of
support therefrom.
|
