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Antiquities of the Jews

Josephus, Flavius · c. 93–94 CE primary

passage 1037 of 1072 · BOOK I. Containing The Interval Of Three Thousand Eight Hundred And > CHAPTER 9. What Things Were Done After The Death Of Agrippa; And How (2/5)

↪ you wandered here via “Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa” — the connecting lines are tinted below

in brief
Soon after Agrippa’s death, people in Caesarea and Sebaste desecrate his daughters’ statues and celebrate with feastings, while Claudius reacts by being sorry and considering sending Agrippa junior.

had extended his liberality to them in abundance, but of his grandfather Herod also, who had himself rebuilt their cities, and had raised them havens and temples at vast expenses.

  1. Now Agrippa, the son of the deceased, was at Rome, and brought up with Claudius Cæsar. And when Cæsar was informed that Agrippa was dead, and that the inhabitants of Sebaste and Cæsarea had abused him, he was sorry for the first news, and was displeased with the ingratitude of those cities. He was therefore disposed to send Agrippa, junior, away presently to succeed his father in the kingdom, and was willing to confirm him in it by his oath. But those freed-men and friends of his, who had the greatest authority with him, dissuaded him from it, and said that it was a dangerous experiment to permit so large a kingdom to come under the government of so very young a man, and one hardly yet arrived at years of discretion, who would not be able to take sufficient care of its administration; while the weight of a kingdom is heavy enough to a grown man. So Cæsar thought what they said to be reasonable. Accordingly he sent Cuspins Fadus to be procurator of Judea, and of the entire kingdom, and paid that respect to the deceased as not to introduce Marcus, who had been at variance with him, into his kingdom. But he determined, in the first place, to send orders to Fadus, that he should chastise the inhabitants of Cæsarea and Sebaste for those abuses they had offered to him that was deceased, and their madness towards his daughters that were still alive; and that he should remove that body of soldiers that were at Cæsarea and Sebaste, with the five regiments, into Pontus, that they might do their military duty there; and that he should choose an equal number of soldiers out of the Roman legions that were in Syria, to supply their place. Yet were not those that had such orders actually removed; for by sending ambassadors to Claudius, they mollified him, and got leave to abide in Judea still; and these were the very men that became the source of very great calamities to the Jews in after- times, and sowed the seeds of that war which began under Florus; whence it was that when Vespasian had subdued the country, he removed them out of his province, as we shall relate hereafter.

FOOTNOTES

1 (return) [ In this and the three next chapters we have, I think, a larger and more distinct account of the slaughter of Caius, and the succession of Claudius, than we have of any such ancient facts whatsoever elsewhere. Some of the occasions of which probably were, Josephus's bitter hatred against tyranny, and the pleasure he took in giving the history of the slaughter of such a barbarous tyrant as was this Caius Caligula, as also the deliverance his own nation had by that slaughter, of which he speaks sect. 2, together with the great intimacy he had with Agrippa, junior, whose father was deeply concerned in the advancement of Claudius, upon the death of Caius; from which Agrippa, junior, Josephus might be fully informed Of his history.]

2 (return) [ Called Caligula by the Romans.]

3 (return) [ Just such a voice as this is related to be came, and from an unknown original also, to the famous Polycarp, as he was going to martyrdom, bidding him "play the man;" as the church of Smyrna assures us in their account of that his martyrdom, sect. 9.]

4 (return) [ Here Josephus supposes that it was Augustus, and not Julius Cæsar, who first changed the Roman commonwealth into a monarchy; for these shows were in honor of Augustus, as we shall learn in the next section.]

5 (return) [ Suetonius says Caius was slain about the seventh hour of the day, the ninth. The series of the narration favors Josephus.]

6 (return) [ The rewards proposed by the Roman laws to informers was sometimes an eighth part as Spanheim assures us, from the criminal's goods, as here, and sometimes a fourth part.]

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topics: crime and punishment · faction, party, and civil strife · honor, shame, and reputation

Antiquities of the Jews · Josephus, Flavius · 93–94