HOW HEROD TOOK UP ALEXANDER AND BOUND HIM; WHOM YET ARCHELAUS KING OF CAPPADOCIA RECONCILED TO HIS FATHER HEROD AGAIN. FJAJ 16.48
1. BUT still the affairs of Herod's family were no better, but perpetually
more troublesome
Now this accident happened, which arose from no decent
occasion, but proceeded so far as to bring great difficulties upon him.
There were certain eunuchs which the king had, and on account of their
beauty was very fond of them; and the care of bringing him drink was intrusted
to one of them; of bringing him his supper, to another; and of putting
him to bed, to the third, who also managed the principal affairs of the
government; and there was one told the king that these eunuchs were corrupted
by Alexander the king's son with great sums of money
And when they were
asked whether Alexander had had criminal conversation with them, they confessed
it, but said they knew of no further mischief of his against his father;
but when they were more severely tortured, and were in the utmost extremity,
and the tormentors, out of compliance with Antipater, stretched the rack
to the very utmost, they said that Alexander bare great ill-will and innate
hatred to his father; and that he told them that Herod despaired to live
much longer; and that, in order to cover his great age, he colored his
hair black, and endeavored to conceal what would discover how old he was;
but that if he would apply himself to him, when he should attain the kingdom,
which, in spite of his father, could come to no one else, he should quickly
have the first place in that kingdom under him, for that he was now ready
to take the kingdom, not only as his birth-right, but by the preparations
he had made for obtaining it, because a great many of the rulers, and a
great many of his friends, were of his side, and those no ill men neither,
ready both to do and to suffer whatsoever should come on that account. FJAJ 16.49
2. When Herod heard this confession, he was all over anger and fear,
some parts seeming to him reproachful, and some made him suspicious of
dangers that attended him, insomuch that on both accounts he was provoked,
and bitterly afraid lest some more heavy plot was laid against him than
he should be then able to escape from; whereupon he did not now make an
open search, but sent about spies to watch such as he suspected, for he
was now overrun with suspicion and hatred against all about him; and indulging
abundance of those suspicions, in order to his preservation, he continued
to suspect those that were guiltless; nor did he set any bounds to himself,
but supposing that those who staid with him had the most power to hurt
him, they were to him very frightful; and for those that did not use to
come to him, it seemed enough to name them [to make them suspected], and
he thought himself safer when they were destroyed
And at last his domestics
were come to that pass, that being no way secure of escaping themselves,
they fell to accusing one another, and imagining that he who first accused
another was most likely to save himself; yet when any had overthrown others,
they were hated; and they were thought to suffer justly who unjustly accused
others, and they only thereby prevented their own accusation; nay, they
now executed their own private enmities by this means, and when they were
caught, they were punished in the same way
Thus these men contrived to
make use of this opportunity as an instrument and a snare against their
enemies; yet when they tried it, were themselves caught also in the same
snare which they laid for others: and the king soon repented of what he
had done, because he had no clear evidence of the guilt of those whom he
had slain; and yet what was still more severe in him, he did not make use
of his repentance, in order to leave off doing the like again, but in order
to inflict the same punishment upon their accusers. FJAJ 16.50
3. And in this state of disorder were the affairs of the palace; and
he had already told many of his friends directly that they ought not to
appear before him, her come into the palace; and the reason of this injunction
was, that [when they were there], he had less freedom of acting, or a greater
restraint on himself on their account; for at this time it was that he
expelled Andromachus and Gamellus, men who had of old been his friends,
and been very useful to him in the affairs of his kingdom, and been of
advantage to his family, by their embassages and counsels; and had been
tutors to his sons, and had in a manner the first degree of freedom with
him
He expelled Andromachus, because his son Demetrius was a companion
to Alexander; and Gamellus, because he knew that he wished him well, which
arose from his having been with him in his youth, when he was at school,
and absent at Rome
These he expelled out of his palace, and was willing
enough to have done worse by them; but that he might not seem to take such
liberty against men of so great reputation, he contented himself with depriving
them of their dignity, and of their power to hinder his wicked proceedings. FJAJ 16.51
4. Now it was Antipater who was the cause of all this; who when he knew
what a mad and licentious way of acting his father was in, and had been
a great while one of his counselors, he hurried him on, and then thought
he should bring him to do somewhat to purpose, when every one that could
oppose him was taken away
When therefore Andromachus and his friends were
driven away, and had no discourse nor freedom with the king any longer,
the king, in the first place, examined by torture all whom he thought to
be faithful to Alexander, Whether they knew of any of his attempts against
him; but these died without having any thing to say to that matter, which
made the king more zealous [after discoveries], when he could not find
out what evil proceedings he suspected them of
As for Antipater, he was
very sagacious to raise a calumny against those that were really innocent,
as if their denial was only their constancy and fidelity [to Alexander],
and thereupon provoked Herod to discover by the torture of great numbers
what attempts were still concealed
Now there was a certain person among
the many that were tortured, who said that he knew that the young man had
often said, that when he was commended as a tall man in his body, and a
skillful marksman, and that in his other commendable exercises he exceeded
all men, these qualifications given him by nature, though good in themselves,
were not advantageous to him, because his father was grieved at them, and
envied him for them; and that when he walked along with his father, he
endeavored to depress and shorten himself, that he might not appear too
tall; and that when he shot at any thing as he was hunting, when his father
was by, he missed his mark on purpose, for he knew how ambitious his father
was of being superior in such exercises
So when the man was tormented
about this saying, and had ease given his body after it, he added, that
he had his brother Aristobulus for his assistance, and contrived to lie
in wait for their father, as they were hunting, and kill him; and when
they had done so to fly to Rome, and desire to have the kingdom given them.
There were also letters of the young man found, written to his brother,
wherein he complained that his father did not act justly in giving Antipater
a country, whose [yearly] revenues amounted to two hundred talents
Upon
these confessions Herod presently thought he had somewhat to depend on,
in his own opinion, as to his suspicion about his sons; so he took up Alexander
and bound him: yet did he still continue to be uneasy, and was not quite
satisfied of the truth of what he had heard; and when he came to recollect
himself, he found that they had only made juvenile complaints and contentions,
and that it was an incredible thing, that when his son should have slain
him, he should openly go to Rome [to beg the kingdom]; so he was desirous
to have some surer mark of his son's wickedness, and was very solicitous
about it, that he might not appear to have condemned him to be put in prison
too rashly; so he tortured the principal of Alexander's friends, and put
not a few of them to death, without getting any of the things out of them
which he suspected
And while Herod was very busy about this matter, and
the palace was full of terror and trouble, one of the younger sort, when
he was in the utmost agony, confessed that Alexander had sent to his friends
at Rome, and desired that he might be quickly invited thither by Caesar,
and that he could discover a plot against him; that Mithridates, the king
of Parthia, was joined in friendship with his father against the Romans,
and that he had a poisonous potion ready prepared at Askelori. FJAJ 16.52
5. To these accusations Herod gave credit, and enjoyed hereby, in his
miserable case, some sort of consolation, in excuse of his rashness, as
fiattering himself with finding things in so bad a condition; but as for
the poisonous potion, which he labored to find, he could find none
As
for Alexander, he was very desirous to aggravate the vast misfortunes he
was under, so he pretended not to deny the accusations, but punished the
rashness of his father with a greater crime of his own; and perhaps he
was willing to make his father ashamed of his easy belief of such calumnies:
he aimed especially, if he could gain belief to his story, to plague him
and his whole kingdom; for he wrote four letters, and sent them to him,
that he did not need to torture any more persons, for he had plotted against
him; and that he had for his partners Pheroras and the most faithful of
his friends; and that Salome came in to him by night, and that she lay
with him whether he would or not; and that all men were come to be of one
mind, to make away with him as soon as they could, and so get clear of
the continual fear they were in from him
Among these were accused Ptolemy
and Sapinnius, who were the most faithful friends to the king
And what
more can be said, but that those who before were the most intimate friends,
were become wild beasts to one another, as if a certain madness had fallen
upon them, while there was no room for defense or refutation, in order
to the discovery of the truth, but all were at random doomed to destruction;
so that some lamented those that were in prison, some those that were put
to death, and others lamented that they were in expectation of the same
miseries; and a melancholy solitude rendered the kingdom deformed, and
quite the reverse to that happy state it was formerly in
Herod's own life
also was entirely disturbed; and because he could trust nobody, he was
sorely punished by the expectation of further misery; for he often fancied
in his imagination that his son had fallen upon him, or stood by him with
a sword in his hand; and thus was his mind night and day intent upon this
thing, and revolved it over and over, no otherwise than if he were under
a distraction
And this was the sad condition Herod was now in. FJAJ 16.53
6. But when Archelaus, king of Cappadocia, heard of the state that Herod
was in, and being in great distress about his daughter, and the young man
[her husband], and grieving with Herod, as with a man that was his friend,
on account of so great a disturbance as he was under, he came [to Jerusalem]
on purpose to compose their differences; and when he found Herod in such
a temper, he thought it wholly unseasonable to reprove him, or to pretend
that he had done any thing rashly, for that he should thereby naturally
bring him to dispute the point with him, and by still more and more apologizing
for himself to be the more irritated: he went, therefore, another way to
work, in order to correct the former misfortunes, and appeared angry at
the young man, and said that Herod had been so very mild a man, that he
had not acted a rash part at all
He also said he would dissolve his daughter's
marriage with Alexander, nor could in justice spare his own daughter, if
she were conscious of any thing, and did not inform Herod of it
When Archelaus
appeared to be of this temper, and otherwise than Herod expected or imagined,
and, for the main, took Herod's part, and was angry on his account, the
king abated of his harshness, and took occasion from his appearing to have
acted justly hitherto, to come by degrees to put on the affection of a
father, and was on both sides to be pitied; for when some persons refuted
the calumnies that were laid on the young man, he was thrown into a passion;
but when Archclaus joined in the accusation, he was dissolved into tears
and sorrow after an affectionate manner
Accordingly, he desired that he
would not dissolve his son's marriage, and became not so angry as before
for his offenses
So when Archclaus had brought him to a more moderate
temper, he transferred the calumnies upon his friends; and said it must
be owing to them that so young a man, and one unacquainted with malice,
was corrupted; and he supposed that there was more reason to suspect the
brother than the soft
Upon which Herod was very much displeased at Pheroras,
who indeed now had no one that could make a reconciliation between him
and his brother
So when he saw that Archclaus had the greatest power with
Herod, he betook himself to him in the habit of a mourner, and like one
that had all the signs upon him of an undone man
Upon this Archclaus did
not overlook the intercession he made to him, nor yet did he undertake
to change the king's disposition towards him immediately; and he said that
it was better for him to come himself to the king, and confess himself
the occasion of all; that this would make the king's anger not to be extravagant
towards him, and that then he would be present to assist him
When he had
persuaded him to this, he gained his point with both of them; and the calumnies
raised against the young man were, beyond all expectation, wiped off
And
Archclaus, as soon as he had made the reconciliation, went then away to
Cappadocia, having proved at this juncture of time the most acceptable
person to Herod in the world; on which account he gave him the richest
presents, as tokens of his respects to him; and being on other occasions
magnanimous, he esteemed him one of his dearest friends
He also made an
agreement with him that he would go to Rome, because he had written to
Caesar about these affairs; so they went together as far as Antioch, and
there Herod made a reconciliation between Archclaus and Titus, the president
of Syria, who had been greatly at variance, and so returned back to Judea. FJAJ 16.54