PHERORAS'S WIFE IS ACCUSED BY HIS FREEDMEN, AS GUILTY OF POISONING HIM; AND HOW HEROD, UPON EXAMINING; OF THE MATTER BY TORTURE FOUND THE POISON; BUT SO THAT IT HAD BEEN PREPARED FOR HIMSELF BY HIS SON ANTIPATER; AND UPON AN INQUIRY BY TORTURE HE DISCOVERED THE DANGEROUS DESIGNS OF ANTIPATER. FJAJ 17.17
1. AS soon as Pheroras was dead, and his funeral was over, two of Pheroras's
freed-men, who were much esteemed by him, came to Herod, and entreated
him not to leave the murder of his brother without avenging it, but to
examine into such an unreasonable and unhappy death
When he was moved
with these words, for they seemed to him to be true, they said that Pheroras
supped with his wife the day before he fell sick, and that a certain potion
was brought him in such a sort of food as he was not used to eat; but that
when he had eaten, he died of it: that this potion was brought out of Arabia
by a woman, under pretense indeed as a love-potion, for that was its name,
but in reality to kill Pheroras; for that the Arabian women are skillful
in making such poisons: and the woman to whom they ascribe this was confessedly
a most intimate friend of one of Sylleus's mistresses; and that both the
mother and the sister of Pheroras's wife had been at the places where she
lived, and had persuaded her to sell them this potion, and had come back
and brought it with them the day before that his supper
Hereupon the king
was provoked, and put the women slaves to the torture, and some that were
free with them; and as the fact did not yet appear, because none of them
would confess it, at length one of them, under the utmost agonies, said
no more but this, that she prayed that God would send the like agonies
upon Antipater's mother, who had been the occasion of these miseries to
all of them
This prayer induced Herod to increase the women's tortures,
till thereby all was discovered; their merry meetings, their secret assemblies,
and the disclosing of what he had said to his son alone unto Pheroras's
(4)His
wife, her mother, and sister. women.
(Now what Herod had charged Antipater to conceal, was the gift of a hundred
talents to him not to have any conversation with Pheroras.) And what hatred
he bore to his father; and that he complained to his mother how very long
his father lived; and that he was himself almost an old man, insomuch that
if the kingdom should come to him, it would not afford him any great pleasure;
and that there were a great many of his brothers, or brothers' children,
bringing up, that might have hopes of the kingdom as well as himself, all
which made his own hopes of it uncertain; for that even now, if he should
himself not live, Herod had ordained that the government should be conferred,
not on his son, but rather on a brother
He also had accused the king of
great barbarity, and of the slaughter of his sons; and that it was out
of the fear he was under, lest he should do the like to him, that made
him contrive this his journey to Rome, and Pheroras contrive to go to his
own tetrarchy. FJAJ 17.18
2. These confessions agreed with what his sister had told him, and tended
greatly to corroborate her testimony, and to free her from the suspicion
of her unfaithfulness to him
So the king having satisfied himself of the
spite which Doris, Antipater's mother, as well as himself, bore to him,
took away from her all her fine ornaments, which were worth many talents,
and then sent her away, and entered into friendship with Pheroras's women.
But he who most of all irritated the king against his son was one Antipater,
the procurator of Antipater the king's son, who, when he was tortured,
among other things, said that Antipater had prepared a deadly potion, and
given it to Pheroras, with his desire that he would give it to his father
during his absence, and when he was too remote to have the least suspicion
cast upon him thereto relating; that Antiphilus, one of Antipater's friends,
brought that potion out of Egypt; and that it was sent to Pheroras by Thendion,
the brother of the mother of Antipater, the king's son, and by that means
came to Pheroras's wife, her husband having given it her to keep
And when
the king asked her about it, she confessed it; and as she was running to
fetch it, she threw herself down from the house-top; yet did she not kill
herself, because she fell upon her feet; by which means, when the king
had comforted her, and had promised her and her domestics pardon, upon
condition of their concealing nothing of the truth from him, but had threatened
her with the utmost miseries if she proved ungrateful [and concealed any
thing]: so she promised, and swore that she would speak out every thing,
and tell after what manner every thing was done; and said what many took
to be entirely true, that the potion was brought out of Egypt by Antiphilus;
and that his brother, who was a physician, had procured it; and that"
when Thendion brought it us, she kept it upon Pheroras's committing it
to her; and that it was prepared by Antipater for thee
When, therefore,
Pheroras was fallen sick, and thou camest to him and tookest care of him,
and when he saw the kindness thou hadst for him, his mind was overborne
thereby
So he called me to him, and said to me, 'O woman! Antipater hath
circumvented me in this affair of his father and my brother, by persuading
me to have a murderous intention to him, and procuring a potion to be subservient
thereto; do thou, therefore, go and fetch my potion, (since my brother
appears to have still the same virtuous disposition towards me which he
had formerly, and I do not expect to live long myself, and that I may not
defile my forefathers by the murder of a brother,) and burn it before my
face:' that accordingly she immediately brought it, and did as her husband
bade her; and that she burnt the greatest part of the potion; but that
a little of it was left, that if the king, after Pheroras's death, should
treat her ill, she might poison herself, and thereby get clear of her miseries."
Upon her saying thus, she brought out the potion, and the box in which
it was, before them all
Nay, there was another brother of Antiphilus,
and his mother also, who, by the extremity of pain and torture, confessed
the same things, and owned the box [to be that which had been brought out
of Egypt]
The high priest's daughter also, who was the king's wife, was
accused to have been conscious of all this, and had resolved to conceal
it; for which reason Herod divorced her, and blotted her son out of his
testament, wherein he had been mentioned as one that was to reign after
him; and he took the high priesthood away from his father-in-law, Simeon
the son of Boethus, and appointed Matthias the son of Theophilus, who was
born at Jerusalem, to be high priest in his room. FJAJ 17.20
3. While this was doing, Bathyllus also, Antipater's freed-man, came
from Rome, and, upon the torture, was found to have brought another potion,
to give it into the hands of Antipater's mother, and of Pheroras, that
if the former potion did not operate upon the king, this at least might
carry him off
There came also letters from Herod's friends at Rome, by
the approbation and at the suggestion of Antipater, to accuse Archelaus
and Philip, as if they calumniated their father on account of the slaughter
of Alexander and Aristobulus, and as if they commiserated their deaths,
and as if, because they were sent for home, (for their father had already
recalled them,) they concluded they were themselves also to be destroyed.
These letters had been procured by great rewards by Antipater's friends;
but Antipater himself wrote to his father about them, and laid the heaviest
things to their charge; yet did he entirely excuse them of any guilt, and
said they were but young men, and so imputed their words to their youth.
But he said that he had himself been very busy in the affair relating to
Sylleus, and in getting interest among the great men; and on that account
had bought splendid ornaments to present them withal, which cost him two
hundred talents
Now one may wonder how it came about, that while so many
accusations were laid against him in Judea during seven months before this
time, he was not made acquainted with any of them
The causes of which
were, that the roads were exactly guarded, and that men hated Antipater;
for there was nobody who would run any hazard himself to gain him any advantages. FJAJ 17.21