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[265]
Now there are many such decrees of the senate and imperators of
the Romans 1
and those different from these before us, which have been made in favor
of Hyrcanus, and of our nation; as also, there have been more decrees of
the cities, and rescripts of the praetors, to such epistles as concerned
our rights and privileges; and certainly such as are not ill-disposed to
what we write may believe that they are all to this purpose, and that by
the specimens which we have inserted; for since we have produced evident
marks that may still be seen of the friendship we have had with the Romans,
and demonstrated that those marks are engraven upon columns and tables
of brass in the capitol, that axe still in being, and preserved to this
day, we have omitted to set them all down, as needless and disagreeable;
for I cannot suppose any one so perverse as not to believe the friendship
we have had with the Romans, while they have demonstrated the same by such
a great number of their decrees relating to us; nor will they doubt of
our fidelity as to the rest of those decrees, since we have shown the same
in those we have produced, And thus have we sufficiently explained that
friendship and confederacy we at those times had with the Romans.
2
1 If we compare Josephus's promise in sect. 1, to produce all the public decrees of the Romans in favor of the Jews, with his excuse here for omitting many of them, we may observe, that when he came to transcribe all those decrees he had collected, he found them so numerous, that he thought he should too much tire his readers if he had attempted it, which he thought a sufficient apology for his omitting the rest of them; yet do those by him produced afford such a strong confirmation to his history, and give such great light to even the Roman antiquities themselves, that I believe the curious are not a little sorry for such his omissions.
2 HOW MARCUS, SUCCEEDED SEXTUS WHEN HE HAD BEEN SLAIN BY BASSUS'S TREACHERY; AND HOW, AFTER THE DEATH OF CAESAR, CASSIUS CAME INTO SYRIA, AND DISTRESSED JUDEA; AS ALSO HOW MALICHUS SLEW ANTIPATER AND WAS HIMSELF SLAIN BY HEROD.
Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by. William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo. John E. Beardsley. 1895.
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