This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
View text chunked by:
[232]
When Alexandra observed how things went, and that there were small
hopes that she herself should escape the like treatment from Herod, she
changed her behavior to quite the reverse of what might have been expected
from her former boldness, and this after a very indecent manner; for out
of her desire to show how entirely ignorant she was of the crimes laid
against Mariamne, she leaped out of her place, and reproached her daughter
in the hearing of all the people; and cried out that she had been an ill
woman, and ungrateful to her husband, and that her punishment came justly
upon her for such her insolent behavior, for that she had not made proper
returns to him who had been their common benefactor. And when she had for
some time acted after this hypocritical manner, and been so outrageous
as to tear her hair, this indecent and dissembling behavior, as was to
be expected, was greatly condemned by the rest of the spectators, as it
was principally by the poor woman who was to suffer; for at the first she
gave her not a word, nor was discomposed at her peevishness, and only looked
at her, yet did she out of a greatness of soul discover her concern for
her mother's offense, and especially for her exposing herself in a manner
so unbecoming her; but as for herself, she went to her death with an unshaken
firmness of mind, and without changing the color of her face, and thereby
evidently discovered the nobility of her descent to the spectators, even
in the last moments of her life.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.