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[304]
Now upon the liberty that was given to the Jewish ambassadors to
speak, they who hoped to obtain a dissolution of kingly government betook
themselves to accuse Herod of his iniquities; and they declared that he
was indeed in name a king, but that he had taken to himself that uncontrollable
authority which tyrants exercise over their subjects, and had made use
of that authority for the destruction of the Jews, and did not abstain
from making many innovations among them besides, according to his own inclinations;
and that whereas there were a great many who perished by that destruction
he brought upon them, so many indeed as no other history relates, they
that survived were far more miserable than those that suffered under him;
not only by the anxiety they were in from his looks and disposition towards
them, but from the danger their estates were in of being taken away by
him. That he did never leave off adorning these cities that lay in their
neighborhood, but were inhabited by foreigners; but so that the cities
belonging to his own government were ruined, and utterly destroyed that
whereas, when he took the kingdom, it was in an extraordinary flourishing
condition, he had filled the nation with the utmost degree of poverty;
and when, upon unjust pretenses, he had slain any of the nobility, he took
away their estates; and when he permitted any of them to live, he condemned
them to the forfeiture of what they possessed. And besides the annual impositions
which he laid upon every one of them, they were to make liberal presents
to himself, to his domestics and friends, and to such of his slaves as
were vouchsafed the favor of being his tax-gatherers, because there was
no way of obtaining a freedom from unjust violence without giving either
gold or silver for it. That they would say nothing of the corruption of
the chastity of their virgins, and the reproach laid on their wives for
incontinency, and those things acted after an insolent and inhuman manner;
because it was not a smaller pleasure to the sufferers to have such things
concealed, than it would have been not to have suffered them. That Herod
had put such abuses upon them as a wild beast would not have put on them,
if he had power given him to rule over us; and that although their nation
had passed through many subversions and alterations of government, their
history gave no account of any calamity they had ever been under, that
could be compared with this which Herod had brought upon their nation;
that it was for this reason that they thought they might justly and gladly
salute Archelaus as king, upon this supposition, that whosoever should
be set over their kingdom, he would appear more mild to them than Herod
had been; and that they had joined with him in the mourning for his father,
in order to gratify him, and were ready to oblige him in other points also,
if they could meet with any degree of moderation from him; but that he
seemed to be afraid lest he should not be deemed Herod's own son; and so,
without any delay, he immediately let the nation understand his meaning,
and this before his dominion was well established, since the power of disposing
of it belonged to Caesar, who could either give it to him or not, as he
pleased. That he had given a specimen of his future virtue to his subjects,
and with what kind of moderation and good administration he would govern
them, by that his first action, which concerned them, his own citizens,
and God himself also, when he made the slaughter of three thousand of his
own countrymen at the temple. How then could they avoid the just hatred
of him, who, to the rest of his barbarity, hath added this as one of our
crimes, that we have opposed and contradicted him in the exercise of his
authority? Now the main thing they desired was this: That they might be
delivered from kingly and the like forms of government, 1
and might be added to Syria, and be put under the authority of such presidents
of theirs as should be sent to them; for that it would thereby be made
evident, whether they be really a seditious people, and generally fond
of innovations, or whether they would live in an orderly manner, if they
might have governors of any sort of moderation set over them.
1 If any one compare that Divine prediction concerning the tyrannical power which Jewish kings would exercise over them, if they would be so foolish as to prefer it before their ancient theocracy or aristocracy, 1 Samuel 8:1-22; Antiq. B. VI. ch. 4. sect. 4, he will soon find that it was superabundantly fulfilled in the days of Herod, and that to such a degree, that the nation now at last seem sorely to repent of such their ancient choice, in opposition to God's better choice for them, and had much rather be subject to even a pagan Roman government, and their deputies, than to be any longer under the oppression of the family of Herod; which request of theirs Augustus did not now grant them, but did it for the one half of that nation in a few years afterward, upon fresh complaints made by the Jews against Archelaus, who, under the more humble name of an ethnarch, which Augustus only would now allow him, soon took upon him the insolence and tyranny of his father king Herod, as the remaining part of this book will inform us, and particularly ch. 13. sect. 2.
Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by. William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo. John E. Beardsley. 1895.
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