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[354]
AND thus did king Agrippa depart this life. But he left behind him
a son, Agrippa by name, a youth in the seventeenth year of his age, and
three daughters; one of which, Bernice, was married to Herod, his father's
brother, and was sixteen years old; the other two, Mariamne and Drusilla,
were still virgins; the former was ten years old, and Drusilla six. Now
these his daughters were thus espoused by their father; Marlatone to Julius
Archclaus Epiphanes, the son of Antiochus, the son of Chelcias; and Drusilla
to the king of Commagena. But when it was known that Agrippa was departed
this life, the inhabitants of Cesarea and of Sebaste forgot the kindnesses
he had bestowed on them, and acted the part of the bitterest enemies; for
they cast such reproaches upon the deceased as are not fit to be spoken
of; and so many of them as were then soldiers, which were a great number,
went to his house, and hastily carried off the statues 1
of this king's daughters, and all at once carried them into the brothel-houses,
and when they had set them on the tops of those houses, they abused them
to the utmost of their power, and did such things to them as are too indecent
to be related. They also laid themselves down in public places, and celebrated
general feastings, with garlands on their heads, and with ointments and
libations to Charon, and drinking to one another for joy that the king
was expired. Nay, they were not only unmindful of Agrippa, who had extended
his liberality to them in abundance, but of his grandfather Herod also,
who had himself rebuilt their cities, and had raised them havens and temples
at vast expenses.
1 Photius, who made an extract out of this section, says they were not the statues or images, but the ladies themselves, who were thus basely abused by the soldiers.
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