This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
View text chunked by:
[263]
These were the debates [about the senate]; but in the camp every
body was crowding on all sides to pay their court to Claudius; and the
other consul, Quintus Pomponhis, was reproached by the soldiery, as having
rather exhorted the senate to recover their liberty; whereupon they drew
their swords, and were going to assault him, and they had done it, if Claudius
had not hindered them, who snatched the consul out of the danger he was
in, and set him by him. :But he did not receive that part of the senate
which was with Quintus in the like honorable manner; nay, some of them
received blows, and were thrust away as they came to salute Claudius; nay,
Aponius went away wounded, and they were all in danger. However, king Agrippa
went up to Claudius, and desired he would treat the senators more gently;
for if any mischief should come to the senate, he would have no others
over whom to rule. Claudius complied with him, and called the senate together
into the palace, and was carried thither himself through the city, while
the soldiery conducted him, though this was to the great vexation of the
multitude; for Cherea and Sabinus, two of Caius's murderers, went in the
fore-front of them, in an open manner, while Pollio, whom Claudius, a little
before, had made captain of his guards, had sent them an epistolary edict,
to forbid them to appear in public. Then did Claudius, upon his coming
to the palace, get his friends together, and desired their suffrages about
Cherea. They said that the work he had done was a glorious one; but they
accused him the he did it of perfidiousness, and thought it just to inflict
the punishment [of death] upon him, to discountenance such actions for
the time to come. So Cherea was led to his execution, and Lupus and many
other Romans with him. Now it is reported that Cherea bore this calamity
courageously; and this not only by the firmness of his own behavior under
it, but by the reproaches he laid upon Lupus, who fell into tears; for
when Lupus laid his garment aside, and complained of the cold 1
he said, that cold was never hurtful to Lupus [i.e. a wolf] And as a great
many men went along with them to see the sight, when Cherea came to the
place, he asked the soldier who was to be their executioner, whether this
office was what he was used to, or whether this was the first time of his
using his sword in that manner, and desired him to bring him that very
sword with which he himself slew Caius. 2
So he was happily killed at one stroke. But Lupus did not meet with such
good fortune in going out of the world, since he was timorous, and had
many blows leveled at his neck, because he did not stretch it out boldly
[as he ought to have done].
1 This piercing cold here complained of by Lupus agrees well to the time of the year when Claudius began his reign; it being for certain about the months of November, December, or January, and most probably a few days after January the twenty-fourth, and a few days before the Roman Parentalia.
2 It is both here and elsewhere very remarkable, that the murders of the vilest tyrants, who yet highly deserved to die, when those murderers were under oaths, or other the like obligations of fidelity to them, were usually revenged, and the murderers were cut off themselves, and that after a remarkable manner; and this sometimes, as in the present case, by those very persons who were not sorry for such murders, but got kingdoms by them. The examples are very numerous, both in sacred and profane histories, and seem generally indications of Divine vengeance on such murderers. Nor is it unworthy of remark, that such murderers of tyrants do it usually on such ill principles, in such a cruel manner, and as ready to involve the innocent with the guilty, which was the case here, ch. 1. sect. 14, and ch. 2. sect. 4, as justly deserved the Divine vengeance upon them. Which seems to have been the case of Jehu also, when, besides the house of Ahab, for whose slaughter he had a commission from God, without any such commission, any justice or commiseration, he killed Ahab's great men, and acquaintance, and priests, and forty-two of the kindred of Ahaziah, 2 Kings 10:11-14. See Hosea 1:4. I do not mean here to condemn Ehud or Judith, or the like executioners of God's vengeance on those wicked tyrants who had unjustly oppressed God's own people under their theocracy; who, as they appear still to have had no selfish designs nor intentions to slay the innocent, so had they still a Divine commission, or a Divine impulse, which was their commission for what they did, Judges 3:15, 19, 20; Judith 9:2; Test. Levi. sect. 5, in Authent. Rec. p. 312. See also page 432.
Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by. William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo. John E. Beardsley. 1895.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
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.