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[441]
When therefore he was about to take a journey abroad, he committed
his wife to Joseph, his sister Salome's husband, as to one who would be
faithful to him, and bare him good-will on account of their kindred; he
also gave him a secret injunction, that if Antony slew him, he should slay
her. But Joseph, without any ill design, and only in order to demonstrate
the king's love to his wife, how he could not bear to think of being separated
from her, even by death itself, discovered this grand secret to her; upon
which, when Herod was come back, and as they talked together, and he confirmed
his love to her by many oaths, and assured her that he had never such an
affection for any other woman as he had for her, - " Yes," says
she, "thou didst, to be sure, demonstrate thy love to me by the injunctions
thou gavest Joseph, when thou commandedst him to kill me." 1
1 Here is either a defect or a great mistake in Josephus's present copies or memory; for Mariamne did not now reproach Herod with this his first injunction to Joseph to kill her, if he himself were slain by Antony, but that he had given the like command a second time to Soemus also, when he was afraid of being slain by Augustus. Antiq. B. XV. ch. 3. sect. 5, etc.
Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by. William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo. John E. Beardsley. 1895.
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