Antiquities of the Jews — Book 17, Chapter 13

1. When Archelaus was entered on his ethnarchy, and was come into Judea,
he accused Joazar, the son of Boethus, of assisting the seditious, and
took away the high priesthood from him, and put Eleazar his brother in
his place. He also magnificently rebuilt the royal palace that had been
at Jericho, and he diverted half the water with which the village of
Neara used to be watered, and drew off that water into the plain, to
water those palm trees which he had there planted: he also built a
village, and put his own name upon it, and called it Archelais.
Moreover, he transgressed the law of our fathers 23 and married
Glaphyra, the daughter of Archelaus, who had been the wife of his
brother Alexander, which Alexander had three children by her, while it
was a thing detestable among the Jews to marry the brother's wife. Nor
did this Eleazar abide long in the high priesthood, Jesus, the son of
Sie, being put in his room while he was still living.

2. But in the tenth year of Archelaus's government, both his brethren,
and the principal men of Judea and Samaria, not being able to bear his
barbarous and tyrannical usage of them, accused him before Cæsar, and
that especially because they knew he had broken the commands of Cæsar,
which obliged him to behave himself with moderation among them.
Whereupon Cæsar, when he heard it, was very angry, and called for
Archelaus's steward, who took care of his affairs at Rome, and whose
name was Archelaus also; and thinking it beneath him to write to
Archelaus, he bid him sail away as soon as possible, and bring him to
us: so the man made haste in his voyage, and when he came into Judea, he
found Archelaus feasting with his friends; so he told him what Cæsar had
sent him about, and hastened him away. And when he was come [to Rome],
Cæsar, upon hearing what certain accusers of his had to say, and what
reply he could make, both banished him, and appointed Vienna, a city of
Gaul, to be the place of his habitation, and took his money away from
him.

3. Now, before Archelaus was gone up to Rome upon this message, he
related this dream to his friends: That he saw ears of corn, in number
ten, full of wheat, perfectly ripe, which ears, as it seemed to him,
were devoured by oxen. And when he was awake and gotten up, because the
vision appeared to be of great importance to him, he sent for the
diviners, whose study was employed about dreams. And while some were of
one opinion, and some of another, [for all their interpretations did not
agree,] Simon, a man of the sect of the Essens, desired leave to speak
his mind freely, and said that the vision denoted a change in the
affairs of Archelaus, and that not for the better; that oxen, because
that animal takes uneasy pains in his labors, denoted afflictions, and
indeed denoted, further, a change of affairs, because that land which is
ploughed by oxen cannot remain in its former state; and that the ears of
corn being ten, determined the like number of years, because an ear of
corn grows in one year; and that the time of Archelaus's government was
over. And thus did this man expound the dream. Now on the fifth day
after this dream came first to Archelaus, the other Archelaus, that was
sent to Judea by Cæsar to call him away, came hither also.

4. The like accident befell Glaphyra his wife, who was the daughter of
king Archelaus, who, as I said before, was married, while she was a
virgin, to Alexander, the son of Herod, and brother of Archelaus; but
since it fell out so that Alexander was slain by his father, she was
married to Juba, the king of Lybia; and when he was dead, and she lived
in widowhood in Cappadocia with her father, Archelaus divorced his
former wife Mariamne, and married her, so great was his affection for
this Glphyra; who, during her marriage to him, saw the following dream:
She thought she saw Alexander standing by her, at which she rejoiced,
and embraced him with great affection; but that he complained o her, and
said, O Glaphyra! thou provest that saying to be true, which assures us
that women are not to be trusted. Didst not thou pledge thy faith to me?
and wast not thou married to me when thou wast a virgin? and had we not
children between us? Yet hast thou forgotten the affection I bare to
thee, out of a desire of a second husband. Nor hast thou been satisfied
with that injury thou didst me, but thou hast been so bold as to procure
thee a third husband to lie by thee, and in an indecent and imprudent
manner hast entered into my house, and hast been married to Archelaus,
thy husband and my brother. However, I will not forget thy former kind
affection for me, but will set thee free from every such reproachful
action, and cause thee to be mine again, as thou once wast. When she had
related this to her female companions, in a few days' time she departed
this life.

5. Now I did not think these histories improper for the present
discourse, both because my discourse now is concerning kings, and
otherwise also on account of the advantage hence to be drawn, as well
for the confirmation of the immortality of the soul, as of the
providence of God over human affairs, I thought them fit to be set down;
but if any one does not believe such relations, let him indeed enjoy his
own opinion, but let him not hinder another that would thereby encourage
himself in virtue. So Archelaus's country was laid to the province of
Syria; and Cyrenius, one that had been consul, was sent by Cæsar to take
account of people's effects in Syria, and to sell the house of
Archelaus.

FOOTNOTES:

1 (return) [ Those who have a mind to know all the family and
descendants of Antipater the Idumean, and of Herod the Great, his son,
and have a memory to preserve them all distinctly, may consult Josephus,
Antiq. B. XVIII. ch. 5. sect. 4; and Of the War, B. I. ch. 28. sect. 4;
in Havercamp's edition, p. 336; and Spanheim, lb. p. 402—405; and
Reland, Paleslin. Part I. p. 178, 176.]

2 (return) [ This is now wanting.]

3 (return) [ Pheroras's wife, and her mother and sister, and Doris,
Antipater's mother.]

4 (return) [ His wife, her mother, and sister.]

5 (return) [ It seems to me, by this whole story put together, that
Pheroras was not himself poisoned, as is commonly supposed; for
Antipater had persuaded him to poison Herod, ch. v. sect. 1, which would
fall to the ground if he wore himself poisoned; nor could the poisoning
of Pheroras serve any design that appears now going forward; it was only
the supposal of two of his freed-men, that this love-potion, or poison,
which they knew was brought to Pheroras's wife, was made use of for
poisoning him; whereas it appears to have been brought for her husband
to poison Herod withal, as the future examinations demonstrate.]

6 (return) [ That the making of images, without an intention to worship
them, was not unlawful to the Jews, see the note on Antiq. B VIII. ch.
7. sect. 5.

7 (return) [ This fact, that one Joseph was made high priest for a
single day, on occasion of the action here specified, that befell
Matthias, the real high priest, in his sleep, the night before the great
day of expiation, is attested to both in the Mishna and Talmud, as Dr.
Hudson here informs us. And indeed, from this fact, thus fully attested,
we may confute that pretended rule in the Talmud here mentioned, and
endeavored to be excused lay Reland, that the high priest was not
suffered to sleep the night before that great day of expiation; which
watching would surely rather unfit him for the many important duties he
was to perform on that solemn day, than dispose him duly to perform
them. Nor do such Talmudical rules, when unsupported by better evidence,
much less when contradicted there by, seem to me of weight enough to
deserve that so great a man as Reland should spend his time in endeavors
at their vindication.]

8 (return) [ This eclipse of the moon [which is the only eclipse of
either of the luminaries mentioned by our Josephus in any of his
writings] is of the greatest consequence for the determination of the
time for the death of Herod and Antipater, and for the birth and entire
chronology of Jesus Christ. It happened March 13th, in the year of the
Julian period 4710, and the 4th year before the Christian era. See its
calculation by the rules of astronomy, at the end of the Astronomical
Lectures, edit. Lat. p. 451, 452.]

9 (return) [ A place for the horse-races.]

10 (return) [ When it is here said that Philip the tetrarch, and
Archelaus the king, or ethnarch, were own brother, or genuine brothers,
if those words mean own brothers, or born of the same father and mother,
there must be here some mistake; because they had indeed the same
father, Herod, but different mothers; the former Cleopatra, and
Archelaus Malthace. They were indeed brought up together privately at
Rome like when he went to have his kingdom confirmed to him at Rome, ch.
9. sect. 5; and Of the War, B. II. ch. 2. sect. 1; which intimacy is
perhaps all that Josephus intended by the words before us.]

11 (return) [ These numbers of years for Herod's reign, 34 and 37, are
the very same with those, Of the War, B. I. ch. 33. sect. 8, and are
among the principal chronological characters belonging to the reign or
death of Herod. See Harm. p. 150—155.]

12 (return) [ At eight stadia or furlongs a-day, as here, Herod's
funeral, conducted to Herodium, which lay at the distance from Jericho,
where he died, of 200 stadia or furlongs, Of the War, B. 1. ch. 33.
sect. 9, must have taken up no less than twenty-five days.]

13 (return) [ This passover, when the sedition here mentioned was moved
against Archelaus, was not one, but thirteen months after the eclipse of
the moon already mentioned.]

14 (return) [ See Antiq. B. XIV. ch. 13. sect. 10; and Of the War; B.
II. ch. 12. sect. 9.]

15 (return) [ These great devastations made about the temple here, and
Of the War, B. II. ch. 3. sect. 3, seem not to have been full re-edified
in the days of Nero; till whose time there were eighteen thousand
workmen continually employed in rebuilding and repairing that temple, as
Josephus informs us, Antiq. B. XX. ch. 9. sect. 7. See the note on that
place.]

16 (return) [ Unless this Judas, the son of Ezekias, be the same with
that Theudas, mentioned Acts 5:36, Josephus must have omitted him; for
that other Thoualas, whom he afterward mentions, under Fadus the Roman
governor, B. XX. ch. 5. sect. 1, is much too late to correspond to him
that is mentioned in the Acts. The names Theudas, Thaddeus, and Judas
differ but little. See Archbishop Usher's Annals at A.M. 4001. However,
since Josephus does not pretend to reckon up the heads of all those ten
thousand disorders in Judea, which he tells us were then abroad, see
sect. 4 and 8, the Theudas of the Acts might be at the head of one of
those seditions, though not particularly named by him. Thus he informs
us here, sect. 6, and Of the War, B. II. ch. 4. Sect. 2, that certain of
the seditious came and burnt the royal palace at Amsthus, or
Betharamphta, upon the river Jordan. Perhaps their leader, who is not
named by Josephus, might be this Theudas.]

17 (return) [ See Of the War, B. II. ch. 2. sect. 3.]

18 (return) [ See the note, Of the War, B. II. ch. 6. sect. 1.]

19 (return) [ He was tetrarch afterward.]

20 (return) [ 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.]

21 (return) [ This is not true. See Antiq. B. XIV. ch. 9. sect. 3, 4;
and ch. 12. sect. 2; and ch. 13. sect. 1, 2. Antiq. B. XV. ch. 3. sect.
5; and ch. 10. sect. 2, 3. Antiq. B. XVI. ch. 9. sect. 3. Since Josephus
here informs us that Archelaus had one half of the kingdom of Herod, and
presently informs us further that Archelaus's annual income, after an
abatement of one quarter for the present, was 600 talents, we may
therefore gather pretty nearly what was Herod the Great's yearly income,
I mean about 1600 talents, which, at the known value of 3000 shekels to
a talent, and about 2s. 10d. to a shekel, in the days of Josephus, see
the note on Antiq. B. III. ch. 8. sect. 2, amounts to 680,000 sterling
per annum; which income, though great in itself, bearing no proportion
to his vast expenses every where visible in Josephus, and to the vast
sums he left behind him in his will, ch. 8. sect. 1, and ch. 12. sect.
1, the rest must have arisen either from his confiscation of those great
men's estates whom he put to death, or made to pay fine for the saving
of their lives, or from some other heavy methods of oppression which
such savage tyrants usually exercise upon their miserable subjects; or
rather from these several methods not together, all which yet seem very
much too small for his expenses, being drawn from no larger a nation
than that of the Jews, which was very populous, but without the
advantage of trade to bring them riches; so that I cannot but strongly
suspect that no small part of this his wealth arose from another source;
I mean from some vast sums he took out of David's sepulcher, but
concealed from the people. See the note on Antiq. B. VII. ch. 15. sect.
3.]

22 (return) [ Take here a very useful note of Grotias, on Luke 3:1, here
quoted by Dr. Hudson: "When Josephus says that some part of the house
[or possession] of Zenodorus [i.e. Abilene] was allotted to Philip, he
thereby declares that the larger part of it belonged to another. This
other was Lysanias, whom Luke mentions, of the posterity of that
Lysanias who was possessed of the same country called Abilene, from the
city Abila, and by others Chalcidene, from the city Chaleis, when the
government of the East was under Antonius, and this after Ptolemy, the
son of Menneus; from which Lysanias this country came to be commonly
called the Country of Lysanias; and as, after the death of the former
Lyanias, it was called the tetrarchy of Zenodorus, so, after the death
of Zenodorus, or when the time for which he hired it was ended when
another Lysanias, of the same name with the former, was possessed of the
same country, it began to be called the Tetrarchy of Lysanias." However,
since Josephus elsewhere [Antiq. B. XX. ch. 7. sect. 1: clearly
distinguishes Abilene from Cilalcidcue, Groius must be here so far
mistaken.]

23 (return) [ Spanheim seasonably observes here, that it was forbidden
the Jews to marry their brother's wife when she had children by her
first husband, and that Zonaras [cites, or] interprets the clause before
us accordingly.]