Antiquities of the Jews — Book 17, Chapter 4

1. As soon as Pheroras was dead, and his funeral was over, two of
Pheroras's freed-men, who were much esteemed by him, came to Herod, and
entreated him not to leave the murder of his brother without avenging
it, but to examine into such an unreasonable and unhappy death. When he
was moved with these words, for they seemed to him to be true, they said
that Pheroras supped with his wife the day before he fell sick, and that
a certain potion was brought him in such a sort of food as he was not
used to eat; but that when he had eaten, he died of it: that this potion
was brought out of Arabia by a woman, under pretense indeed as a love-
potion, for that was its name, but in reality to kill Pheroras; for that
the Arabian women are skillful in making such poisons: and the woman to
whom they ascribe this was confessedly a most intimate friend of one of
Sylleus's mistresses; and that both the mother and the sister of
Pheroras's wife had been at the places where she lived, and had
persuaded her to sell them this potion, and had come back and brought it
with them the day before that his supper. Hereupon the king was
provoked, and put the women slaves to the torture, and some that were
free with them; and as the fact did not yet appear, because none of them
would confess it, at length one of them, under the utmost agonies, said
no more but this, that she prayed that God would send the like agonies
upon Antipater's mother, who had been the occasion of these miseries to
all of them. This prayer induced Herod to increase the women's tortures,
till thereby all was discovered; their merry meetings, their secret
assemblies, and the disclosing of what he had said to his son alone unto
Pheroras's 4 women. [Now what Herod had charged Antipater to conceal,
was the gift of a hundred talents to him not to have any conversation
with Pheroras.] And what hatred he bore to his father; and that he
complained to his mother how very long his father lived; and that he was
himself almost an old man, insomuch that if the kingdom should come to
him, it would not afford him any great pleasure; and that there were a
great many of his brothers, or brothers' children, bringing up, that
might have hopes of the kingdom as well as himself, all which made his
own hopes of it uncertain; for that even now, if he should himself not
live, Herod had ordained that the government should be conferred, not on
his son, but rather on a brother. He also had accused the king of great
barbarity, and of the slaughter of his sons; and that it was out of the
fear he was under, lest he should do the like to him, that made him
contrive this his journey to Rome, and Pheroras contrive to go to his
own tetrarchy. 5

2. These confessions agreed with what his sister had told him, and
tended greatly to corroborate her testimony, and to free her from the
suspicion of her unfaithfulness to him. So the king having satisfied
himself of the spite which Doris, Antipater's mother, as well as
himself, bore to him, took away from her all her fine ornaments, which
were worth many talents, and then sent her away, and entered into
friendship with Pheroras's women. But he who most of all irritated the
king against his son was one Antipater, the procurator of Antipater the
king's son, who, when he was tortured, among other things, said that
Antipater had prepared a deadly potion, and given it to Pheroras, with
his desire that he would give it to his father during his absence, and
when he was too remote to have the least suspicion cast upon him thereto
relating; that Antiphilus, one of Antipater's friends, brought that
potion out of Egypt; and that it was sent to Pheroras by Thendion, the
brother of the mother of Antipater, the king's son, and by that means
came to Pheroras's wife, her husband having given it her to keep. And
when the king asked her about it, she confessed it; and as she was
running to fetch it, she threw herself down from the house-top; yet did
she not kill herself, because she fell upon her feet; by which means,
when the king had comforted her, and had promised her and her domestics
pardon, upon condition of their concealing nothing of the truth from
him, but had threatened her with the utmost miseries if she proved
ungrateful [and concealed any thing]: so she promised, and swore that
she would speak out every thing, and tell after what manner every thing
was done; and said what many took to be entirely true, that the potion
was brought out of Egypt by Antiphilus; and that his brother, who was a
physician, had procured it; and that "when Thendion brought it us, she
kept it upon Pheroras's committing it to her; and that it was prepared
by Antipater for thee. When, therefore, Pheroras was fallen sick, and
thou camest to him and tookest care of him, and when he saw the kindness
thou hadst for him, his mind was overborne thereby. So he called me to
him, and said to me, 'O woman! Antipater hath circumvented me in this
affair of his father and my brother, by persuading me to have a
murderous intention to him, and procuring a potion to be subservient
thereto; do thou, therefore, go and fetch my potion, [since my brother
appears to have still the same virtuous disposition towards me which he
had formerly, and I do not expect to live long myself, and that I may
not defile my forefathers by the murder of a brother,] and burn it
before my face:' that accordingly she immediately brought it, and did as
her husband bade her; and that she burnt the greatest part of the
potion; but that a little of it was left, that if the king, after
Pheroras's death, should treat her ill, she might poison herself, and
thereby get clear of her miseries." Upon her saying thus, she brought
out the potion, and the box in which it was, before them all. Nay, there
was another brother of Antiphilus, and his mother also, who, by the
extremity of pain and torture, confessed the same things, and owned the
box [to be that which had been brought out of Egypt]. The high priest's
daughter also, who was the king's wife, was accused to have been
conscious of all this, and had resolved to conceal it; for which reason
Herod divorced her, and blotted her son out of his testament, wherein he
had been mentioned as one that was to reign after him; and he took the
high priesthood away from his father-in-law, Simeon the son of Boethus,
and appointed Matthias the son of Theophilus, who was born at Jerusalem,
to be high priest in his room.

3. While this was doing, Bathyllus also, Antipater's freed-man, came
from Rome, and, upon the torture, was found to have brought another
potion, to give it into the hands of Antipater's mother, and of
Pheroras, that if the former potion did not operate upon the king, this
at least might carry him off. There came also letters from Herod's
friends at Rome, by the approbation and at the suggestion of Antipater,
to accuse Archelaus and Philip, as if they calumniated their father on
account of the slaughter of Alexander and Aristobulus, and as if they
commiserated their deaths, and as if, because they were sent for home,
[for their father had already recalled them,] they concluded they were
themselves also to be destroyed. These letters had been procured by
great rewards by Antipater's friends; but Antipater himself wrote to his
father about them, and laid the heaviest things to their charge; yet did
he entirely excuse them of any guilt, and said they were but young men,
and so imputed their words to their youth. But he said that he had
himself been very busy in the affair relating to Sylleus, and in getting
interest among the great men; and on that account had bought splendid
ornaments to present them withal, which cost him two hundred talents.
Now one may wonder how it came about, that while so many accusations
were laid against him in Judea during seven months before this time, he
was not made acquainted with any of them. The causes of which were, that
the roads were exactly guarded, and that men hated Antipater; for there
was nobody who would run any hazard himself to gain him any advantages.