f the plot by means of a common council
consisting of his own kinsmen and the governors of his province, and if
his sons were found guilty to put them to death. With these directions
Herod complied. Then he sent his sons to Sebaste and ordered them there to
be strangled, and his orders being executed immediately, he commanded
their bodies to be brought to the fortress of Alexandrium.

[Sidenote: Jos. Jew. War, I, 28:1a, 29:2c]
But an unconquerable hatred against Antipater rose up in the nation now
that he had an indisputable title to the succession, because they well
knew that he was the person who had contrived all the calumnies against
his brothers. Later he secured permission by means of his Italian friends
to go and live at Rome. For when they wrote that it was proper for
Antipater to be sent to Augustus after some time, Herod made no delay but
sent him with a splendid retinue and a large amount of money, and gave him
his testament to carry in which Antipater was inscribed as king.

[Sidenote: Jos. Jew. War, I, 30:5a, 31:1a]
And after the death of Herod's brother Pheroras, the king devoted himself
to examining his son Antipater's steward; and upon torturing him he
learned that Antipater had sent for a potion of deadly poison for him from
Egypt, and that the uncle of Antipater had received it from him and
delivered it to Pheroras, for Antipater had charged him to destroy his
father the king, while [Antipater] was at Rome, and so free him from the
suspicion of doing it himself. Antipater's freedman was also brought to
trial, and he was the concluding proof of Antipater's designs. This man
came and brought another deadly potion of the poison of asps and of other
serpents, that if the first potion did not accomplish its end, Pheroras
and his wife might be armed with this also against the king.

[Sidenote: Jos. Jew. War, I, 33:1, 7, 8a]
Now Herod's illness became more and more severe because his various
ailments attacked him in his old age and when he was in a melancholy
state, for he was already almost seventy years of age and was depressed by
the calamities that had happened to him in connection with his children,
so that he had no pleasure in life even when he was in health. The fact
that Antipater was still alive aggravated his disease, and he preferred to
destroy him, not incidentally but by crushing him completely. When letters
came from his ambassadors at Rome containing the information that
Antipater was condem