lready a friend of his, and received very
great favors from him; for he made him a present of those four hundred
Galatians who had been Cleopatra's guards, and restored that country to
him again, which, by her means, had been taken away from him. He also
added to his kingdom Gadara, Hippos, and Samaria; and, besides those,
the maritime cities, Gaza, and Anthedon, and Joppa, and Strato's Tower.

4. Upon these new acquisitions, he grew more magnificent, and conducted
Caesar as far as Antioch; but upon his return, as much as his prosperity
was augmented by the foreign additions that had been made him, so much
the greater were the distresses that came upon him in his own family,
and chiefly in the affair of his wife, wherein he formerly appeared to
have been most of all fortunate; for the affection he had for Mariamne
was no way inferior to the affections of such as are on that account
celebrated in history, and this very justly. As for her, she was in
other respects a chaste woman, and faithful to him; yet had she somewhat
of a woman rough by nature, and treated her husband imperiously enough,
because she saw he was so fond of her as to be enslaved to her. She
did not also consider seasonably with herself that she lived under a
monarchy, and that she was at another's disposal, and accordingly would
behave herself after a saucy manner to him, which yet he usually put off
in a jesting way, and bore with moderation and good temper. She would
also expose his mother and his sister openly, on account of the meanness
of their birth, and would speak unkindly of them, insomuch that there
was before this a disagreement and unpardonable hatred among the women,
and it was now come to greater reproaches of one another than formerly,
which suspicions increased, and lasted a whole year after Herod returned
from Caesar. However, these misfortunes, which had been kept under some
decency for a great while, burst out all at once upon such an occasion
as was now offered; for as the king was one day about noon lain down on
his bed to rest him, he called for Mariamne, out of the great affection
he had always for her. She came in accordingly, but would not lie down
by him; and when he was very desirous of her company, she showed her
contempt of him; and added, by way of reproach, that he had caused her
father and her brother to be slain. [11] And when he took this injury
very unkindly, and was ready to use violence to her, in a precipitate
manner