alents.

CHAPTER 8. How Herod Took Up Alexander And Bound Him; Whom Yet Archelaus
King Of Cappadocia Reconciled To His Father Herod Again.

1. But still the affairs of Herod's family were no better, but
perpetually more troublesome. Now this accident happened, which
arose from no decent occasion, but proceeded so far as to bring great
difficulties upon him. There were certain eunuchs which the king had,
and on account of their beauty was very fond of them; and the care of
bringing him drink was intrusted to one of them; of bringing him his
supper, to another; and of putting him to bed, to the third, who also
managed the principal affairs of the government; and there was one told
the king that these eunuchs were corrupted by Alexander the king's son
with great sums of money. And when they were asked whether Alexander had
had criminal conversation with them, they confessed it, but said they
knew of no further mischief of his against his father; but when they
were more severely tortured, and were in the utmost extremity, and the
tormentors, out of compliance with Antipater, stretched the rack to the
very utmost, they said that Alexander bare great ill-will and innate
hatred to his father; and that he told them that Herod despaired to live
much longer; and that, in order to cover his great age, he colored his
hair black, and endeavored to conceal what would discover how old he
was; but that if he would apply himself to him, when he should attain
the kingdom, which, in spite of his father, could come to no one else,
he should quickly have the first place in that kingdom under him, for
that he was now ready to take the kingdom, not only as his birth-right,
but by the preparations he had made for obtaining it, because a great
many of the rulers, and a great many of his friends, were of his side,
and those no ill men neither, ready both to do and to suffer whatsoever
should come on that account.

2. When Herod heard this confession, he was all over anger and fear,
some parts seeming to him reproachful, and some made him suspicious
of dangers that attended him, insomuch that on both accounts he was
provoked, and bitterly afraid lest some more heavy plot was laid against
him than he should be then able to escape from; whereupon he did not now
make an open search, but sent about spies to watch such as he suspected,
for he was now overrun with suspicion and hatred against all about
him; and indulging abundance of those su