iscover his associates in these his wicked designs. So he laid all
upon Antiphilus, but discovered nobody else. Hereupon Herod was in such
great grief, that he was ready to send his son to Rome to Caesar, there
to give an account of these his wicked contrivances. But he soon became
afraid, lest he might there, by the assistance of his friends, escape
the danger he was in; so he kept him bound as before, and sent more
ambassadors and letters [to Rome] to accuse his son, and an account of
what assistance Acme had given him in his wicked designs, with copies of
the epistles before mentioned.

CHAPTER 6. Concerning The Disease That Herod Fell Into And The Sedition
Which The Jews Raised Thereupon; With The Punishment Of The Seditious.

1. Now Herod's ambassadors made haste to Rome; but sent, as instructed
beforehand, what answers they were to make to the questions put to them.
They also carried the epistles with them. But Herod now fell into a
distemper, and made his will, and bequeathed his kingdom to [Antipas],
his youngest son; and this out of that hatred to Archclaus and Philip,
which the calumnies of Antipater had raised against them. He also
bequeathed a thousand talents to Caesar, and five hundred to Julia,
Caesar's wife, to Caesar's children, and friends and freed-men. He also
distributed among his sons and their sons his money, his revenues, and
his lands. He also made Salome his sister very rich, because she had
continued faithful to him in all his circumstances, and was never so
rash as to do him any harm; and as he despaired of recovering, for he
was about the seventieth year of his age, he grew fierce, and indulged
the bitterest anger upon all occasions; the cause whereof was this, that
he thought himself despised, and that the nation was pleased with his
misfortunes; besides which, he resented a sedition which some of the
lower sort of men excited against him, the occasion of which was as
follows.

2. There was one Judas, the son of Saripheus, and Matthias, the son of
Margalothus, two of the most eloquent men among the Jews, and the most
celebrated interpreters of the Jewish laws, and men well beloved by the
people, because of their education of their youth; for all those that
were studious of virtue frequented their lectures every day. These men,
when they found that the king's distemper was incurable, excited the
young men that they would pull down all those works which the king had
erected contrary