the
country, nay, from beyond its limits also, in order to worship God, the
seditious lamented Judas and Matthias, those teachers of the laws,
and kept together in the temple, and had plenty of food, because these
seditious persons were not ashamed to beg it. And as Archelaus was
afraid lest some terrible thing should spring up by means of these men's
madness, he sent a regiment of armed men, and with them a captain of a
thousand, to suppress the violent efforts of the seditious before the
whole multitude should be infected with the like madness; and gave them
this charge, that if they found any much more openly seditious than
others, and more busy in tumultuous practices, they should bring them to
him. But those that were seditious on account of those teachers of
the law, irritated the people by the noise and clamors they used to
encourage the people in their designs; so they made an assault upon the
soldiers, and came up to them, and stoned the greatest part of them,
although some of them ran away wounded, and their captain among them;
and when they had thus done, they returned to the sacrifices which
were already in their hands. Now Archelaus thought there was no way to
preserve the entire government but by cutting off those who made this
attempt upon it; so he sent out the whole army upon them, and sent the
horsemen to prevent those that had their tents without the temple from
assisting those that were within the temple, and to kill such as ran
away from the footmen when they thought themselves out of danger; which
horsemen slew three thousand men, while the rest went to the neighboring
mountains. Then did Archelaus order proclamation to be made to them all,
that they should retire to their own homes; so they went away, and left
the festival, out of fear of somewhat worse which would follow, although
they had been so bold by reason of their want of instruction. So
Archelaus went down to the sea with his mother, and took with him
Nicolaus and Ptolemy, and many others of his friends, and left Philip
his brother as governor of all things belonging both to his own family
and to the public. There went out also with him Salome, Herod's sister
who took with her, her children, and many of her kindred were with her;
which kindred of hers went, as they pretended, to assist Archelaus in
gaining the kingdom, but in reality to oppose him, and chiefly to make
loud complaints of what he had done in the temple. But Sabinus, Caesar's