f
all the Syrians. But Phasaelus went up to the Parfilian governor, and
reproached him to his face for laying this treacherous plot against
them, and chiefly because he had done it for money; and he promised him
that he would give him more money for their preservation, than Antigonus
had promised to give for the kingdom. But the sly Parthian endeavored to
remove all this suspicion by apologies and by oaths, and then went [to
the other] Pacorus; immediately after which those Parthians who were
left, and had it in charge, seized upon Phasaelus and Hyrcanus, who
could do no more than curse their perfidiousness and their perjury.

6. In the mean time, the cup-bearer was sent [back], and laid a plot how
to seize upon Herod, by deluding him, and getting him out of the city,
as he was commanded to do. But Herod suspected the barbarians from the
beginning; and having then received intelligence that a messenger,
who was to bring him the letters that informed him of the treachery
intended, had fallen among the enemy, he would not go out of the city;
though Pacorus said very positively that he ought to go out, and meet
the messengers that brought the letters, for that the enemy had not
taken them, and that the contents of them were not accounts of any plots
upon them, but of what Phasaelus had done; yet had he heard from others
that his brother was seized; and Alexandra [20] the shrewdest woman in
the world, Hyrcanus's daughter, begged of him that he would not go out,
nor trust himself to those barbarians, who now were come to make an
attempt upon him openly.

7. Now as Pacorus and his friends were considering how they might bring
their plot to bear privately, because it was not possible to circumvent
a man of so great prudence by openly attacking him, Herod prevented
them, and went off with the persons that were the most nearly related to
him by night, and this without their enemies being apprized of it. But
as soon as the Parthians perceived it, they pursued after them; and as
he gave orders for his mother, and sister, and the young woman who was
betrothed to him, with her mother, and his youngest brother, to make the
best of their way, he himself, with his servants, took all the care they
could to keep off the barbarians; and when at every assault he had slain
a great many of them, he came to the strong hold of Masada.

8. Nay, he found by experience that the Jews fell more heavily upon him
than did the Parthians, and created