g
away to the temple; nor was there any mercy showed either to infants, or
to the aged, or to the weaker sex; insomuch that although the king sent
about and desired them to spare the people, nobody could be persuaded
to withhold their right hand from slaughter, but they slew people of all
ages, like madmen. Then it was that Antigonus, without any regard to his
former or to his present fortune, came down from the citadel, and fell
at Sosius's feet, who without pitying him at all, upon the change of his
condition, laughed at him beyond measure, and called him Antigona. [26]
Yet did he not treat him like a woman, or let him go free, but put him
into bonds, and kept him in custody.

3. But Herod's concern at present, now he had gotten his enemies under
his power, was to restrain the zeal of his foreign auxiliaries; for the
multitude of the strange people were very eager to see the temple, and
what was sacred in the holy house itself; but the king endeavored to
restrain them, partly by his exhortations, partly by his threatenings,
nay, partly by force, as thinking the victory worse than a defeat to
him, if any thing that ought not to be seen were seen by them. He also
forbade, at the same time, the spoiling of the city, asking Sosius in
the most earnest manner, whether the Romans, by thus emptying the city
of money and men, had a mind to leave him king of a desert,--and told
him that he judged the dominion of the habitable earth too small a
compensation for the slaughter of so many citizens. And when Sosius said
that it was but just to allow the soldiers this plunder as a reward for
what they suffered during the siege, Herod made answer, that he would
give every one of the soldiers a reward out of his own money. So he
purchased the deliverance of his country, and performed his promises to
them, and made presents after a magnificent manner to each soldier,
and proportionably to their commanders, and with a most royal bounty
to Sosius himself, whereby nobody went away but in a wealthy condition.
Hereupon Sosius dedicated a crown of gold to God, and then went away
from Jerusalem, leading Antigonus away in bonds to Antony; then did the
axe bring him to his end, [27] who still had a fond desire of life, and
some frigid hopes of it to the last, but by his cowardly behavior well
deserved to die by it.

4. Hereupon king Herod distinguished the multitude that was in the city;
and for those that were of his side, he made them still m