e had rejected such as
advised him to yield to Archelaus, because he was his elder brother, and
because the second testament gave the kingdom to him. The inclinations
also of all Archelaus's kindred, who hated him, were removed to Antipas,
when they came to Rome; although in the first place every one rather
desired to live under their own laws [without a king], and to be under
a Roman governor; but if they should fail in that point, these desired
that Antipas might be their king.
4. Sabinus did also afford these his assistance to the same purpose by
letters he sent, wherein he accused Archelaus before Caesar, and highly
commended Antipas. Salome also, and those with her, put the crimes which
they accused Archelaus of in order, and put them into Caesar's hands;
and after they had done that, Archelaus wrote down the reasons of his
claim, and, by Ptolemy, sent in his father's ring, and his father's
accounts. And when Caesar had maturely weighed by himself what both had
to allege for themselves, as also had considered of the great burden of
the kingdom, and largeness of the revenues, and withal the number of the
children Herod had left behind him, and had moreover read the letters he
had received from Varus and Sabinus on this occasion, he assembled the
principal persons among the Romans together, [in which assembly Caius,
the son of Agrippa, and his daughter Julias, but by himself adopted
for his own son, sat in the first seat,] and gave the pleaders leave to
speak.
5. Then stood up Salome's son, Antipater, [who of all Archelaus's
antagonists was the shrewdest pleader,] and accused him in the following
speech: That Archelaus did in words contend for the kingdom, but that
in deeds he had long exercised royal authority, and so did but insult
Caesar in desiring to be now heard on that account, since he had not
staid for his determination about the succession, and since he had
suborned certain persons, after Herod's death, to move for putting the
diadem upon his head; since he had set himself down in the throne, and
given answers as a king, and altered the disposition of the army, and
granted to some higher dignities; that he had also complied in all
things with the people in the requests they had made to him as to their
king, and had also dismissed those that had been put into bonds by his
father for most important reasons. Now, after all this, he desires the
shadow of that royal authority, whose substance he had already s
|