The Antiquities of the Jews & The War of the Jews. Flavius Josephus

To The Camp; And How The Senate Sent An Embassage To Him

       CHAPTER 4 What Things King Agrippa Did For Claudius; And How Claudius When He Had Taken The Government Commanded The Murderers Of Caius To Be Slain

       CHAPTER 5 How Claudius Restored To Agrippa His Grandfathers Kingdoms And Augmented His Dominions; And How He Published An Edict In Behalf

       CHAPTER 6 What Things Were Done By Agrippa At Jerusalem When He Was Returned Back Into Judea; And What It Was That Petronius Wrote To The Inhabitants Of Doris, In Behalf

       CHAPTER 7 Concerning Silas And On What Account It Was That King Agrippa Was Angry At Him. How Agrippa Began To Encompass Jerusalem With A Wall; And What Benefits He Bestowed On The Inhabitants Of Berytus

       CHAPTER 8 What Other Acts Were Done By Agrippa Until His Death; And After What Manner He Died

       CHAPTER 9 What Things Were Done After The Death Of Agrippa; And How Claudius, On Account Of The Youth And Unskilfulness Of Agrippa, Junior, Sent Cuspius Fadus To Be Procurator Of Judea, And Of The Entire Kingdom

       BOOK XX Containing The Interval Of Twenty-Two Years. — From Fadus The Procurator To Florus

       CHAPTER 1 A Sedition Of The Philadelphians Against The Jews; And Also Concerning The Vestments Of The High Priest

       CHAPTER 2 How Helena The Queen Of Adiabene And Her Son Izates, Embraced The Jewish Religion; And How Helena Supplied The Poor With Corn, When There Was A Great Famine At Jerusalem

       CHAPTER 3 How Artabanus, the King of Parthia out of Fear of the Secret Contrivances of His Subjects Against Him, Went to Izates, and Was By Him Reinstated in His Government; as Also How Bardanes His Son Denounced War Against Izates

       CHAPTER 4 How Izates Was Betrayed By His Own Subjects, And Fought Against By The Arabians And How Izates, By The Providence Of God, Was Delivered Out Of Their Hands

       CHAPTER 5 Concerning Theudas And The Sons Of Judas The Galilean; As Also What Calamity Fell Upon The Jews On The Day Of The Passover

       CHAPTER 6 How There Happened A Quarrel Between The Jews And The Samaritans; And How Claudius Put An End To Their Differences

       CHAPTER 7 Felix Is Made Procurator Of Judea; As Also Concerning Agrippa, Junior And His Sisters

       CHAPTER 8 After What Manner Upon The Death Of Claudius, Nero Succeeded In The Government; As Also What Barbarous Things He Did. Concerning The Robbers, Murderers And Impostors, That Arose While Felix And Festus Were Procurators Of Judea

       CHAPTER 9 Concerning Albinus Under Whose Procuratorship James Was Slain; As Also What Edifices Were Built By Agrippa

       CHAPTER 10 An Enumeration Of The High Priests

       CHAPTER 11 Concerning Florus The Procurator, Who Necessitated The Jews To Take Up Arms Against The Romans. The Conclusion

PREFACE1

       Table of Contents

      1. Those who undertake to write histories, do not, I perceive, take that trouble on one and the same account, but for many reasons, and those such as are very different one from another. For some of them apply themselves to this part of learning to show their skill in composition, and that they may therein acquire a reputation for speaking finely: others of them there are, who write histories in order to gratify those that happen to be concerned in them, and on that account have spared no pains, but rather gone beyond their own abilities in the performance: but others there are, who, of necessity and by force, are driven to write history, because they are concerned in the facts, and so cannot excuse themselves from committing them to writing, for the advantage of posterity; nay, there are not a few who are induced to draw their historical facts out of darkness into light, and to produce them for the benefit of the public, on account of the great importance of the facts themselves with which they have been concerned. Now of these several reasons for writing history, I must profess the two last were my own reasons also; for since I was myself interested in that war which we Jews had with the Romans, and knew myself its particular actions, and what conclusion it had, I was forced to give the history of it, because I saw that others perverted the truth of those actions in their writings.

2. Now I have undertaken the present work, as thinking it will appear to all the Greeks2 worthy of their study; for it will contain all our antiquities, and the constitution of our government, as interpreted out of the Hebrew Scriptures. And indeed I did formerly intend, when I wrote of the war,3 to explain who the Jews originally were, — what fortunes they had been subject to, — and by what legislature they had been instructed in piety, and the exercise of other virtues, — what wars also they had made in remote ages, till they were unwillingly engaged in this last with the Romans: but because this work would take up a great compass, I separated it into a set treatise by itself, with a beginning of its own, and its own conclusion; but in process of time, as usually happens to such as undertake great things, I grew weary and went on slowly, it being a large subject, and a difficult thing to translate our history into a foreign, and to us unaccustomed language. However, some persons there were who desired to know our history, and so exhorted me to go on with it; and, above all the rest, Epaphroditus,4 a man who is a lover of all kind of learning, but is principally delighted with the knowledge of history, and this on account of his having been himself concerned in great affairs, and many turns of fortune, and having shown a wonderful rigor of an excellent nature, and an immovable virtuous resolution in them all. I yielded to this man's persuasions, who always excites such as have abilities in what is useful and acceptable, to join their endeavors with his. I was also ashamed myself to permit any laziness of disposition to have a greater influence upon me, than the delight of taking pains in such studies as were very useful: I thereupon stirred up myself, and went on with my work more cheerfully. Besides the foregoing motives, I had others which I greatly reflected on; and these were, that our forefathers were willing to communicate such things to others; and that some of the Greeks took considerable pains to know the affairs of our nation.

3. I found, therefore, that the second of the Ptolemies was a king who was extraordinarily diligent in what concerned learning, and the collection of books; that he was also peculiarly ambitious to procure a translation of our law, and of the constitution of our government therein contained, into the Greek tongue. Now Eleazar the high priest, one not inferior