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AS for Herod, he had spent vast sums about the cities, both without
and within his own kingdom; and as he had before heard that Hyrcanus, who
had been king before him, had opened David's sepulcher, and taken out of
it three thousand talents of silver, and that there was a much greater
number left behind, and indeed enough to suffice all his wants, he had
a great while an intention to make the attempt; and at this time he opened
that sepulcher by night, and went into it, and endeavored that it should
not be at all known in the city, but took only his most faithful friends
with him. As for any money, he found none, as Hyrcanus had done, but that
furniture of gold, and those precious goods that were laid up there; all
which he took away. However, he had a great desire to make a more diligent
search, and to go farther in, even as far as the very bodies of David and
Solomon; where two of his guards were slain, by a flame that burst out
upon those that went in, as the report was. So he was terribly aftrighted,
and went out, and built a propitiatory monument of that fright he had been
in; and this of white stone, at the mouth of the sepulcher, and that at
great expense also. And even Nicolaus
1
his historiographer makes mention of this monument built by Herod, though
he does not mention his going down into the sepulcher, as knowing that
action to be of ill repute; and many other things he treats of in the same
manner in his book; for he wrote in Herod's lifetime, and under his reign,
and so as to please him, and as a servant to him, touching upon nothing
but what tended to his glory, and openly excusing many of his notorious
crimes, and very diligently concealing them. And as he was desirous to
put handsome colors on the death of Mariamne and her sons, which were barbarous
actions in the king, he tells falsehoods about the incontinence of Mariamne,
and the treacherous designs of his sons upon him; and thus he proceeded
in his whole work, making a pompous encomium upon what just actions he
had done, but earnestly apologizing for his unjust ones. Indeed, a man,
as I said, may have a great deal to say by way of excuse for Nicolaus;
for he did not so properly write this as a history for others, as somewhat
that might be subservient to the king himself. As for ourselves, who come
of a family nearly allied to the Asamonean kings, and on that account have
an honorable place, which is the priesthood, we think it indecent to say
any thing that is false about them, and accordingly we have described their
actions after an unblemished and upright manner. And although we reverence
many of Herod's posterity, who still reign, yet do we pay a greater regard
to truth than to them, and this though it sometimes happens that we incur
their displeasure by so doing.