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[84]
And now, upon the permission that was given the accusers to speak,
they, in the first place, went over Herod's breaches of their law, and
said that be was not a king, but the most barbarous of all tyrants, and
that they had found him to be such by the sufferings they underwent from
him; that when a very great number had been slain by him, those that were
left had endured such miseries, that they called those that were dead happy
men; that he had not only tortured the bodies of his subjects, but entire
cities, and had done much harm to the cities of his own country, while
he adorned those that belonged to foreigners; and he shed the blood of
Jews, in order to do kindnesses to those people that were out of their
bounds; that he had filled the nation full of poverty, and of the greatest
iniquity, instead of that happiness and those laws which they had anciently
enjoyed; that, in short, the Jews had borne more calamities from Herod,
in a few years, than had their forefathers during all that interval of
time that had passed since they had come out of Babylon, and returned home,
in the reign of Xerxes 1
that, however, the nation was come to so low a condition, by being inured
to hardships, that they submitted to his successor of their own accord,
though he brought them into bitter slavery; that accordingly they readily
called Archelaus, though he was the son of so great a tyrant, king, after
the decease of his father, and joined with him in mourning for the death
of Herod, and in wishing him good success in that his succession; while
yet this Archelaus, lest he should be in danger of not being thought the
genuine son of Herod, began his reign with the murder of three thousand
citizens; as if he had a mind to offer so many bloody sacrifices to God
for his government, and to fill the temple with the like number of dead
bodies at that festival: that, however, those that were left after so many
miseries, had just reason to consider now at last the calamities they had
undergone, and to oppose themselves, like soldiers in war, to receive those
stripes upon their faces [but not upon their backs, as hitherto]. Whereupon
they prayed that the Romans would have compassion upon the [poor] remains
of Judea, and not expose what was left of them to such as barbarously tore
them to pieces, and that they would join their country to Syria, and administer
the government by their own commanders, whereby it would [soon] be demonstrated
that those who are now under the calumny of seditious persons, and lovers
of war, know how to bear governors that are set over them, if they be but
tolerable ones. So the Jews concluded their accusation with this request.
Then rose up Nicolaus, and confuted the accusations which were brought
against the kings, and himself accused the Jewish nation, as hard to be
ruled, and as naturally disobedient to kings. He also reproached all those
kinsmen of Archelaus who had left him, and were gone over to his accusers.
1 Here we have a strong confirmation that it was Xerxes, and not Artaxerxes, under whom the main part of the Jews returned out of the Babylonian captivity, i.e. in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah. The same thing is in the Antiquities, B. XI. ch.6
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