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[354]
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, 1
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.
1 This death of Antigonus is confirmed by Plutarch and. Straho; the latter of whom is cited for it by Josephus himself, Antiq. B. XV. ch. 1. sect. 2, as Dean Aldrich here observes.
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