[422]
But when Titus had composed the troubles in Judea, and conjectured
that the lands which I had in Judea would bring me no profit, because a
garrison to guard the country was afterward to pitch there, he gave me
another country in the plain. And when he was going away to Rome, he made
choice of me to sail along with him, and paid me great respect: and when
we were come to Rome, I had great care taken of me by Vespasian; for he
gave me an apartment in his own house, which he lived in before he came
to the empire. He also honored me with the privilege of a Roman citizen,
and gave me an annual pension; and continued to respect me to the end of
his life, without any abatement of his kindness to me; which very thing
made me envied, and brought me into danger; for a certain Jew, whose name
was Jonathan, who had raised a tumult in Cyrene, and had persuaded two
thousand men of that country to join with him, was the occasion of their
ruin. But when he was bound by the governor of that country, and sent to
the emperor, he told him that I had sent him both weapons and money. However,
he could not conceal his being a liar from Vespasian, who condemned him
to die; according to which sentence he was put to death. Nay, after that,
when those that envied my good fortune did frequently bring accusations
against me, by God's providence I escaped them all. I also received from
Vespasian no small quantity of land, as a free gift, in Judea; about which
time I divorced my wife also, as not pleased with her behavior, though
not till she had been the mother of three children, two of whom are dead,
and one whom I named Hyrcanus, is alive. After this I married a wife who
had lived at Crete, but a Jewess by birth: a woman she was of eminent parents,
and such as were the most illustrious in all the country, and whose character
was beyond that of most other women, as her future life did demonstrate.
By her I had two sons; the elder's name was Justus, and the next Simonides,
who was also named Agrippa. And these were the circumstances of my domestic
affairs. However, the kindness of the emperor to me continued still the
same; for when Vespasian was dead, Titus, who succeeded him in the government,
kept up the same respect for me which I had from his father; and when I
had frequent accusations laid against me, he would not believe them. And
Domitian, who succeeded, still augmented his respects to me; for he punished
those Jews that were my accusers, and gave command that a servant of mine,
who was a eunuch, and my accuser, should be punished. He also made that
country I had in Judea tax free, which is a mark of the greatest honor
to him who hath it; nay, Domitia, the wife of Caesar, continued to do me
kindnesses. And this is the account of the actions of my whole life; and
let others judge of my character by them as they please. But to thee, O
Epaphroditus, 1
thou most excellent of men! do I dedicate all this treatise of our Antiquities;
and so, for the present, I here conclude the whole.
1 Of this Epaphroditus, see the note on the Preface to the Antiquities.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.