Works

§. 1. The Parthian war not yet composed.

TIridates seated in his Throne, as was related before, but as it proved, neither sure in it, nor in the hearts of all his people, (the first of these being caused by the latter) he taketh in, certain Parthian Towns, and that by the Parthians own consent and aid. For his Roman education compared with the Scythian carriage of Artabanus made the people to hope accordingly of his demeanour, and to entertain him with present applause and future expectation. The day of his Coronation being appointed, letters from Phraates and Hiero, two of the chiefest commanders in the State, desire that it might be deferred for a certain space, which accordingly was done in regard of the greatness of the men. The King in the mean time goeth up to Ctesiphon the Imperial City, attending the coming of these two Nobles, who when they put it off from day today, Surena, in the presence and by the approval of very many, Crowneth him on their Country manner. These two Nobles and many others that were absent from this solemnity, some for fear of the Kings displeasure, some for hatred of Abdageses, his favorite, and some no doubt upon a plot premeditated, betake themselves to Artabanus their old King again. Him they find in Hyrcania hunting in the woods with his bow for his food, rusty and dirty in habit and attire, and overgrown with filth and neglect of himself. At his first sight of them it is no wonder if he were stricken with amazement, but their errand being related, it converted that passion into equal joy. For they complain of Tridates his youth, and effeminacy, of the Diadems translation out of the blood, of the potency of Abdageses, and the loss of their old King, whom they now are come to desire again. Artabanus believeth them and consenteth, and raising speedily what Scythians he could, marcheth away towards his Kingdom again. But his Royal apparel he wore not with him, but the poor and rugged garb of his misery and exile, thereby to move the more to pity: and used all his wits and policy to make himself a party strong on his side all the way as he went. But he needed not all this cautelousness and preparation, for Tiridates but hearing of his approaching towards Seleucia, under color of going to raise up forces, departed into Syria, and parted with his new Kingdom with as much facility as he had obtained it.

§. 2. Artabanus giveth hostages to Rome.

When the power and policy of Tiberius, and his agent Vitellius that had served to get Artabanus out of his Kingdom, would not serve the turn to keep him thence; they send to treat of friendship with him, suspecting what trouble such a spirit might procure, should it bend itself against the Roman Empire. The King wearied with the • oils of War, and knowing without a prompter, what it was to defy the Romans, condescendeth readily to the motion, and Vitellius and he meeting upon a bridge made over Euphrates for that purpose, each, with a guard about him; conclude upon Articles of agreement, and Herod the Tetrarch entertaineth them both, in a pavilion curiously seated in the midst of the stream. Not long after this Artabanus sendeth Darius his son for an hostage to Tiberius; and withal he sendeth Eleazar a Jew, of seven cubits high, for a present; and many other gifts.

§. 3. A Commotion in Cappadocia.

Whilst matters went thus unquietly in Parthia, the Calitae a Nation of Cappadocia, grew discontented about paying tribute to the Romans, and so departed into the mountain Taurus, and there fortify, resolving as they never had used to pay such taxations, so never to learn, nor to use to do so. Archelaus was now King, but not now King of them; for the strength of the mountains, and the desperateness of their resolution, do animate them to withstand him and to rebel against the Romans. When tidings of this was brought to Vitellius into Syria, he dispatcheth away M. Trebellius with four thousand legionary Soldiers, and some other Forces raised otherways, to bring the Rebels to obedience or to ruin. Trebellius invironeth with Works and Men, two hills, Cadra and Davara, where they were the most strongly trenched, and those that were so hardy as to come forth, he subdueth with the sword, and the rest with famishing.

§. 4. Bloodshed at Rome.

These diseases of the Roman body were far from the heart, and yet was the heart, the City itself but little the better; for though some veins were opened in these wars which one would have thought should have turned the blood another way, yet did the City through the cruelty of the Emperor bleed inwardly still. For L. Aurelius and some others died by the hand of the Executioner, and C. Galba, two of the Blesii, and the Lady Aemylia Lepida by their own hands. But the example of the greatest terror was Vibulenus Agrippa a Knight, who being at the bar, when he had heard what his accusers could say against him, and despairing to escape, he took poison out of his bosom in the face of the Court ( Dion saith he sucked it out of his Ring) and swallowed it and sank down and was ready to die, yet was he hailed away to prison and there strangled.

§. 5. Mishaps.

Besides this deluge of blood, which overflowed the City continually, there was also this year a deluge of water. For Tiber rose so high and violently into the Town, that many Streets became navigable, and where men had walked lately on their feet, they might have passed now up and down in ships. And a greater misfortune happened this year likewise by the contrary element: for a terrible fire consumed the buildings of the mount▪ Aventine and that part of the Circus that lay betwixt that and the Palace; For the repair of all which again, Tiberius out of his own Treasure gave a great sum of money: Tacitus saith Millies Sestertium, which according to the value and reckoning of our English coin amounted to eight hundred thousand pounds, within nineteen thousand. A sum not strange in an Emperors coffer at Rome, where the vastness of the Empire brought in vast revenues, but somewhat strange out of the purse of Tiberius for so good a purpose, whose covetousness was larger than those whole revenues. And therefore as I cannot but observe the difference of Dion about this liberality of the Emperor from Tacitus, and the difference of his translator from his Text; so can I not but conceive his computation and account to be the more probable in regard of the niggardise of the Emperor. For whereas the sum of Tacitus is eight hundred thousand within nineteen, he hath so far come short of such a reckoning, that he maketh nineteen thousand pounds to be the whole account. For Tiberius, saith he, gave 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , two thousand and five hundred thousand, meaning 2500 sestertia, and each sestertium containing a thousand Sestertios, this accreweth to about the sum last named, of 19000 l. and yet hath his translator forsaken his Greek, and followed Tacitus Latin, to so vast a difference.

§. 1. A commotion in Samaria. Pilate out of office.

A Great space of time is past since we heard any news of Pontius Pilate, and news it is indeed that his malicious and stirring spirit hath not entertained us with some bloody Tragedy or other, of all this while. His Government draweth now near its expiration, for he is going upon the tenth year of it, and it is a kind of miracle if so mischievous an agent, should part without acting some mischief before his exit, and this at last he did which put him out of office. There was a certain Impostor among the Samaritans ( Simon Magus as like as any) that would persuade the people, that in mount Gerizim he could show them, holy vessels which Moses had hid and laid up there with his own hand. The credulous vulgar meet by multitudes at a certain Village called Tirathaba intending when their company was full, to go see these sacred relics. But Pilate beforehand takes the passages with his Horse and Foot, and falling upon those that were thus assembled, some he slew, others he took captive and the rest fled. Of those that he captived, he caused the noblest and most principal to be put to death. For this fact the chief men of Samaria, accuse him to Vitellius, who commands him to Rome, there to answer before the Emperor what should be objected against him; and in his stead he made Marcellus a friend of his own, the Governor of Judea: but before Pilate came to Rome, Tiberius was dead. Yet hath Eusebius put off the testimony that Pilate is said to have given to Tiberius concerning the death and resurrection of Christ, and concerning the wonders wrought by him, till the next year following. A relation doubtful in itself, but more than doubtful in the issue. For first, though it be granted that Pilate bare witness to the works and wonders done by Christ, and gave testimony to his Resurrection, which yet to believe requireth a better evidence than I can find any: Yet secondly, the Epistle that is pretended for this his certificate by Hegesippus, cannot be that original one that Tertullian, and out of him Eusebius do mention, because it is indorsed to Claudius, and not to Tiberius. Thirdly, though both these were confessed and agreed unto, that Pilate wrote a Letter to Tiberius to such a purpose, and that this was the Letter, or some other that Tertullian had seen; yet can I never find the Emperor of so good a nature, and respective a disposition, as to give the desert of goodness its due, be it never so eminent and conspicuous, or be it in what kind soever. Fourthly, and lastly, that which maketh all the rest of the story to be doubted of, and which may justly hinder the entertainment of it, is, what is added in the common relation of the story. That Tiberius referring this matter to the Senate, with his vote, that Christ should be numbered among the God's, and Christianity among their holy things; the Senate crossed him in it with flat contrariety, because Pilate had written of it to him, and not to them. Now in the Stories that have been related before concerning the state and affairs of Rome, and by other stories that might be produced in other years, it is but too miserably evident, that the Senate was in too great a fear and slavery to the Tyrant, than to dare to affront him so palpably and plainly. Pilate after this, as Eusebius alledgeth out of the Roman Historians, falling into many miseries, ended himself with his own hand, the common and desperate Roman remedy against distress. Cassiodorus hath placed his death under the Consulship of Publicola and Nerva: And the common report hath given it in, that the place was Vienna.

§. 2. Agrippa his journey to Rome.

This Agrippa was the son of Aristobulus (who died by the cruelty of his father Herod ) and he was a man that had sufficiently tried the vicissitudes of fortune heretofore, but never so much as he is about to do now. A good while ago he had lived in Rome, and in the familiarity of Drusus the son of Tiberius: That great acquaintance caused great expenses; partly in his own port and pomp, and partly in gifts and beneficence bestowed upon others. When Drusus died, then Agrippa's estate is not only dead, but his hopes also: so that he is forced to flee from Rome into Judea for debt and poverty; and thence into a certain Tower in Idumea for shame and discontent. His wife Cyprus by solicitation and suing to Herodias, obtaineth Herod's favor so far, that he was removed to Tiberius, made a chief Governor or Officer of the City, and allowance given him for his Diet. But this lasted not long ere Herod and he fell out; whereupon he removed away, and betook himself to Flaccus the then Governor of Syria, who had been his old acquaintance at Rome: Long he had not continued there neither, but Aristobulus his brother wrought him out of his favor and abode there. From thence he went to Ptolomais, intending to have set from thence for Italy, but was forced to stay till he had borrowed some monies before: Being now furnished and shipped, he was again stopped by Herennius Capito, the Governor of Jamnia, for some money that he ought to the Treasury of Tiberius. And what must he do now? He must not go till he have paid the sum, and when he hath paid it, then he cannot go for want of more. He taketh on him to obey the arrest while it was day, but at might he cut cables, and set away for Alexandria: There he reneweth his borrowing again of Alexander Alabarcha and obtaineth of him five talents for his viaticum: and now this year (namely as Josephus noteth it, the year before Tiberius his death) he setteth away for Italy again. This Alabarcha is not the proper Name of any man, but the title of men that bare Rule over the Jews in Alexandria. For I observe that as Josephus in one place, calleth it Alabarcha, and Alabarchus, so in another he calleth it 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , fixing it thereby▪ as a title rather to any man that bare such an Office, than as a proper name to any man at all. And if conjecture may read its denotation and Etymology, it seemeth to be compounded of the Arabic Article Al, which they fix before all their Nouns, and the Egyptian word Abrech which in that language importeth dignity and honor (as we have observed elsewhere) as may be collected from the proclamation before Joseph, Gen. 41. 43.

Agrippa being arrived at Puteoli, sendeth to the Emperor to Capreae to certify him of his coming, and of his desire to wait upon him there. Tiberius giveth him admission and entertainment according to his mind: till Letters from Herennius Capito spoiled that cheer: For the Emperor understanding by them how he had slipped the collar at Jamnia, from his Officer, and from his own debt, he doth flatly forbid him anymore access unto him till the money be paid. Now is Agrippa in a worse case than ever: for there is no paltering with Tiberius, though there were with Capito; and no shifting from Capreae, though he had found such an opportunity at Jamnia. Nor is there any such thought to be entertained. For now his life and fortunes, and all lay in the hand of Tiberius; and when he findeth him inclinable to use him kindly, there is no losing that favor, for want of paying such a sum: Of Antonia the mother of Germanieus, and the old friend and favourer of Bernice the mother of Agrippa, he borroweth the money, and getting out of the Emperors debt, he getteth into his favor again. Insomuch that he commendeth him to the converse, acquaintance, and attendance of Gaius his Grandchild that was to succeed him.

§. 3. His Imprisonment.

Happy might now Agrippa think himself, if he can but hold so: For he hath obtained the inward friendship of Gaius, and with it retained the outward favor of Tiberius. Antonia and Claudius a future Emperor and all favor him, but he becomes an enemy to himself. Whether it were in love or flattery to Gaius, or to himself and his own hopes, he casteth himself into a present danger upon a future expectation. For Gaius and he being very intimate and private together, whether more affectionately, or undiscreetly, he himself best felt; he brake out into this dangerous wish, That Tiberius might soon die, and Gaius as soon come to rule in his stead. These words were heard by Eutychus his servant, and a while concealed; but when Agrippa prosecuted him for stealing some of his clothes, which he had stolen indeed, he then brake forth and revealed all: for fleeing for his theft, and caught and brought before Piso the Sheriff of the City, and demanded the reason of his flight, he answered that he had a great secret to impart to Caesar, which concerned his life. Piso therefore sent him bound to Tiberius, who also kept him bound and unexamined a certain season: Now began Agrippa to hasten and spur on his own misery and vexation: Whether having forgotten the words that he had spoken, or not remembering the presence of his servant, at the speech; or not suspecting that his tale to Caesar would be against himself; or which was likeliest, thinking to make his cause the better by his confidence, he solliciteth his old friend Antonia, to urge the Emperor for a trial of his servant. Tiberius declineth it, though he suspected the matter; not so much belike for Agrippa's sake, as for Gaius sake, whom the familiarity that was betwixt them made him suspect to be accessory, if anything should prove otherwise than well. But being still importuned by Antonia, at last when he had uttered these words, Let the gods witness O Antonia, that what I shall do, I do not of my own mind, but by thy solicitation: He commanded Eutychus to be brought forth, who being examined, confessed readily that such words were spoken by Agrippa to Gaius, himself being present, adding others no less dangerous, that were spoken about young Tiberius. The Emperor as readily believed the matter; and presently called out to Macro to bind him. Macro not understanding that he meant Agrippa, prepared to bind Eutychus more strictly for examination: but Tiberius having walked about the place, and coming to Agrippa, it is this man saith he, that I commanded to be bound. And when Macro asked him again who? Why, saith he, Agrippa. Then did Agrippa begin to find how he had forwarded his own mishap, but it was too late. And then did he begin to pray him now, whom he lately prayed against, but that was too late also. For Tiberius was not half so averse to have tried his servant, as he is now to forgive the Master: and he cannot be much blamed, for he had wished his mischief, and procured his own. Well, Agrippa is tied in bands, and led away to prison as he was, in his purple robes, a garment very incompatible with chains, unless of Gold. Being exceeding thirsty with heat and sorrow, as he went towards the prison, he spied one Thaumastus a servant of Gaius, carrying a Tankard of water, and he desired some to drink; which when the servant freely and readily gave him, If ever, saith he, I escape and get out of these bonds, I will not fail to obtain thy freedom, who hast not refused to minister to me in my misery and chains, as well as thou didst in my prosperity and pomp. And this his promise he afterward performed.

§. 4. The death of Thrasyllus the Mathematician.

This man Thrasyllus had endeared himself to Tiberius, by his skill in Astrology long ago, even while he lived in Rhodes, before the death of Augustus, but with the imminent hazard and peril of his own life. For Tiberius being very much given to those Chaldean and curious arts, and having got leisure and retiredness in Rhodes for the learning and practice of them, he partly called, and partly had offered to him, those that professed to be skillful in that trade and mystery. His way to try their skill was desperate and terrible, but such an one as best befitted such as would take upon them to foresee things to come, and it was this: when he consulted of any business, saith Tacitus, he used the top of his house, and the privacy of one only servant, a man utterly unlearned, and of a strong bulk of body: when he had a mind to try any man's skill, this Lubber was to go before him over craggy, steep and dangerous Rocks that hung over the Sea, and over which his house stood: and as they returned again, if there were any suspicion that the Prognosticator had given an answer fraudulent or lying, he flung him into the Sea, lest he should reveal the secret that he had been questioned upon. Thraysillus at his first coming, being brought to this dangerous trial, and having presaged Tiberius should be Emperor, and having foretold other things to come, he was asked by him whether he could calculate his own nativity; which when he went about to do, and had set a figure, upon the sight and study upon it, he was first in a muse and then in a fear, and the more he viewed it, the more he feared: and at last cried out that some strange and sudden danger was near and ready to seize upon him. Then Tiberius embracing him commended his skill, secured him against the danger, and retained him ever after for his intimate familiar. This year (as Dion doth place it) befell this great Wizards death, and as it proved, a forerunner of the Emperors: With whom he did more good with one lie, near his latter end, than he had done with all his Astrological truths (if he ever told any) all his life long. For assuring him by his skill, that he should yet live ten years longer, though in his heart he thought no such thing, he caused him to be slack and remiss in putting divers men to death, whose end he had hastened, had he known the haste of his own, and so they escaped.

§. 5. War betwixt Aretas and Herod.

There had been a long grudge betwixt Aretas the King of Arabia Petraea, and Herod the Tetrarch, and a field had been fought between them before this. For Herod having put away his wife which was Aretas daughter, and having taken Herodias (the wife of his own brother Philip and he yet living) in her stead, it is no wonder if Aretas dogged him for revenge for this indignity to his Daughter and himself. Wherefore he beginneth to quarrel with him and to seek occasion of war, by challenge of a territory controvertible, and they come to a pitched battle, in which Herod's Army is utterly overthrown, by means of some treachery wrought by some fugitives from his brother Philip's Tetrarchy which had taken up Arms to fight under his colors: And here, as Josephus hath observed, It was the observation of divers that this his Army utterly perished through God's just punishment upon him for the murder of John the Baptist. And it is worth the marking, that this overthrow took beginning from men of that Country whence Herodias the causer of that murder, and of the present disquietness had come. Herod upon this defeat, doubtful of better success at another time, for it may be his conscience told him this was but deserved, betaketh himself by letters to Tiberius, certifying him of the accident, and it is likely, not without much aggravation. The Emperor either displeased at the fortune of Aretas in his victory, or at his audaciousness in stirring so within the Empire, or at both together, sendeth angry letters to Vitellius the Governor of Syria, charging him to undertake the war, and either to bring the rebellious King prisoner alive, or to send his head to Rome. But before the design came to maturity, Tiberius that had thus threatened another man's life had lost his own, as will appear hereafter: when this first battle was that was so fatal to Herod, it shall not be insisted on to question, but that this brewing towards a new war, befell in this year, is apparent sufficiently by the sequel.

§. 1. Macro, all base.

THIS man had been mischievous ever since he had power to be so, but now was he so most of all, that he might keep that power of his afoot, or might raise it more and more. He was used by Tiberius as an instrument to bring down Sejanus, the one bad, and the other worse; and after he had done that, none must stand by his good will, that was likely to stand in his way: He was made Master of the Praetorian Soldiers in Sejanus his stead, and as he possessed his place, so did he his favor with the Emperor, and the crookedness of his conditions: as if all the honors, fortune, and wickedness of Sejanus had been entailed upon Macro. An agent as fit for Tiberius as could be required, and a successor as fit for Sejanus. A man as bloody as the Tyrant could desire him, and sometimes more than he set him on work. He was the continual Alguazil and Inquisitor for the friends and complices of the late ruined Favorite, and under color of that pursuit, he took out of the way, whosoever would not friend and comply with him. Of that number were Cn. Domitius, and Vibius Marsus, accused with Albucilla the wife of Satrius secundus, for Adultery, but all three together for conspiracy against the Emperor, yet was there no hand of the Emperors shown for the prosecution of the matter, which shown the only spleen and machination of the Blood-hound Macro. Albucilla, whether guilty indeed or knowing that his malice and power would make her so, stabbed herself, thinking to have died by her own hand, but the wound not being deadly, she was taken away to prison. Grasidius and Fregellanus the pretended Pandars of her adulteries were punished the one with banishment, and the other with degradation, and the same penalty was inflicted upon Laelius Balbus: A man, but justly▪ paid in his own coin, to the rejoicing and content of divers, for he had been a strong and violent accuser of many innocents. Domitius and Marsus (it may be) as guilty as the woman, but more discreet, traversed the indictment, and saved their own lives, partly by the shortness of the Emperors life, and partly by the feigned prediction of Thrasyllus, that promised that it should be long. But too sullen was the indignation of L. Arruntius against Macro, and too desperate his ill conceit of Gaius who was to succeed in the Empire, for when he was inwrapt in the same accusation with the two last named, and might have escaped the same escape that they did, yet despised he so to outlive the cruelty of Tiberius and Macro, as to come under the greater cruelty of Macro and Gaius. No, saith he, I have lived long enough, and (to my sorrow) too long. Nor doth anything repent me more, than that thus I have endured an old age under the scorns, dangers and hate, first of Sejanus, now of Macro, and always of one great one or another, and that for no other fault than for detesting their flagitiousness. It is true indeed that I may survive the old age and weakness of Tiberius, but what hopes to do so by the youth of Gaius, and wickedness of Macro? Can Gaius a youth do well being led by Macro, who so corrupted Tiberius in his age? No, I see more tyranny like to come than hath been yet: And therefore will I deliver myself from the present misery, and that to come: And with these words and resolution, he cut his own veins, and so bled to death: and spent a blood and a spirit, what pity it was that they should have been so lost? As Macro thus divided his pains in cruelty, betwixt the satisfying of Tiberius his mind and his own malice, so also did he, his affections shall I say? or flattery rather, and own-end observances betwixt Tiberius and Gaius. For as he sought to please the one that now ruled, for his own present security, so did he, to indear the other that was to succeed, for his future safety: Hereupon he omitted not any opportunity nor occasion, that he might skrew Gaius further and further into Tiberius his favor, and to keep him there, that he might do as much for himself into the favor of Gaius. One rarity and non-parallel of obsequiousness he shown to the young Prince, worth recording to his shame, for he caused his own wife Ennia Thrasylla to entangle the youthfulness of Gaius into her love and adultery, and then parted he with her and gave her to him in marriage. The old Emperor could not but observe this monster of pretended friendship, nor were his old eyes so blind, but he perceived his flattery plain in other carriages, in so much that he brake out to him in these plain words: Well, thou forsakest the setting Sun, and only lookest upon the rising.

§. 2. A wicked woman.

With the wife of Macro, that made her own prostitution to become her husbands promotion, may not unfitly be yoked, the mother of Sex. Papinius that made her own lust her sons overthrow: Whether this were the Papinius that was the last years Consul, or his son, or some other of the same name and family, it is no great matter worth inquiring, but whosoever he was, infortunate he was in his mother: for she caused his end, as she had given him his beginning. She being lately divorced from her husband, betook herself unto her son, whom with flattery and looseness she brought to perpetrate such a thing, that he could find no remedy for it, when it was done but his own death. The consequent argueth that the fault was incest, for when he had cast himself from an high place, and so ended his life, his mother being accused for the occasion, was banished the City for ten years, till the danger of the slipperiness of her other sons youth was past and over.

§. 1. Preparations of war against Aretas.

THE terrible and bitter message of the Emperor to Vitellius against King Aretas, must be obeyed, though more of necessity than of any zeal of Vitellius in Herod's quarrel. He therefore raising what forces he accounted fitting for his own safety in the Emperors favor, and for his safety with the enemy, marcheth toward the seat of the war, intending to lead his Army through Judea: But he was diverted from this intention, by the humble supplication of the Jews to the contrary, who took on how contrary it was to their ancient Laws and customs to have any Images and pictures brought into their Country, whereof there was great store in the Romans Arms and Banners. The gentleness of the General was easily overtreated, and commanding his Army another way, he himself with Herod and his friends went up to Jerusalem, where he offered sacrifice, and removed Jonathan from the High-priesthood, and placed Theophilus his brother in his stead. This was, saith Josephus, at a feast of the Jews, but he named not which; and Vitellius having stayed there three days, on the fourth receiveth letters concerning Tiberius his death. I leave it to be weighed by the Reader whether this festival were the Passover or Pentecost. For on the one hand since Tiberius died about the middle of March as the Roman Historians do generally agree, it is scarce possible that the Governor of Syria and the Nations of the East should be unacquainted with it, till Pentecost which was eight or nine weeks after: For all the Empire must as soon as possible be sworn unto the new Prince, as Vitellius upon the tidings did swear Judea, and so long a time might have bred some unconvenience. And yet on the contrary it is very strange, that the intelligence of his death should be so quick as to get from Rome to Jerusalem between the middle of March and the middle of the Passover week.

Vitellius upon the tidings recalleth his Army again, and disposeth and billeteth them in the several places where they had wintered, for he knew not whether Gaius would be of the same mind with Tiberius about the matter of Aretas and Herod: you may guess how this news was brooked by the Arabian King, and yet was it no other than what he looked for, if he believed what he himself spake. For hearing of the preparations of Vitellius against him, and consulting with Wizards and Augury; This Army, saith he, shall not come into Arabia, for some of the Commanders shall die; Either he that commandeth the war, or he that undertaketh it, or he for whom it is undertaken: meaning either Tiberius, Vitellius, or Herod.

§. 2. An Omen to Agrippa in chains.

Such another wizardly presage of the Emperors death, had Agrippa at Rome as Josephus also relateth, who relateth the former. For as he stood bound before the Palace, leaning dejectedly upon a tree, among many others that were prisoners with him, an Owl came and sat in that tree, to which he leaned, which a Germane seeing, being one of those that stood there bound, he asked who he was that was in the purple, and leaned there: and understanding who he was: he told him of his enlargement, promotion to honor, and prosperity, and that when he should see that bird again, he should die within five days after. And thus will the credulity of superstition have the very birds to foretell Tiberius his end, from the Phenix to the Owl.

§. 1. Tiberius near his end.

TWice only did Tiberius proffer to return to the City after his departure from it, but returned never. The later time was not very long before his end: For being come within the sight of the City upon the Appian rode, this prodigy (as he took it) affrighted him back. He had a tame Serpent, which coming to feed as he used to do with his own hand, he found him eaten up by Pismires: upon which ominous accident being advised not to trust himself among the multitude, he suddenly retired back to Campany, and at Astura he fell sick. From thence he removed to Circeii, and thence to Misenum, carrying out his infirmity so well, that he abated not a whit of his former sports, banquets and voluptuousness: whether for dissimulation, or for habitual intemperance, or upon Thrasyllus his prediction, let who will determine. He used to mock at Physic, and to scoff at those, that being thirty years of age, yet would ask other men's counsel, what was good or hurtful for their own bodies.

§. 2. His choice of a successor.

But weakness at the last gave him warning of his end, and put him in mind to think of his successor: and when he did so, perplexity met with such a thought. For whom should he choose? The son of Drusus was too young, the son of Germanicus was too well beloved, and Claudius was too soft; should he choose the first or the last, it might help to disgrace his judgment, should he choose the middle, he might chance to disgrace his own memory among the people, and for him to look elsewhere was to disgrace the family of the Caesar's. Thus did he pretend a great deal of care and seriousness for the good of the Commonwealth, whereas his main aim and respect was, at his own credit and families honor. Well: something he must pretend to give countenance and credit to his care of the common good. In fine his great deliberation concluded in this easy issue, namely in a prayer to the God's to design his successor, and in an auspicium of his own hatching, that he should be his successor that should come first in to him upon the next morning, which proved to be Gaius. It shown no great reality nor earnestness for the common good in him at all, when so small a thing as this must sway his judgment, and such a trifle be the casting voice in a matter of so great a moment. His affection was more to young Tiberius, his nephew, but his policy reflected more upon Gaius: he had rather Tiberius might have had the rule alone, and yet he was unwilling that Gaius should go without it, seeming to divide his affections betwixt the two, whereas his chief thoughts and respects were to his own self. But Gaius whom the God's had cast upon it (as his foolish auspicium persuaded him) must be the man, though he read in his nature the very bane of the Empire: and yet for affection sake too must young Tiberius be joint heir with him, though he foresaw and foretold that Gaius should murder him. A monstrous policy: to lay his own grandchild for a bait, for those jaws that he knew would devour him: and this was, that by that present cruelty of Gaius his own cruelties that were past might be forgotten, and the talk of that might not give room to talk of old Tiberius. This was that pretended care that he had of the Commonwealth, to be sure to leave one behind him that should be worse than himself, that by his greater wickedness his own might be lessened, and that himself might seem to be less vicious, by the others vitiousness above him. Yet giveth he counsel to Gaius, inciting him to goodness which he himself could never follow, and exhorting him to tenderness towards young Tiberius, which in his heart he was reasonably indifferent whether he followed or no.

§. 3. His death.

Charicles the Doctor gave notice of his death approaching, to Gaius and Macro, though he stole this judgment and conjecture but by a sleight. For sitting with the Emperor at a Banquet, and taking on him some earnest and speedy occasion to be gone to some other place, he rose from the Table, and pretending to take the Emperors hand to kiss, he closely and stealingly tried his Pulse, which Tiberius perceiving, but not expressing so much, caused him to take his place again, and the Banquet to be renewed, and him to set out the meal. But when the Doctor was got loose from the Table, and was come to Gaius and Macro, and the rest of the adorers of that imperial Sun that was now waiting when he should rise, he resolved them that his end drew on apace, and was not many days off: And then was all preparation for the new Emperor when the last gasp should remove the old. But he that had used so much dissimulation all his life, dissembled even in his dying. For fainting and swooning so very sore, that all conceived he was departed, and Gaius and all his favorites were gone forth to take possession of his new Empire: suddenly the tune is turned, and news comes forth that Tiberius is revived and calleth for meat: Macro that had often been his instrument of cruelty upon others, turns the faculty now upon himself, and instead of meat stopped his mouth with a pillow, or with heaping clothes upon his face and so he died. There are indeed diversities of opinion about the manner of his death, some saying it was thus as is mentioned, others that it was by poison, others that it was by being denied meat in the intermission of his • its▪ others that he rose out of his bed and fell on the floor, nobody being near him: all which are mentioned by Suetonius. It is not much material what his end was, that that is first named is most entertained, and certainly it suiteth very well with his deservings, and it is some wonder that he came to such an end no sooner. He died the seventeenth of the Calends of April or the sixteenth of March, or if Dion may have his will the seventh, and so the rest of that year is accounted the first of Gaius.

SECT. 4. CAIUS.

AN evil Emperor is gone, but a worse is to succeed him. Gaius the son of Germanicus, a bad child of a good father, inheriting the love and favor of the people for his fathers sake, till he forfeited it, by his reserving the qualities of Tiberius. He was surnamed Caligula, from a garb that he wore in the Camp, in which he was bred and educated: from whence he had the love of the Soldiers, till his barbarous nature lost it. It may seem incredible, that a worse disposition should ever be found than that of Tiberius, but the old Politician saw that this was so much beyond it, that it would do him credit: some impute the fault to his bloody Nurse one Pressilla a Campanian, the custom of which Country it was, that the women when they were to give their children suck, they first anointed the Nipple with the blood of an Hedg-hog, to the end their children might be the more fierce and cruel. This woman was as savage above the rest of the Nation, as they were above other women, for her breasts were all hairy over, like the beards of men, and her activity and strength in martial exercises inferior to few of the Infantry of Rome. One day as she was giving Caligula the Pap, being angry at a young child that stood by her, she took it and tore it in pieces, and with the blood thereof anointed her breasts and so set her nursling Gaius to suck both blood and milk. But had not his infancy been educated in such a Butchery, the school of his youth had been enough to have habituated him to mischief. For being brought up in the sight, and at the elbow of Tiberius, it would have served to have corrupted the best nature that could be; but this of his was either never good, or at least was spoiled long before. Yet had he reasonably well learned his Tutors art of dissimulation, so that he hid those Serpentine conditions, not only before Tiberius his death, but also a while after he had obtained the Empire. Only he that had taught him to weave this mantle of dissembling could spy through it, insomuch that he would profess, That Gaius lived for the destruction of him and all others. And that he hatched up a snake for the Roman Empire, and a Phaeton for all the world. And it proved so both to him and them. For when Tiberius lay a gasping stifled with a pillow pressed upon him, he also throtled him with his hand, and crucified one of his servants that cried out upon the hideousness of the fact. And as for his demeanor toward the State, a little time will give too lamentable witness.

§. 5. Tiberius in a manner cruel being dead.

How welcome news, the tidings of Tiberius death were at Rome, may be easily conjectured, by any that hath observed his cruelties before. Some cried out, Tiberius into Tiber, some to the hurdle and Tyburne, some to one thing, some to another, using the more liberty of their Tongues against the Tyrant now, by how much they had been tied up the straiter whilst he lived. Nor did the remembrance of his former cruelties only cause them to rejoice for his death, but a present cruelty, (as if he were bloody being dead) made him the more odious to them, than alive. For certain men that were but lately condemned, and their execution day falling upon the very day when tidings of his death came to the City (for the Senate did ever allow ten days for the condemned persons after their sentence, before their end) the poor men emplored the aid and comfort of everyone they met, because Gaius to whom they should have sued was not in the City, but they were hailed away by the Executioners and strangled.

§. 6. Agrippa in a perplexity, and enlarged.

Agrippa was partaker of the common joy, but withal of some mixture of misery, for such variety of fortune had he tasted ever, and now must he have a farewell to such vicissitudes. Marsyas his freeman hearing the rumour in the City, runneth with all speed to certify his Master; and finding him with some company in the ways toward the Bath, he beckneth to him with this speech in the Hebrew Tongue, The Lion is dead. With which tidings Agrippa was so transported with joy, that the Centurion his Keeper perceived it, and inquiring the reason, and being told it by Agrippa, he rejoiced with him for the news, and looseth him from his Bonds. But as they were at Supper, there cometh a contrary report that Tiberius was alive, and would ere long be in the City. What now think you is become of the heart and mettle of Agrippa and his Centurion? Both had done enough by this their present joy, to procure their endless sorrow, and his Keeper the worse of the two; but Agrippa must smart for all for the present. He therefore casts him into irons again, and committeth him to a surer Guard than before: And thus, as his too much eagerness of Tiberius his death had imprisoned him before, even so doth it now: but the next morning puts him into life again, for the rumor of the old Emperors death, is confirmed by Letters from the new; and a special Warrant cometh from him for the enlarging of Agrippa out of Prison, to the house where he had used to live before.

§. 7. Gaius cometh to Rome.

The Corps of the dead Tyrant is carried by the Soldiers into the City, Gaius himself in mourning apparel following the Hearse; and there he maketh his Funeral Oration, and performeth his Obsequies with great pomp and solemnity. And on the very day of his coming to Town he had enlarged Agrippa, but that the advice of Antonia persuaded him to hold a while, lest the people should suspect that he was glad of the death of Tiberius, if he should so suddenly set free one that he had committed for an enemy. But within a few days he is enlarged and sent for home unto him. And there is he trimmed, his garments changed, and he crowned King of the Tetrarchies of Philip and Lysanias, and his chain of iron, and of his bondage, changed for a chain of Gold of the same weight. This is that King Agrippa that slew James, and imprisoned Peter, and is called Herod, Acts 12.

§. 8. Gaius his dissembling.

Gaius his beginnings were plausible and popular, dissembling his cursed dispositions under such crafty colors, that the people were transported with so happy a change (as they supposed) and 160000 Sacrifices were slain for gratulation in his three first months. His tears for Tiberius, his piety to his dead Mother and Brother, his respect to his living Sisters, his fair words to the Senate, and as fair carriage to the people, his paying of Legacies, his enlarging of Prisoners, his remitting of offenses, his reviving of good Laws, &c. made the people to forget either in what School of dissimulation he had been brought up, or how soon so great advancement corrupteth men of little education; and it made them vainly to hope that they had a Germanicus, because they had his son; and that a good Prince could be bequeathed to them by Tiberius.

Yet could he not hide the ilness of his disposition under all these cloaks and coverts of dissembling; for presently upon his coming to the City, he disanulled the will of Tiberius that he might nullify the authority of his partner of the same name in the rule and Empire: And yet did he pay all the Legacies of old Tiberius with bountiful additions of his own, which shown that he disliked the will, only because of partnership of Tiberius the younger. Having thus the whole sway and dominion devolved upon himself, by the outing of his poor Cousin (for the Senate was made and packed by Macro for such a purpose) he was received with as much joy and applause, as was possible to express, upon the old memory of his Father, and the present expectation of himself. Nor was this jocundness confined in the narrow bonds of Rome and Italy, but dilated itself through all the Empire, in every corner where the hoped benefit, and happy fruit of so great an expectation would have come, had it proved right. Every Country, City and Town was poured forth into exultation and festivity, with a common joy in this common hope. Now could you have seen nothing but Altars, Offerings, Sacrifices, Feasts, Revels, Banquets, Plays, Dancings, merry Faces, crowned Heads, singing Tongues and joyful Hearts, that the World seemed to be ravished besides itself, and all misery to be banished out of it, and all the thoughts of a changing fortune utterly forgot. Had Tiberius but spied this work out of his Coffin, how would he have laughed for company, to behold this deludedness of the people, and dissimulation of the Prince? And thus lasted this music and masking for his first seven months, in which the new Emperor behaved himself with that moderation and bravery, as if virtue itself had been come among them.

In the eighth month a grievous sickness seized upon him, and then was all this mirth and melody turned to mourning and lamentation: each man sorrowful, and women bemoaning, as if all the world had been sick as well as he. Now was their songs turned into Tears, their revelling into Prayers, and their festivals to Vows for his recovery. Nay, so far did some strain the expression of their affections, that they vowed their heads and lives for his restoring. Nor could the people be so much blamed for this their sorrow, as pitied for being thus deceived, nor could it so much be wondered at that they were deceived, as it was wonderful that he could so deceive. For who could have chosen but have erred their error, that had seen what they beheld; and who could have brought them into such an error, but such a one as he, who was both a Gaius and a scholar of Tiberius? When he paid the Legacies of Tiberius, he also discharged those of Julia which Tiberius had stopped, and added a considerable sum of his own bounty: He gathered the ashes of his Mother and Brother, and committed them to their Urne with his own hands, choosing a tempestuous season purposely when he travailed about that business, that his piety might be blown about the more; and he instituted annual Festivals for them. Nor must his Father Germanicus be forgotten, nor indeed could he, nor did he deserve it, for his memory therefore would he have the month September to be called by his name, placing him in the Calendar next Augustus. His Grandmother Antonia he also dignified and deified equally with Livia; and that by the consent and decree of the Senate. His Uncle Claudius he honored with partnership with him in the Consulship; and his Brother and partner Tiberius, with adoption to put him in future hopes now he had lost his present ones; and he titled him The Prince of the Youth, to stop his mouth belike, when he had put him beside his being the Prince of Men. But as for his Sisters, the sequel shown that it was more doting and lust than pure brotherly affection, that caused him to show these expressions: that in all oaths that were administered to any, this must be one clause to which they must swear, That they neither accounted themselves nor their children, dearer than Gaius and his Sisters: and this in all the Records of the Consuls, Which he for the happiness of Gaius and his Sisters, &c. The like popularity used he likewise to the people, releasing the condemned, and recalling the banished; condemning on the contrary all enormities in Judicature, and banishing all incentives to evil manners. Forgiving his own private grievances, and satisfying for injuries done by his Predecessors; that it was no marvel if the whole State were sick in the sickness of such a Prince.

§. 9. Gaius beginning to show himself in his own colors.

Not to insist longer upon the vizor of this dissembler, but to take him as he was, and not as he seemed, his nature began more evidently to show itself after his recovery of his sickness, mentioned, and then the State began by degrees to be sick indeed. His beginnings were in lightness, sports, and lavishing of money; but his proceedings were in bestiality, cruelty and effusion of blood. His Banquets, Plays, Sword-fights, Fighting of Beasts (as 400 Bears, and as many other African wild Beasts at one time) his Music, Shows, strictness that none should be absent from them, and expensiveness in all (insomuch that he spent above twenty millions in such vanities in less than three years) may be thought as virtues in him, in comparison of that that followed, and of the mischiefs that he mingled between.

§. 10. Gaius cruel.

The recovery of the Emperor Gaius, from that disease under which we left him ere while, proved the sickness of the whole State, and the death of divers. For now he began to show himself in his own color, and to lay open the inside of his barbarous nature, which hitherto he had hid under strange dissimulation. P. Asranius Petitus a Plebeian, and Atanius Secundus a Knight, had bound themselves by oath, in the Emperors sickness, partly in flattery, partly in hope of reward, the one that he would die on condition the Prince might recover; and the other that he would venture his life in combat on the same condition. Gaius understanding of this obligation, and pretending that he would have neither of them perjured, seeing he was now well again, constrained them both to perform their vows, and brought them to repent their flattery with repentance too late and vain, and to a reward clean contrary to their expectation. Nor was his cruelty any whit less, though for very shame it must be better dissembled, to his Father in Law the noble Silanus. A man hated of him for the two main things that in human society are the tyes of love, virtue, and alliance, and so indignly used him, that he found no way to regain his love, nor any better to avoid his hate than to murder himself with his own hands. Claudia the daughter of Silanus was his wife, but he divorced her from him, and took Cornelia Orestilla, from her husband Calpurnius Piso, on their very wedding day, where he was present at the solemnization, and he kept her not two months, but sent her to her Piso again.

§. 11. Young Tiberius brought to a miseriable end.

These entries being made for the fleshing as it were the Tyrant in bloodiness and cruelty, he is now made ready and fit to execute a more horrible design upon his poor Brother, partner and son by adoption, the young and innocent Tiberius. He poor Prince having been thrust by him out of his right and patrimony, by the nullifying of old Tiberius his will, must now also be deprived of life. This was it that the old Testator did presage, and yet would leave him for a prey to his inhumanity. The pretences against this young Prince were, that either he had been a means to cause his sickness, or at least had rejoiced in it, and desired his death. A sleight accusation to bring such a Person to death; yet might he only have died, it might have seemed more tolerable, but the manner of it made the cruelty double. He is commanded to die by his own hand, though Tribunes, Centurions, and men of war fitter far to have done such an execution stood by and would have done it. He desired but this mercy, that he might have been slain by some of them, but that was denied him upon a point of Honor and Justice forsooth, because it was not fit that such a Prince should die by inferior hands. The poor Prince offered his neck to everyone that stood near, but they durst not strike for fear of their own: The only favor that he could obtain was this, that they might teach him where to wound himself for his soonest dispatch, and so he did. And thus is the Tyrant delivered as he thinketh from all fear and danger of compartnership and corrivality in the Empire: next will he take a course with those that any way may cross him in, or advise him against his headlong humors, and of them we shall hear in their course. The last six months of this year he had taken the Consulship upon himself, and had chosen his Uncle Claudius for his colleague, but we have reserved the names of the old till now, to avoid confusion.

§. 1. Macro, all base.

THIS man had been mischievous ever since he had power to be so, but now was he so most of all, that he might keep that power of his afoot, or might raise it more and more. He was used by Tiberius as an instrument to bring down Sejanus, the one bad, and the other worse; and after he had done that, none must stand by his good will, that was likely to stand in his way: He was made Master of the Praetorian Soldiers in Sejanus his stead, and as he possessed his place, so did he his favor with the Emperor, and the crookedness of his conditions: as if all the honors, fortune, and wickedness of Sejanus had been entailed upon Macro. An agent as fit for Tiberius as could be required, and a successor as fit for Sejanus. A man as bloody as the Tyrant could desire him, and sometimes more than he set him on work. He was the continual Alguazil and Inquisitor for the friends and complices of the late ruined Favorite, and under color of that pursuit, he took out of the way, whosoever would not friend and comply with him. Of that number were Cn. Domitius, and Vibius Marsus, accused with Albucilla the wife of Satrius secundus, for Adultery, but all three together for conspiracy against the Emperor, yet was there no hand of the Emperors shown for the prosecution of the matter, which shown the only spleen and machination of the Blood-hound Macro. Albucilla, whether guilty indeed or knowing that his malice and power would make her so, stabbed herself, thinking to have died by her own hand, but the wound not being deadly, she was taken away to prison. Grasidius and Fregellanus the pretended Pandars of her adulteries were punished the one with banishment, and the other with degradation, and the same penalty was inflicted upon Laelius Balbus: A man, but justly▪ paid in his own coin, to the rejoicing and content of divers, for he had been a strong and violent accuser of many innocents. Domitius and Marsus (it may be) as guilty as the woman, but more discreet, traversed the indictment, and saved their own lives, partly by the shortness of the Emperors life, and partly by the feigned prediction of Thrasyllus, that promised that it should be long. But too sullen was the indignation of L. Arruntius against Macro, and too desperate his ill conceit of Gaius who was to succeed in the Empire, for when he was inwrapt in the same accusation with the two last named, and might have escaped the same escape that they did, yet despised he so to outlive the cruelty of Tiberius and Macro, as to come under the greater cruelty of Macro and Gaius. No, saith he, I have lived long enough, and (to my sorrow) too long. Nor doth anything repent me more, than that thus I have endured an old age under the scorns, dangers and hate, first of Sejanus, now of Macro, and always of one great one or another, and that for no other fault than for detesting their flagitiousness. It is true indeed that I may survive the old age and weakness of Tiberius, but what hopes to do so by the youth of Gaius, and wickedness of Macro? Can Gaius a youth do well being led by Macro, who so corrupted Tiberius in his age? No, I see more tyranny like to come than hath been yet: And therefore will I deliver myself from the present misery, and that to come: And with these words and resolution, he cut his own veins, and so bled to death: and spent a blood and a spirit, what pity it was that they should have been so lost? As Macro thus divided his pains in cruelty, betwixt the satisfying of Tiberius his mind and his own malice, so also did he, his affections shall I say? or flattery rather, and own-end observances betwixt Tiberius and Gaius. For as he sought to please the one that now ruled, for his own present security, so did he, to indear the other that was to succeed, for his future safety: Hereupon he omitted not any opportunity nor occasion, that he might skrew Gaius further and further into Tiberius his favor, and to keep him there, that he might do as much for himself into the favor of Gaius. One rarity and non-parallel of obsequiousness he shown to the young Prince, worth recording to his shame, for he caused his own wife Ennia Thrasylla to entangle the youthfulness of Gaius into her love and adultery, and then parted he with her and gave her to him in marriage. The old Emperor could not but observe this monster of pretended friendship, nor were his old eyes so blind, but he perceived his flattery plain in other carriages, in so much that he brake out to him in these plain words: Well, thou forsakest the setting Sun, and only lookest upon the rising.

§. 2. A wicked woman.

With the wife of Macro, that made her own prostitution to become her husbands promotion, may not unfitly be yoked, the mother of Sex. Papinius that made her own lust her sons overthrow: Whether this were the Papinius that was the last years Consul, or his son, or some other of the same name and family, it is no great matter worth inquiring, but whosoever he was, infortunate he was in his mother: for she caused his end, as she had given him his beginning. She being lately divorced from her husband, betook herself unto her son, whom with flattery and looseness she brought to perpetrate such a thing, that he could find no remedy for it, when it was done but his own death. The consequent argueth that the fault was incest, for when he had cast himself from an high place, and so ended his life, his mother being accused for the occasion, was banished the City for ten years, till the danger of the slipperiness of her other sons youth was past and over.

§. 1. Preparations of war against Aretas.

THE terrible and bitter message of the Emperor to Vitellius against King Aretas, must be obeyed, though more of necessity than of any zeal of Vitellius in Herod's quarrel. He therefore raising what forces he accounted fitting for his own safety in the Emperors favor, and for his safety with the enemy, marcheth toward the seat of the war, intending to lead his Army through Judea: But he was diverted from this intention, by the humble supplication of the Jews to the contrary, who took on how contrary it was to their ancient Laws and customs to have any Images and pictures brought into their Country, whereof there was great store in the Romans Arms and Banners. The gentleness of the General was easily overtreated, and commanding his Army another way, he himself with Herod and his friends went up to Jerusalem, where he offered sacrifice, and removed Jonathan from the High-priesthood, and placed Theophilus his brother in his stead. This was, saith Josephus, at a feast of the Jews, but he named not which; and Vitellius having stayed there three days, on the fourth receiveth letters concerning Tiberius his death. I leave it to be weighed by the Reader whether this festival were the Passover or Pentecost. For on the one hand since Tiberius died about the middle of March as the Roman Historians do generally agree, it is scarce possible that the Governor of Syria and the Nations of the East should be unacquainted with it, till Pentecost which was eight or nine weeks after: For all the Empire must as soon as possible be sworn unto the new Prince, as Vitellius upon the tidings did swear Judea, and so long a time might have bred some unconvenience. And yet on the contrary it is very strange, that the intelligence of his death should be so quick as to get from Rome to Jerusalem between the middle of March and the middle of the Passover week.

Vitellius upon the tidings recalleth his Army again, and disposeth and billeteth them in the several places where they had wintered, for he knew not whether Gaius would be of the same mind with Tiberius about the matter of Aretas and Herod: you may guess how this news was brooked by the Arabian King, and yet was it no other than what he looked for, if he believed what he himself spake. For hearing of the preparations of Vitellius against him, and consulting with Wizards and Augury; This Army, saith he, shall not come into Arabia, for some of the Commanders shall die; Either he that commandeth the war, or he that undertaketh it, or he for whom it is undertaken: meaning either Tiberius, Vitellius, or Herod.

§. 2. An Omen to Agrippa in chains.

Such another wizardly presage of the Emperors death, had Agrippa at Rome as Josephus also relateth, who relateth the former. For as he stood bound before the Palace, leaning dejectedly upon a tree, among many others that were prisoners with him, an Owl came and sat in that tree, to which he leaned, which a Germane seeing, being one of those that stood there bound, he asked who he was that was in the purple, and leaned there: and understanding who he was: he told him of his enlargement, promotion to honor, and prosperity, and that when he should see that bird again, he should die within five days after. And thus will the credulity of superstition have the very birds to foretell Tiberius his end, from the Phenix to the Owl.

§. 1. Tiberius near his end.

TWice only did Tiberius proffer to return to the City after his departure from it, but returned never. The later time was not very long before his end: For being come within the sight of the City upon the Appian rode, this prodigy (as he took it) affrighted him back. He had a tame Serpent, which coming to feed as he used to do with his own hand, he found him eaten up by Pismires: upon which ominous accident being advised not to trust himself among the multitude, he suddenly retired back to Campany, and at Astura he fell sick. From thence he removed to Circeii, and thence to Misenum, carrying out his infirmity so well, that he abated not a whit of his former sports, banquets and voluptuousness: whether for dissimulation, or for habitual intemperance, or upon Thrasyllus his prediction, let who will determine. He used to mock at Physic, and to scoff at those, that being thirty years of age, yet would ask other men's counsel, what was good or hurtful for their own bodies.

§. 2. His choice of a successor.

But weakness at the last gave him warning of his end, and put him in mind to think of his successor: and when he did so, perplexity met with such a thought. For whom should he choose? The son of Drusus was too young, the son of Germanicus was too well beloved, and Claudius was too soft; should he choose the first or the last, it might help to disgrace his judgment, should he choose the middle, he might chance to disgrace his own memory among the people, and for him to look elsewhere was to disgrace the family of the Caesar's. Thus did he pretend a great deal of care and seriousness for the good of the Commonwealth, whereas his main aim and respect was, at his own credit and families honor. Well: something he must pretend to give countenance and credit to his care of the common good. In fine his great deliberation concluded in this easy issue, namely in a prayer to the God's to design his successor, and in an auspicium of his own hatching, that he should be his successor that should come first in to him upon the next morning, which proved to be Gaius. It shown no great reality nor earnestness for the common good in him at all, when so small a thing as this must sway his judgment, and such a trifle be the casting voice in a matter of so great a moment. His affection was more to young Tiberius, his nephew, but his policy reflected more upon Gaius: he had rather Tiberius might have had the rule alone, and yet he was unwilling that Gaius should go without it, seeming to divide his affections betwixt the two, whereas his chief thoughts and respects were to his own self. But Gaius whom the God's had cast upon it (as his foolish auspicium persuaded him) must be the man, though he read in his nature the very bane of the Empire: and yet for affection sake too must young Tiberius be joint heir with him, though he foresaw and foretold that Gaius should murder him. A monstrous policy: to lay his own grandchild for a bait, for those jaws that he knew would devour him: and this was, that by that present cruelty of Gaius his own cruelties that were past might be forgotten, and the talk of that might not give room to talk of old Tiberius. This was that pretended care that he had of the Commonwealth, to be sure to leave one behind him that should be worse than himself, that by his greater wickedness his own might be lessened, and that himself might seem to be less vicious, by the others vitiousness above him. Yet giveth he counsel to Gaius, inciting him to goodness which he himself could never follow, and exhorting him to tenderness towards young Tiberius, which in his heart he was reasonably indifferent whether he followed or no.

§. 3. His death.

Charicles the Doctor gave notice of his death approaching, to Gaius and Macro, though he stole this judgment and conjecture but by a sleight. For sitting with the Emperor at a Banquet, and taking on him some earnest and speedy occasion to be gone to some other place, he rose from the Table, and pretending to take the Emperors hand to kiss, he closely and stealingly tried his Pulse, which Tiberius perceiving, but not expressing so much, caused him to take his place again, and the Banquet to be renewed, and him to set out the meal. But when the Doctor was got loose from the Table, and was come to Gaius and Macro, and the rest of the adorers of that imperial Sun that was now waiting when he should rise, he resolved them that his end drew on apace, and was not many days off: And then was all preparation for the new Emperor when the last gasp should remove the old. But he that had used so much dissimulation all his life, dissembled even in his dying. For fainting and swooning so very sore, that all conceived he was departed, and Gaius and all his favorites were gone forth to take possession of his new Empire: suddenly the tune is turned, and news comes forth that Tiberius is revived and calleth for meat: Macro that had often been his instrument of cruelty upon others, turns the faculty now upon himself, and instead of meat stopped his mouth with a pillow, or with heaping clothes upon his face and so he died. There are indeed diversities of opinion about the manner of his death, some saying it was thus as is mentioned, others that it was by poison, others that it was by being denied meat in the intermission of his • its▪ others that he rose out of his bed and fell on the floor, nobody being near him: all which are mentioned by Suetonius. It is not much material what his end was, that that is first named is most entertained, and certainly it suiteth very well with his deservings, and it is some wonder that he came to such an end no sooner. He died the seventeenth of the Calends of April or the sixteenth of March, or if Dion may have his will the seventh, and so the rest of that year is accounted the first of Gaius.

SECT. 4. CAIUS.

AN evil Emperor is gone, but a worse is to succeed him. Gaius the son of Germanicus, a bad child of a good father, inheriting the love and favor of the people for his fathers sake, till he forfeited it, by his reserving the qualities of Tiberius. He was surnamed Caligula, from a garb that he wore in the Camp, in which he was bred and educated: from whence he had the love of the Soldiers, till his barbarous nature lost it. It may seem incredible, that a worse disposition should ever be found than that of Tiberius, but the old Politician saw that this was so much beyond it, that it would do him credit: some impute the fault to his bloody Nurse one Pressilla a Campanian, the custom of which Country it was, that the women when they were to give their children suck, they first anointed the Nipple with the blood of an Hedg-hog, to the end their children might be the more fierce and cruel. This woman was as savage above the rest of the Nation, as they were above other women, for her breasts were all hairy over, like the beards of men, and her activity and strength in martial exercises inferior to few of the Infantry of Rome. One day as she was giving Caligula the Pap, being angry at a young child that stood by her, she took it and tore it in pieces, and with the blood thereof anointed her breasts and so set her nursling Gaius to suck both blood and milk. But had not his infancy been educated in such a Butchery, the school of his youth had been enough to have habituated him to mischief. For being brought up in the sight, and at the elbow of Tiberius, it would have served to have corrupted the best nature that could be; but this of his was either never good, or at least was spoiled long before. Yet had he reasonably well learned his Tutors art of dissimulation, so that he hid those Serpentine conditions, not only before Tiberius his death, but also a while after he had obtained the Empire. Only he that had taught him to weave this mantle of dissembling could spy through it, insomuch that he would profess, That Gaius lived for the destruction of him and all others. And that he hatched up a snake for the Roman Empire, and a Phaeton for all the world. And it proved so both to him and them. For when Tiberius lay a gasping stifled with a pillow pressed upon him, he also throtled him with his hand, and crucified one of his servants that cried out upon the hideousness of the fact. And as for his demeanor toward the State, a little time will give too lamentable witness.

§. 5. Tiberius in a manner cruel being dead.

How welcome news, the tidings of Tiberius death were at Rome, may be easily conjectured, by any that hath observed his cruelties before. Some cried out, Tiberius into Tiber, some to the hurdle and Tyburne, some to one thing, some to another, using the more liberty of their Tongues against the Tyrant now, by how much they had been tied up the straiter whilst he lived. Nor did the remembrance of his former cruelties only cause them to rejoice for his death, but a present cruelty, (as if he were bloody being dead) made him the more odious to them, than alive. For certain men that were but lately condemned, and their execution day falling upon the very day when tidings of his death came to the City (for the Senate did ever allow ten days for the condemned persons after their sentence, before their end) the poor men emplored the aid and comfort of everyone they met, because Gaius to whom they should have sued was not in the City, but they were hailed away by the Executioners and strangled.

§. 6. Agrippa in a perplexity, and enlarged.

Agrippa was partaker of the common joy, but withal of some mixture of misery, for such variety of fortune had he tasted ever, and now must he have a farewell to such vicissitudes. Marsyas his freeman hearing the rumour in the City, runneth with all speed to certify his Master; and finding him with some company in the ways toward the Bath, he beckneth to him with this speech in the Hebrew Tongue, The Lion is dead. With which tidings Agrippa was so transported with joy, that the Centurion his Keeper perceived it, and inquiring the reason, and being told it by Agrippa, he rejoiced with him for the news, and looseth him from his Bonds. But as they were at Supper, there cometh a contrary report that Tiberius was alive, and would ere long be in the City. What now think you is become of the heart and mettle of Agrippa and his Centurion? Both had done enough by this their present joy, to procure their endless sorrow, and his Keeper the worse of the two; but Agrippa must smart for all for the present. He therefore casts him into irons again, and committeth him to a surer Guard than before: And thus, as his too much eagerness of Tiberius his death had imprisoned him before, even so doth it now: but the next morning puts him into life again, for the rumor of the old Emperors death, is confirmed by Letters from the new; and a special Warrant cometh from him for the enlarging of Agrippa out of Prison, to the house where he had used to live before.

§. 7. Gaius cometh to Rome.

The Corps of the dead Tyrant is carried by the Soldiers into the City, Gaius himself in mourning apparel following the Hearse; and there he maketh his Funeral Oration, and performeth his Obsequies with great pomp and solemnity. And on the very day of his coming to Town he had enlarged Agrippa, but that the advice of Antonia persuaded him to hold a while, lest the people should suspect that he was glad of the death of Tiberius, if he should so suddenly set free one that he had committed for an enemy. But within a few days he is enlarged and sent for home unto him. And there is he trimmed, his garments changed, and he crowned King of the Tetrarchies of Philip and Lysanias, and his chain of iron, and of his bondage, changed for a chain of Gold of the same weight. This is that King Agrippa that slew James, and imprisoned Peter, and is called Herod, Acts 12.

§. 8. Gaius his dissembling.

Gaius his beginnings were plausible and popular, dissembling his cursed dispositions under such crafty colors, that the people were transported with so happy a change (as they supposed) and 160000 Sacrifices were slain for gratulation in his three first months. His tears for Tiberius, his piety to his dead Mother and Brother, his respect to his living Sisters, his fair words to the Senate, and as fair carriage to the people, his paying of Legacies, his enlarging of Prisoners, his remitting of offenses, his reviving of good Laws, &c. made the people to forget either in what School of dissimulation he had been brought up, or how soon so great advancement corrupteth men of little education; and it made them vainly to hope that they had a Germanicus, because they had his son; and that a good Prince could be bequeathed to them by Tiberius.

Yet could he not hide the ilness of his disposition under all these cloaks and coverts of dissembling; for presently upon his coming to the City, he disanulled the will of Tiberius that he might nullify the authority of his partner of the same name in the rule and Empire: And yet did he pay all the Legacies of old Tiberius with bountiful additions of his own, which shown that he disliked the will, only because of partnership of Tiberius the younger. Having thus the whole sway and dominion devolved upon himself, by the outing of his poor Cousin (for the Senate was made and packed by Macro for such a purpose) he was received with as much joy and applause, as was possible to express, upon the old memory of his Father, and the present expectation of himself. Nor was this jocundness confined in the narrow bonds of Rome and Italy, but dilated itself through all the Empire, in every corner where the hoped benefit, and happy fruit of so great an expectation would have come, had it proved right. Every Country, City and Town was poured forth into exultation and festivity, with a common joy in this common hope. Now could you have seen nothing but Altars, Offerings, Sacrifices, Feasts, Revels, Banquets, Plays, Dancings, merry Faces, crowned Heads, singing Tongues and joyful Hearts, that the World seemed to be ravished besides itself, and all misery to be banished out of it, and all the thoughts of a changing fortune utterly forgot. Had Tiberius but spied this work out of his Coffin, how would he have laughed for company, to behold this deludedness of the people, and dissimulation of the Prince? And thus lasted this music and masking for his first seven months, in which the new Emperor behaved himself with that moderation and bravery, as if virtue itself had been come among them.

In the eighth month a grievous sickness seized upon him, and then was all this mirth and melody turned to mourning and lamentation: each man sorrowful, and women bemoaning, as if all the world had been sick as well as he. Now was their songs turned into Tears, their revelling into Prayers, and their festivals to Vows for his recovery. Nay, so far did some strain the expression of their affections, that they vowed their heads and lives for his restoring. Nor could the people be so much blamed for this their sorrow, as pitied for being thus deceived, nor could it so much be wondered at that they were deceived, as it was wonderful that he could so deceive. For who could have chosen but have erred their error, that had seen what they beheld; and who could have brought them into such an error, but such a one as he, who was both a Gaius and a scholar of Tiberius? When he paid the Legacies of Tiberius, he also discharged those of Julia which Tiberius had stopped, and added a considerable sum of his own bounty: He gathered the ashes of his Mother and Brother, and committed them to their Urne with his own hands, choosing a tempestuous season purposely when he travailed about that business, that his piety might be blown about the more; and he instituted annual Festivals for them. Nor must his Father Germanicus be forgotten, nor indeed could he, nor did he deserve it, for his memory therefore would he have the month September to be called by his name, placing him in the Calendar next Augustus. His Grandmother Antonia he also dignified and deified equally with Livia; and that by the consent and decree of the Senate. His Uncle Claudius he honored with partnership with him in the Consulship; and his Brother and partner Tiberius, with adoption to put him in future hopes now he had lost his present ones; and he titled him The Prince of the Youth, to stop his mouth belike, when he had put him beside his being the Prince of Men. But as for his Sisters, the sequel shown that it was more doting and lust than pure brotherly affection, that caused him to show these expressions: that in all oaths that were administered to any, this must be one clause to which they must swear, That they neither accounted themselves nor their children, dearer than Gaius and his Sisters: and this in all the Records of the Consuls, Which he for the happiness of Gaius and his Sisters, &c. The like popularity used he likewise to the people, releasing the condemned, and recalling the banished; condemning on the contrary all enormities in Judicature, and banishing all incentives to evil manners. Forgiving his own private grievances, and satisfying for injuries done by his Predecessors; that it was no marvel if the whole State were sick in the sickness of such a Prince.

§. 9. Gaius beginning to show himself in his own colors.

Not to insist longer upon the vizor of this dissembler, but to take him as he was, and not as he seemed, his nature began more evidently to show itself after his recovery of his sickness, mentioned, and then the State began by degrees to be sick indeed. His beginnings were in lightness, sports, and lavishing of money; but his proceedings were in bestiality, cruelty and effusion of blood. His Banquets, Plays, Sword-fights, Fighting of Beasts (as 400 Bears, and as many other African wild Beasts at one time) his Music, Shows, strictness that none should be absent from them, and expensiveness in all (insomuch that he spent above twenty millions in such vanities in less than three years) may be thought as virtues in him, in comparison of that that followed, and of the mischiefs that he mingled between.

§. 10. Gaius cruel.

The recovery of the Emperor Gaius, from that disease under which we left him ere while, proved the sickness of the whole State, and the death of divers. For now he began to show himself in his own color, and to lay open the inside of his barbarous nature, which hitherto he had hid under strange dissimulation. P. Asranius Petitus a Plebeian, and Atanius Secundus a Knight, had bound themselves by oath, in the Emperors sickness, partly in flattery, partly in hope of reward, the one that he would die on condition the Prince might recover; and the other that he would venture his life in combat on the same condition. Gaius understanding of this obligation, and pretending that he would have neither of them perjured, seeing he was now well again, constrained them both to perform their vows, and brought them to repent their flattery with repentance too late and vain, and to a reward clean contrary to their expectation. Nor was his cruelty any whit less, though for very shame it must be better dissembled, to his Father in Law the noble Silanus. A man hated of him for the two main things that in human society are the tyes of love, virtue, and alliance, and so indignly used him, that he found no way to regain his love, nor any better to avoid his hate than to murder himself with his own hands. Claudia the daughter of Silanus was his wife, but he divorced her from him, and took Cornelia Orestilla, from her husband Calpurnius Piso, on their very wedding day, where he was present at the solemnization, and he kept her not two months, but sent her to her Piso again.

§. 11. Young Tiberius brought to a miseriable end.

These entries being made for the fleshing as it were the Tyrant in bloodiness and cruelty, he is now made ready and fit to execute a more horrible design upon his poor Brother, partner and son by adoption, the young and innocent Tiberius. He poor Prince having been thrust by him out of his right and patrimony, by the nullifying of old Tiberius his will, must now also be deprived of life. This was it that the old Testator did presage, and yet would leave him for a prey to his inhumanity. The pretences against this young Prince were, that either he had been a means to cause his sickness, or at least had rejoiced in it, and desired his death. A sleight accusation to bring such a Person to death; yet might he only have died, it might have seemed more tolerable, but the manner of it made the cruelty double. He is commanded to die by his own hand, though Tribunes, Centurions, and men of war fitter far to have done such an execution stood by and would have done it. He desired but this mercy, that he might have been slain by some of them, but that was denied him upon a point of Honor and Justice forsooth, because it was not fit that such a Prince should die by inferior hands. The poor Prince offered his neck to everyone that stood near, but they durst not strike for fear of their own: The only favor that he could obtain was this, that they might teach him where to wound himself for his soonest dispatch, and so he did. And thus is the Tyrant delivered as he thinketh from all fear and danger of compartnership and corrivality in the Empire: next will he take a course with those that any way may cross him in, or advise him against his headlong humors, and of them we shall hear in their course. The last six months of this year he had taken the Consulship upon himself, and had chosen his Uncle Claudius for his colleague, but we have reserved the names of the old till now, to avoid confusion.

§. 1. Cruelties at Rome.

THIS year began at Rome with a fatal Omen. For on the first of January, Machaon a Servant went up to the shrine of Jupiter Capitolinus, and there having presaged and prophesied many fearful and terrible things, first he slew a whelp that he had with him, and then he slew himself.

These beginnings had answerable sequels, for Gaius addicted himself wholly to bloodiness, sometimes for his sports, sometimes in cruel earnest: He commanded sword-plays to be made, in which he set not man to man, but multitudes to multitudes to slaughter each other: He slew in the same manner six and twenty Roman Knights, with great contentment taken by him in the effusion of their blood: He set also another Knight to the same terrible sports, and when he came off victorious, he caused him, and his father to be slain, and divers others with them inclosing them in a strong Chest or Press: When once there were not enough of poor condemned wretches to cast to the wild beasts, he caused divers that stood upon the Scaffolds for spectators to be cast unto them, causing their tongues first to be cut out, that they might not cry or complain: yet did he with these cruelties mingle some plausible actions tending to popularity, as creating of Knights, priviledging the commons, and lavishing in gifts, that strengthing himself with these curtesies in the hearts of some men, he might with the more confidence be cruel to other.

§ 2 An end of Macro.

It cannot be expected that he should come to a good end himself, that had brought so many to a bad. His course is now come to taste of the same sauce that he had provided for so many others, and it would half move the spectator to some kind of pity to see him slaughtered for such a cause as he was slaughtered for. How he had been a means to curry Gaius favor with Tiberius, and to skrew him into the Empire and himself into his good opinion, even by the prostitution of his own wife, we have heard before, and this his extraordinary officiousness, he did not forelet or slacken, when he had brought him where he desired to have him, to the Empire. But now he turned his observance a better way, and what he had done before by baseness, flattery, and senseless obsequiousness to bring him to the rule, he changeth into good counsel to keep him well in it. For when he saw him fall asleep at Banquets amongst his cups, he would freely check him for it, as being neither for his credit, nor for his safety. The like would he do when he saw him misbehave himself by lightness, profuse laughter, and ridiculous gestures in the Theater, and in beholding of plays: In brief, so round and plain was he with him when he saw just cause, that in fine the uncounselable humorist became his enemy, and at last his death. His end is reported to have been the same with young Tiberius, forced to slay himself, and Ennia his wife, or the wife of Gaius, whether you will, to have been constrained to the same extremity and end with him. An end well befitting and well deserved of them both, but from all men living least deserved from Gaius. Philo after the death of Macro placeth the death of M. Silanus, which upon the warrant of Dion we have set before, and in things so indifferent will not spend labor to examine.

§ 1. Troubles of the Jews in Alexandria.

FLACCUS Avilius was now Governor of Aegyt, and had been so for some years before: A man that ruled well while Tiberius lived, but after his death, could not govern himself. For when he heard of the death of the old Emperor and the succession of the new, sorrow for the one, and fear of the other did so transport him besides himself, that forgetting the bravery and glory wherewith he had governed hitherto, he let loose the reins of himself to these two passions, and the reins of the government to desperate carelessness and neglect. He did nothing but weep for the loss of old Tiberius, to whom he had been very intimate and dear, and he might well weep the more, because he could meet hardly with any that would bear any part and share in that sorrow with him. This his grief was augmented by the fear that he had of Gaius and of his displeasure, and that by the intelligence that his conscience gave him that he had deserved it: partly for his propensity to young Tiberius and siding with him, but chiefly because he had had some hand or at least some consent and inclination to the death of Agrippina, Gaius his Mother. Both these his miserable passions were brought to their height when he heard of the death of young Tiberius and of his old friend Macro. The thought of these two was the only comfort he had against his dejectedness and discontent, for all his hope was, that these two might make his peace with Gaius, whose displeasure he so much doubted: But what must he do now, when they cannot make their own peace? He yieldeth himself therefore wholly to his discontented mood, and neglecteth utterly both himself and the State. His old friends he groweth jealous of and rejecteth: his professed enemies he receiveth to his favor and to his counsels: These rule him that should have ruled Egypt, and he had done it worthily, but now is drawn any whither, that ill advise, fullenness and melancholy doth direct him. These his wicked Counselors invent a course to procure his peace and the Emperors favor, a course indeed bloody, barbarous, and inhumane, but such as suited with their own malice, and (as it proved) took place with the Governors desperateness and cowardice, if so be he may be called a Governor still. Gaius the Emperor, say they, is an enemy to the Jews, and a friend to the Alexandrians: Let this be the opportunity whereby to work thy reconciliation, to suffer the City to rise against the Jews and to commit outrage upon them, and thou canst not perform an act more acceptable to the Prince, nor more profitable for thyself. The wretched Flaccus that took to heart no man's misery but his own, and cared not who suffered, so he might escape, gave ear to this damnable and devilish counsel, and put it in practice, first plotting mischief against the Jews in secret, then oppressing them in judgment and in their suites openly, and at the last professing and publishing himself their resolved enemy.

§ 2. Agrippa at Alexandria an unexpected and unwilling occasion of further troubles.

Those incendiaries that had kindled this fire will be sure to lose no blast that may make it flame and keep it burning: Agrippa that had not long ago departed from Alexandria a poor private man, returneth now thither in prosperity and a King. Gaius that had promoted him to his kingdom, did lovingly direct him by Alexandria, as the safest way to it. Thither he came with as great privacy as such a personage could do, and yet was he espied by the jealous eyes of these rare counselors, and his coming misconstrued, through their malice to the Jews. They persuade Flaccus that his coming thither was an affront to him in his own Province, that his Pomp and Train was more sumptuous than his, that the eyes of all men were upon the new King Agrippa, and in short that his presence there, was his present disgrace and would prove his future disadvantage. The ill governed Governor was ready enough to hearken to such buzzings as these, and to yield them impression in his mind, yet durst he not put anything in execution against the King for fear of him that sent him. He therefore thought it best to carry a fair outside to Agrippa, and to his face he speaketh fair and pretendeth friendship, but behind his back, he did not only descry his hate and revile him in secret, but also connived at those that did so openly: so that within a little while, the King that neither thought nor came for any hurt is made the public scoff and scorn throughout the City, and on their stages, in their plays, ballads, speeches, houses, streets, there is no language so common nor so currant, as the abusive of Agrippa.

§ 3. A Pageant of one and more madmen.

This connivence of the Governor shall I call it, or his toleration, or his setting on, or his folly, or what you will, you may well presume that it added boldness and impudency enough to the outrageous multitude, which commonly in such mischievousness need small encouragement: Their madness among other things shown itself in this Pageant, whether more senseless or spleenatick, if not both alike, let the Reader judge. There was a poor mad man or distracted wretch in the City whose name was Charabas, that used to walk up and down stark naked night and day, heat and cold, the common fool as it were of boys and young men, with whom they used to make sport. The riotous rout (now set on mischief) bring this silly wretch to one of their public meeting places, and there setting him on high in a seat above all the people that he might be seen of all, they put a Diadem of Paper about his head, and mat of sedge about his body instead of his robes, and a piece of Reed for a Scepter in his hand: and thus have they solemnly and suddenly made him a King, and one indeed that had been fit enough for themselves; and one that was indeed but a fit Emblem of their Governor Flaccus, that suffered such a thing. Their mimical King being thus accoutred with his robes and royalty, they bring him forth in a solemn state: Before and about him went youths with poles upon their shoulders for his guard, by the way as he went some come to do him homage, others to petition for justice, others to advise him concerning affairs of State, and at last they all of them All hail him with the title of Mare, which in the Syrian rongue, the Language of the Country of Agrippa, (whom by this very word they shown that they mocked) betokeneth Lord and Master,. And now let the Reader but look upon this rout of Alexandrians, and let him judge who was the madder, the poor Lunatick that was so used, or they that so used him. For was it not mere madness in them thus to taunt and revile so great a King, so greatly respected by the Roman Senate, and so great a favorite of their Lord and Emperor? But Flaccus the maddest of all that beheld all this, and yet did permit it. And on the other hand let him look upon the Jews to whom this sportful mummery is the preface to misery in good earnest, and if this mockage of their first King with a Crown, Robes, and Scepter of derision, put not the Reader in the mind of their scorning and usage of their true King and Savior in the very same manner, he cannot but remember Barabbas upon the naming of Charabas by the very same sound and rime.

§ 4. More outrage.

The Alexandrians thus countenanced by Flaccus in the derision of the new King of the Jews, grow to a boundless outrage against their God. For now they begin to assail their Synagogues, and there they desire to set up Images: a thing as odious to that Nation, as beloved among the Alexandrians. For in them is fulfilled that prophesy of Hosea Chap. 3. 4. where they neither are as yet to God, nor as yet to any other, but on the one hand detesting false God's, and yet on the other hand not embracing the true: hating the Images of any creature for adoration, but withal hating him that is the very Image and Character of the living God, the Creator.

This enterprise of profaning and defiling the Synagogues and houses of prayer of the Jews was not a fearful and terrible vexation to those of that City only, but what hurt may such an example do, think you, both through Egypt, and indeed through all the other Cities of the Empire? What fruits these beginnings brought forth in the same City, and elsewhere, we shall see ere long.

§ 5. Gaius will be a God.

A special encouragement to this insolency at Alexandria was Gaius the Emperors demeanour at Rome: A man not fit to be ranked in the rank of men, and yet no way with him now but he will be a God. The senseless groundwork of this his impious fancy, he took from this damnable Logic and devilish argumentation. That seeing Sheepherds and Herds-men that are masters of Sheep and Cattle, are in a degree far above their beasts and cattle: So he that was the Lord of all men, was not to be ranked in the degree of men, but of the God's: This his opinion founded upon impiety, backed with flattery, and strengthened by his uncontrolled power, he followed with such vehemency and vigor, that now no Deity must be thought on but the God Gaius, and all the God's as he pleased were engrossed into himself. He changed his Godship when he thought good, and that with no more ado than with change of his garb. To day he would wear a Lions skin and a golden Club, and then he was Hercules, tomorrow a Kids skin, and an Alepole, and then he was Bacchus; when he laid that by, it may be he would put on his curious Bonnet, and then he was Castor or Pollux: He would but lay that by and put on a beamy golden crown, and take bow and arrows in his hands, and he was Apollo, a Caduceus made him Mercury, and sword, helmet and gantlet made him Mars: But the terror that attended him when he would be this God last named, walking in his armor, with his drawn sword in his hand, and a band of cut-throats about him, shown to the people but little of any divine qualities, or celestial intentions, but terrified them with expectation of devilish cruelty and murders: Sometimes would he sit betwixt the two statues of Castor and Pollux and endure to be saluted by the name of the Italian Jupiter; Sometimes would he sit by Jupiter himself and whisper with him, and threaten to banish him out of Italy into Greece: And indeed it had been but an equal change had he done so, for he got the most curious pieces of the God's of that Country, and struck off their heads, and on the trunck he set the representation of his own. He had a standing statue of Gold erected for him, to represent his walking Diety, which was clothed with the same garb that he wore himself every day, and to this were offered daily sacrifices as rare and new found out as was his Deity itself, Peacocks, Pheasants, and other birds of the greatest rarity and value. So vain a thing is man deserted and left unto himself, that he will be a God when he is in the next form to a Devil. The plain and rustic Gaule hit him right, and spake but the truth, when seeing him in these his postures of his foolish Diety, and laughing, and being asked by Gaius what he thought of him that he laughed, he answered boldly and escaped with it, That he seemed to him to be a great folly.

§ 6. The miseries of the Alexandrian Jews.

How these manners of the Prince might redound to the calamity of the Jews who would worship no God but their own, it is easy to guess by the common advantages that are always taken in the like cases, by men that are armed with power and weaponed with malice. As this humor of the Emperor was blown up with flattery and blasphemous clawing at home, so was it soon blazoned and divulged abroad, and they that delighted in many God's, it was good contentment, to have them all met in the Center of the new God, all-God, their Prince. But what will become of the Jews, the only opposers of such impiety, and what especially of the Alexandrian Jews, whose tragedy was begun already? This opportunity suited with the spiteful desires of their adversaries, as their adversaries themselves could have desired. For now thinks Flaccus, he may ingratiate himself to Caesar indeed by being ungracious to the Jews, and now have the Alexandrians a double forwarding beside their own malice, their Governor and their Prince.

First Flaccus deprived the Jews of their Synagogues, Oratories and houses of prayer, and therewith as much as in him lay of their Religion, then of the benefit of the City and Country Laws, proclaiming them strangers and foreigners, and at last gave free and open liberty to the Alexandrians to use their wills upon them, in what manner and measure their malice thought meet. And now their Tragedy begins.

The Jews in the City were above two parts of five; the Alexandrians driving them out of their own houses, and ransacking the houses as they went, they force them into a strait place of the City, where they had not room to stir one for another, much less to make any orderly battalia for defense of themselves, or for resistance. In this strait both of place and fortune, it is no wonder if they speedily suffered famine who had nothing of their sustenance left them, unless they would have devoured one another. Here are many mouths and no meat, and great complaining but no relief. Plenty enough there was in the City, but none for them, and abundance of everything necessary, but pity. The poor crowded, straved, and distressed people, those that had any hope or courage to shift for themselves, streak abroad and steal forth of their inclosure, for food and fresh air; some to the shore, some into the City, someone way, some another, but the misery of them also was no less than theirs that staid impounded, but that it was not so lingering. For wheresoever they were caught, as nowhere could they go but descried, they were either stoned, clubbed, or burned to death, yea, often man, wife, children and whole families so murdered all of a heap. Some they smoaked and choked to death in a fire where they wanted fuel to burn them out, some they hailed with ropes tied about their ankles, up and down the streets till they were dead, and then neither spared they the dead bodies, but mangled them in pieces. Their Synagogues they all burnt down, with the loss also of some of the Alexandrians houses adjoining, their houses they defaced, and their lives they took away, when and wheresoever they could catch them. Flaccus in this bloodiness, had done enough by connivance and toleration, but he is not content with this passive tyranny unless he be an actor himself in the Scene, and be not behind other in this mischief, as he was before them in authority. Eight and thirty of their Judges and Counselors (for a Senate of their own was tolerated by Augustus and allowed them) he sendeth for by his officers, and binding their hands behind them, causeth them thus to be led along the streets for a derision, and then caused them to be publicly scourged, some to death, some to the lingering out of a miserable life. He caused also a pretended search to be made throughout all the Jews houses for armor, pretending a suspicion of their insurrection, but intending thereby to give the Soldiers the more advantage for their pillaging and oppression. He spared neither age nor sex against whom he could take an occasion or find cavil, nor reverenced he any festival for their execution, nor omitted any kind of cruelty for their torture. Here is the first smarting blow to count of that this nation felt, since they called for the blood of the just one upon themselves and upon their children, and some of this City were nimble agents for the comapssing of the death of his first Matyr Steven, Act. 6. 9.

§ 7. Agrippa in his own Kingdom.

You may well presume that the stay of Agrippa would not be long at Alexandria, where his entertainment was so foul, and his invitation to his own home was so fair and good. His welcome thither was not so full of scorn and disgrace, as in the other place, but as full of unkindness, because the unkindness was from his own sister. Herodias, the incestuous wife of Herod the Tetrarch, and once some comfort to this her brother whilst he was in distress, grows now, the bitter envier of his prosperity. A woman ever active to the mischief of others, but now beginning to twine a whip for her own back. It griveth her to see the unlooked for pomp of the new King Agrippa: A man that had so lately been under the hatches of fortune, and in her bilboes, debt and danger, that had but the other day fled from his wife, country, and friends for poverty and shame, unable to pay the monies that he ought, and which was worse, as unable to borrow more, and now he is returned again with a Kingdom, a Crown, and with pomp and train agreeable to both: Oh how this grated her haughty and emulative spirit, though he were her brother! Well, whether it were in spite to his promotion, or in disdain to her degree that was now below him, which is the more like, the shower and storms of her discontents do shower upon her husband. She lays in his dish the present spectacle of Agrippa's glory, and his own inferiority. Taxeth him with dullness and sleepiness, that would not seek for a higher dignity, which might be had for a journey to Rome; twitteth him for being an underling when he might prevent it, persuadeth him to spare no cost nor travail for that prevention, and in fine worketh so with him by uncessant clamours, that though he could well have been contented to have sitten quiet at home, yet he is induced or driven to travail, and she with him to Rome to Gaius. Agrippa was not unacquainted with her discontents and with both their designs, and will not be far behind in reciprocal requital of such intentions, but their meeting, pleading and success at Rome must be reserved to another year.

§ Gaius the new God, little better than a Devil.

AFTER the sight of the goodly Godship of the Emperor shown in little a little before, let us take him now as he is indeed, little better than a Devil. A man, the shame and confusion of men, if he may be called a man, and so far beyond the vices of any that had gone before, that he seemed to live to no other purpose than to show, what the utmost extent of vitiousness could do in the utmost height of power and liberty. You would wonder, but that his defiance of the God's doth lessen that wonder, how scornfully and despitefully he used the memory and persons of his ancestors, sisters, kindred and best friends: He charged Augustus with incest, Livia with base birth, Tiberius but with what he deserved, his own mother with bastardize, and whosoever was most near and most honor to him, with some ignominy and reproach or other. But such words were curtesies in comparison of his actions. All his sisters he first deflowered, and then prostituted them to others being so deslowred. But his darling sister Drusilla, sped somewhat better, if that better were not as bad. To her he continued his affection, of love or lust whether you will, while she continued in life, and when she was dead, he made her the means of his profit as he had done before of his pleasure; she was the wife of M. Lepidus, but still the whore of her brother Cain's, and after her death he made her a Goddess, whom all her life long he had made his harlot. Altars, Statues, Vowes, Festivals were ordained for her, and Livius Geminius played the knight o'th post, and swore devoutly that he saw her ascend to heaven, and conversing with the God's. Such a Deity had the Romans never known before, but only her brother, and she troubled them as much in her heaven, as he did on the earth. For now was it impossible for any man so to behave himself, but he was entrapped on the one hand or the other, about this new found Goddess. To mourn for her death, it was criminal, because she was a Deity; and to rejoice for her Deity was capital, because she was dead, so that betwixt this Dilemma, of piety, tears and devotion, that man was very wary indeed that suffered not inhumanity and violence. For to laugh, feast, bath, sing or dance was mortal, because the Emperors sister and darling was dead, and yet to mourn, or sorrow for her death was as deadly, because she was immortal. This last stale did he make of this his deceased sister, when she would now serve him for no other use, that both sorrow for her mortality, and joy for her being immortal did alike bring in money to his treasures, (which were now almost drained of his many millions) either by bribes for the saving of the life of some, or by consiscation upon the death of others.

But how must he do now for another Paramor after his dear Drusilla? Why, that needeth not to breed any great difficulty, when his unbridled lust is not very curious of his choice, and his as unbridled power might choose as it list. He first married Lollia Paullina the wife of C. Memmius, sending for her from another country where her husband was General of the Army, and all the reason of this his choice was, because he was told that her grandmother was an exceeding great beauty; but he soon put her away again, and forbad that any should touch her forever after him. Next came Caesonia into his affections, and there contined; a mother of three children, and of more age than beauty, but of a lasciviousness and beastiality so well befitting his, that now he had met with his match, and it was pity they should have missed meeting: He would sometimes show her to the Soldiers, in armor, and sometimes to his friends stark naked, transforming her by these vicissitudes into two extremes equally unbefitting her sex, to a man and to a beast. By her he had a Daughter whom he named Julia Drusilla, and whom he brought to the shrines of all the Goddesses in Rome, and at last committed to the lap of Minerva for her tutorage and education. But this his behavior is nothing in comparison of that which followed. He slew divers of the Senate, and yet afterward cited them to appear as if they had been alive, and in the end pretended that they had died by their own hands, others came off with a scourging, and so they escaped with life, but he caused the Soldiers to tread on them as they lay, and as they whipped them that they might have them at the more command: And thus he used some of all ranks and degrees. Being disturbed at midnight one night by the noise of some that were getting places in the Circus against the next day, he fell upon them with Clubs and slew twenty Knights, as many matrons, and an infinite company of the common people. He threw a great multitude of old men and decrepit householders to the wild beasts, that he might rid such unserviceable men, as he thought them, out of the way, and he caused the granaries to be often shut up, that they that had escaped the wild beasts, might perish with famine: He used to fatten the beasts that he desired to have fed with the inhumane diet of human bodies yet alive, that thereby he might save other charges: Many men he first mangled and maimed, and then condemned to the mines, or to the wild beasts, or to little- • ase-prisons, and some he caused to be sawed in sunder. He forced parents to be present at the execution of their children: and for one that could not come to such a miserable spectacle he sent a letter; and another he invited to a feast, after he had caused him to be a spectator of the execution of his own Son. One of the masters of his games that had offended him, he kept in chains, and caused him to be beaten every day before his face, till the offensiveness and stench of his wounded brain obtained his death: A Roman Knight being cast by him to the wild beasts, and crying out of the injustice done to him, he caused to be taken out again, and his tongue to be cut out, and then he cast him to them again. He caused all the banished men that were in the Islands about Italy to be slain at once, because having asked one that was banished in the time of Tiberius, what he did all the time of his exile, and he answered, that he prayed continually for the death of Tiberius and the succession of Gaius, he thought that all the present exiles prayed for his death likewise. Every tenth day he caused an execution to be had of those that were condemned, boasting and vanting that he scoured the prisons: And ever as any one came to suffer, he commanded the executioners to end him with such deliberate tortures, as that he should be sure to feel himself to die: involving many deaths in one, and causing men that were to die, to live even in death, that they might die with more pain.

§. 1. Cruelties at Rome.

THIS year began at Rome with a fatal Omen. For on the first of January, Machaon a Servant went up to the shrine of Jupiter Capitolinus, and there having presaged and prophesied many fearful and terrible things, first he slew a whelp that he had with him, and then he slew himself.

These beginnings had answerable sequels, for Gaius addicted himself wholly to bloodiness, sometimes for his sports, sometimes in cruel earnest: He commanded sword-plays to be made, in which he set not man to man, but multitudes to multitudes to slaughter each other: He slew in the same manner six and twenty Roman Knights, with great contentment taken by him in the effusion of their blood: He set also another Knight to the same terrible sports, and when he came off victorious, he caused him, and his father to be slain, and divers others with them inclosing them in a strong Chest or Press: When once there were not enough of poor condemned wretches to cast to the wild beasts, he caused divers that stood upon the Scaffolds for spectators to be cast unto them, causing their tongues first to be cut out, that they might not cry or complain: yet did he with these cruelties mingle some plausible actions tending to popularity, as creating of Knights, priviledging the commons, and lavishing in gifts, that strengthing himself with these curtesies in the hearts of some men, he might with the more confidence be cruel to other.

§ 2 An end of Macro.

It cannot be expected that he should come to a good end himself, that had brought so many to a bad. His course is now come to taste of the same sauce that he had provided for so many others, and it would half move the spectator to some kind of pity to see him slaughtered for such a cause as he was slaughtered for. How he had been a means to curry Gaius favor with Tiberius, and to skrew him into the Empire and himself into his good opinion, even by the prostitution of his own wife, we have heard before, and this his extraordinary officiousness, he did not forelet or slacken, when he had brought him where he desired to have him, to the Empire. But now he turned his observance a better way, and what he had done before by baseness, flattery, and senseless obsequiousness to bring him to the rule, he changeth into good counsel to keep him well in it. For when he saw him fall asleep at Banquets amongst his cups, he would freely check him for it, as being neither for his credit, nor for his safety. The like would he do when he saw him misbehave himself by lightness, profuse laughter, and ridiculous gestures in the Theater, and in beholding of plays: In brief, so round and plain was he with him when he saw just cause, that in fine the uncounselable humorist became his enemy, and at last his death. His end is reported to have been the same with young Tiberius, forced to slay himself, and Ennia his wife, or the wife of Gaius, whether you will, to have been constrained to the same extremity and end with him. An end well befitting and well deserved of them both, but from all men living least deserved from Gaius. Philo after the death of Macro placeth the death of M. Silanus, which upon the warrant of Dion we have set before, and in things so indifferent will not spend labor to examine.

§ 1. Troubles of the Jews in Alexandria.

FLACCUS Avilius was now Governor of Aegyt, and had been so for some years before: A man that ruled well while Tiberius lived, but after his death, could not govern himself. For when he heard of the death of the old Emperor and the succession of the new, sorrow for the one, and fear of the other did so transport him besides himself, that forgetting the bravery and glory wherewith he had governed hitherto, he let loose the reins of himself to these two passions, and the reins of the government to desperate carelessness and neglect. He did nothing but weep for the loss of old Tiberius, to whom he had been very intimate and dear, and he might well weep the more, because he could meet hardly with any that would bear any part and share in that sorrow with him. This his grief was augmented by the fear that he had of Gaius and of his displeasure, and that by the intelligence that his conscience gave him that he had deserved it: partly for his propensity to young Tiberius and siding with him, but chiefly because he had had some hand or at least some consent and inclination to the death of Agrippina, Gaius his Mother. Both these his miserable passions were brought to their height when he heard of the death of young Tiberius and of his old friend Macro. The thought of these two was the only comfort he had against his dejectedness and discontent, for all his hope was, that these two might make his peace with Gaius, whose displeasure he so much doubted: But what must he do now, when they cannot make their own peace? He yieldeth himself therefore wholly to his discontented mood, and neglecteth utterly both himself and the State. His old friends he groweth jealous of and rejecteth: his professed enemies he receiveth to his favor and to his counsels: These rule him that should have ruled Egypt, and he had done it worthily, but now is drawn any whither, that ill advise, fullenness and melancholy doth direct him. These his wicked Counselors invent a course to procure his peace and the Emperors favor, a course indeed bloody, barbarous, and inhumane, but such as suited with their own malice, and (as it proved) took place with the Governors desperateness and cowardice, if so be he may be called a Governor still. Gaius the Emperor, say they, is an enemy to the Jews, and a friend to the Alexandrians: Let this be the opportunity whereby to work thy reconciliation, to suffer the City to rise against the Jews and to commit outrage upon them, and thou canst not perform an act more acceptable to the Prince, nor more profitable for thyself. The wretched Flaccus that took to heart no man's misery but his own, and cared not who suffered, so he might escape, gave ear to this damnable and devilish counsel, and put it in practice, first plotting mischief against the Jews in secret, then oppressing them in judgment and in their suites openly, and at the last professing and publishing himself their resolved enemy.

§ 2. Agrippa at Alexandria an unexpected and unwilling occasion of further troubles.

Those incendiaries that had kindled this fire will be sure to lose no blast that may make it flame and keep it burning: Agrippa that had not long ago departed from Alexandria a poor private man, returneth now thither in prosperity and a King. Gaius that had promoted him to his kingdom, did lovingly direct him by Alexandria, as the safest way to it. Thither he came with as great privacy as such a personage could do, and yet was he espied by the jealous eyes of these rare counselors, and his coming misconstrued, through their malice to the Jews. They persuade Flaccus that his coming thither was an affront to him in his own Province, that his Pomp and Train was more sumptuous than his, that the eyes of all men were upon the new King Agrippa, and in short that his presence there, was his present disgrace and would prove his future disadvantage. The ill governed Governor was ready enough to hearken to such buzzings as these, and to yield them impression in his mind, yet durst he not put anything in execution against the King for fear of him that sent him. He therefore thought it best to carry a fair outside to Agrippa, and to his face he speaketh fair and pretendeth friendship, but behind his back, he did not only descry his hate and revile him in secret, but also connived at those that did so openly: so that within a little while, the King that neither thought nor came for any hurt is made the public scoff and scorn throughout the City, and on their stages, in their plays, ballads, speeches, houses, streets, there is no language so common nor so currant, as the abusive of Agrippa.

§ 3. A Pageant of one and more madmen.

This connivence of the Governor shall I call it, or his toleration, or his setting on, or his folly, or what you will, you may well presume that it added boldness and impudency enough to the outrageous multitude, which commonly in such mischievousness need small encouragement: Their madness among other things shown itself in this Pageant, whether more senseless or spleenatick, if not both alike, let the Reader judge. There was a poor mad man or distracted wretch in the City whose name was Charabas, that used to walk up and down stark naked night and day, heat and cold, the common fool as it were of boys and young men, with whom they used to make sport. The riotous rout (now set on mischief) bring this silly wretch to one of their public meeting places, and there setting him on high in a seat above all the people that he might be seen of all, they put a Diadem of Paper about his head, and mat of sedge about his body instead of his robes, and a piece of Reed for a Scepter in his hand: and thus have they solemnly and suddenly made him a King, and one indeed that had been fit enough for themselves; and one that was indeed but a fit Emblem of their Governor Flaccus, that suffered such a thing. Their mimical King being thus accoutred with his robes and royalty, they bring him forth in a solemn state: Before and about him went youths with poles upon their shoulders for his guard, by the way as he went some come to do him homage, others to petition for justice, others to advise him concerning affairs of State, and at last they all of them All hail him with the title of Mare, which in the Syrian rongue, the Language of the Country of Agrippa, (whom by this very word they shown that they mocked) betokeneth Lord and Master,. And now let the Reader but look upon this rout of Alexandrians, and let him judge who was the madder, the poor Lunatick that was so used, or they that so used him. For was it not mere madness in them thus to taunt and revile so great a King, so greatly respected by the Roman Senate, and so great a favorite of their Lord and Emperor? But Flaccus the maddest of all that beheld all this, and yet did permit it. And on the other hand let him look upon the Jews to whom this sportful mummery is the preface to misery in good earnest, and if this mockage of their first King with a Crown, Robes, and Scepter of derision, put not the Reader in the mind of their scorning and usage of their true King and Savior in the very same manner, he cannot but remember Barabbas upon the naming of Charabas by the very same sound and rime.

§ 4. More outrage.

The Alexandrians thus countenanced by Flaccus in the derision of the new King of the Jews, grow to a boundless outrage against their God. For now they begin to assail their Synagogues, and there they desire to set up Images: a thing as odious to that Nation, as beloved among the Alexandrians. For in them is fulfilled that prophesy of Hosea Chap. 3. 4. where they neither are as yet to God, nor as yet to any other, but on the one hand detesting false God's, and yet on the other hand not embracing the true: hating the Images of any creature for adoration, but withal hating him that is the very Image and Character of the living God, the Creator.

This enterprise of profaning and defiling the Synagogues and houses of prayer of the Jews was not a fearful and terrible vexation to those of that City only, but what hurt may such an example do, think you, both through Egypt, and indeed through all the other Cities of the Empire? What fruits these beginnings brought forth in the same City, and elsewhere, we shall see ere long.