Zamaris and the Pharisees’ Prophecy

About this time Herod, wishing to secure himself on the side of the Trachonites, decided to build a village as large as a city for Jews in the middle of that country, which would make his own country hard to attack, and from which he might be close at hand to make raids on them and do them harm. He learned that a Jew had come out of Babylonia with five hundred horsemen, all of whom could shoot their arrows as they rode, and with a hundred of his relatives; that he had crossed the Euphrates and was now living at Antioch by Daphne in Syria, where Saturninus, who was then governor, had given them a place to live called Ulatha. So Herod sent for this man and the people who followed him, and promised to give him land in the district called Batanea, which borders on Trachonitis, wanting to make his settlement a guard for himself. He also undertook to let him hold the country free of tribute, and that they should live there entirely without paying the usual dues; and he gave it to him tax-free. [a]

The Babylonian was won over by these offers to come there. So he took possession of the land, built fortresses and a village in it, and named it Bathyra. In this way this man became a safeguard to the inhabitants against the Trachonites, and protected the Jews who came from Babylon to offer their sacrifices at Jerusalem from being harmed by the Trachonite robbers. So a great number of people came to him from all the parts where the ancestral Jewish laws were kept, and the country became full of people because of their complete freedom from taxes. This lasted throughout Herod’s life. But when Philip his son, who ruled after him, took over the government, he made them pay small taxes, and on only a few things. Agrippa the Great and his son of the same name harassed them greatly, yet would not take their liberty away. And the Romans, who have now taken the government from them into their own hands, still preserve their privilege of freedom, but crush them entirely with the imposition of taxes. I will treat this matter more fully as this history goes on. [d]

In time Zamaris the Babylonian, to whom Herod had given that country as a possession, died, having lived virtuously and left children of good character behind him. One of them was Jacim, who was famous for his courage and who trained his Babylonians to ride their horses; a troop of them served as guards to the kings just mentioned. When Jacim died in old age, he left a son named Philip, a man of great strength of hand, and in other respects too more distinguished for courage than any of his contemporaries. For this reason there was trust and firm friendship between him and King Agrippa. Whatever army the king maintained, Philip went on training it and led it wherever it had occasion to march. [i]

While Herod’s affairs were in the state I have described, all public business depended on Antipater. His power was such that he could do favors for as many as he pleased, and this by his father’s concession, in the hope of his goodwill and loyalty; and so it went until he ventured to use his power still further, because his wicked designs were hidden from his father and he made him believe everything he said. He was feared by everyone, not so much for the power and authority he had as for the shrewdness of the vile schemes he laid beforehand. But the one who most cultivated a friendship with him was Pheroras, who received like marks of friendship from him; for Antipater had cunningly surrounded him with a company of women, whom he placed around him as guards. Pheroras was greatly enslaved to his wife, to her mother, and to her sister, and this despite the hatred he bore them for the insults they had offered his virgin daughters. Yet he put up with them, and nothing was done without the women, who had drawn this man into their circle and went on helping each other in everything, so that Antipater had won them over in every way, both by himself and through his mother. For these four women all said one and the same thing; but the opinions of Pheroras and Antipater differed on some points of no consequence. [j]

But the king’s sister was their opponent. For a good while she had been watching all their doings, and she was aware that this friendship of theirs was formed to do Herod some harm, and was disposed to inform the king of it. Since these people knew that their friendship was very displeasing to Herod, as tending to do him harm, they arranged that their meetings should not be discovered. So they pretended to hate one another and to abuse one another when the time served, especially when Herod was present or when anyone was there who would tell him; but in private their intimacy was firmer than ever. This was the course they took. But they could not hide from Salome either their first scheme, when they set about these plans, or the progress they made in them. She searched out everything, and, making the reports still worse, told her brother of their secret gatherings and drinking parties, and of their counsels held in secret, which, if they were not meant to destroy him, might well enough have been open and public. Outwardly, she said, they were at odds and spoke of one another as if they meant each other harm, but they agreed very well together when out of sight of the crowd; for when they were alone by themselves they acted in concert, and declared that they would never give up their friendship, but would fight against those from whom they hid their designs. So she searched these things out and gained full knowledge of them, and then told her brother. He already understood a great deal of it for himself, and his sister’s charges made him confident that his suspicions were not groundless.

There was a certain sect of Jews who prided themselves highly on their strict keeping of the customs of their fathers and of laws that, they claimed, God delights in; and this group of women had been drawn in by them. These are the ones called the sect of the Pharisees, men able to oppose kings greatly; a cunning sect, and quick to rise to open fighting and doing harm. Accordingly, when the whole Jewish people pledged on oath their goodwill to Caesar and to the king’s government, these very men, more than six thousand of them, did not swear; and when the king imposed a fine on them, Pheroras’s wife paid it for them. To repay this kindness of hers, since they were believed to have foreknowledge of things to come by divine inspiration, they foretold that God had decreed that Herod’s rule should end and his descendants be deprived of it, but that the kingdom should come to her and Pheroras and to their children. These predictions were not hidden from Salome, but were told to the king, along with how the Pharisees had corrupted some persons in the palace itself. So the king killed those of the Pharisees who were chiefly accused, and Bagoas the eunuch, and a certain Carus, who surpassed all men of that time in beauty and was his catamite. He killed also all those of his own household who had agreed with what the Pharisees foretold. As for Bagoas, they had puffed him up into thinking that he would be called the father and benefactor of the one who, by the prediction, was foretold to be their appointed king; for this king would have all things in his power, and would enable Bagoas to marry and to have children of his own body.