Archelaus Banished to Gaul

When Archelaus had entered on his ethnarchy and come into Judea, he accused Joazar, the son of Boethus, of helping the rebels, took the high priesthood away from him, and put his brother Eleazar in his place. He also rebuilt the royal palace at Jericho magnificently, and he diverted half the water that used to water the village of Neara and drew it off into the plain, to water the palm trees he had planted there. He also built a village and put his own name on it, calling it Archelais. Moreover, he broke the law of our fathers by marrying Glaphyra, the daughter of Archelaus, who had been the wife of his brother Alexander, and she had had children by Alexander; and it was a thing detested among the Jews to marry a brother’s wife. Nor did this Eleazar remain long in the high priesthood, for Jesus the son of Sie was put in his place while he was still living. [a] But in the tenth year of Archelaus’s rule, the leading men among the Jews and the Samaritans, unable to bear his savage and tyrannical treatment of them, accused him before Caesar, and all the more because they knew he had broken Caesar’s commands, which bound him to behave with moderation among them. When Caesar heard it, he was very angry. He sent for Archelaus’s agent, who looked after his affairs at Rome and whose name was also Archelaus; and thinking it beneath him to write to Archelaus, he told him to sail at once and bring him back. So the man hurried on his voyage, and when he came into Judea he found Archelaus feasting with his friends. He told him what Caesar had sent him for and hurried him away. When Archelaus arrived at Rome, Caesar heard what certain accusers had to say against him and what reply he could make, and then banished him, assigning Vienne, a city of Gaul, as the place where he was to live, and took his money away from him. [d]

Now before Archelaus went up to Rome on this summons, he told his friends this dream. He saw ten ears of grain, full of wheat and perfectly ripe, which, it seemed to him, were eaten up by oxen. When he woke and got up, because the vision seemed to him of great importance, he sent for the diviners whose study was dreams. While some were of one opinion and some of another (for their interpretations did not all agree), Simon, a man of the sect of the Essenes, asked for a pledge that he would come to no harm. He said that the vision meant a change in Archelaus’s affairs, and not for the better. Oxen, because that animal toils painfully at its work, signified afflictions, and signified a change of affairs as well, because land that is plowed by oxen cannot remain as it was before. The ears of grain, being ten, marked the same number of years, because an ear of grain grows in one year; and the time of Archelaus’s rule was over. That was how this man explained the dream. And on the fifth day after the dream first came to Archelaus, the other Archelaus, whom Caesar had sent to Judea to summon him, arrived as well. [f] Something similar happened to his wife Glaphyra, the daughter of King Archelaus. As I said before, she had been married as a virgin to Alexander, the son of Herod and brother of Archelaus. But since it happened that Alexander was put to death by his father, she was married to Juba, the king of Libya; and when he died and she was living as a widow in Cappadocia with her father, Archelaus divorced his former wife Mariamne and married her, so great was his passion for this Glaphyra. While she was married to him, she had the following dream. She thought she saw Alexander standing by her, and she rejoiced at it and embraced him with great affection. But he reproached her and said: “Glaphyra, you have proved true the saying that women are not to be trusted. Did you not pledge your faith to me? Were you not married to me when you were a virgin? Did we not have children together? Yet you have forgotten the love I bore you, out of desire for a second husband. Nor were you satisfied with that wrong you did me; you have been so bold as to get yourself a third husband to lie beside you, and in an indecent and shameless way you have come into my house and married Archelaus, your husband and my brother. Even so, I will not forget your former love for me, but will set you free from all such disgrace and make you mine again, as you once were.” When she had told this to the women about her, she died within a few days. [h]

I did not think these stories out of place in the present account, both because my account here concerns kings, and also because of the benefit to be drawn from them, as confirming both the immortality of the soul and the providence of God over human affairs; so I thought them fit to be set down. But if anyone does not believe such accounts, let him by all means keep his own opinion, but let him not hinder another who would encourage himself in virtue by them. So Archelaus’s country was made subject to tribute and added to the province of Syria; and Quirinius, a man who had been consul, was sent by Caesar to take a census of people’s property in Syria and to sell off the estate of Archelaus. [i]