Nero, Felix and the Sicarii

Claudius Caesar died after reigning thirteen years, eight months and twenty days, and some said that he had been poisoned by his wife Agrippina. Her father was Germanicus, the brother of Caesar, and her husband had been Domitius Ahenobarbus, one of the distinguished men of the city of Rome. After his death she remained a widow for a long time, and then Claudius married her. She brought with her a son, Domitius, named after his father. Claudius had earlier put his wife Messalina to death out of jealousy; by her he had his children Britannicus and Octavia. Their eldest sister was Antonia, whom he had by Petina, his first wife. And Claudius gave Octavia in marriage to Nero; for that was the name Caesar gave him later, when he adopted him as his son. [a] Agrippina was afraid that when Britannicus came of age he would take over his father’s rule himself, and she wanted to seize the leadership first for her own son. So, as the report went, she brought about the death of Claudius. At once she sent Burrus, the prefect of the troops, and with him the tribunes and the most powerful of the freedmen, to take Nero away to the camp and hail him as emperor. Having gained the throne in this way, Nero did away with Britannicus by poison, without most people knowing it. But not long afterward he openly murdered his own mother, paying her back in this way not only for giving him birth but for gaining him the Roman empire by her schemes. He also killed Octavia, his wife, and many distinguished men, on the charge that they were plotting against him. [c]

But I will not write more about these things. Many have composed histories of Nero. Some of them, out of gratitude for the benefits they had received from him, have neglected the truth; others, out of hatred and hostility toward him, have run riot so shamelessly in their lies that they deserve to be condemned. Nor can I wonder at those who have lied about Nero, since even in writing about those who came before him they have not kept to the truth of history, although they could have had no hatred for those men, having lived long after them. But let those who care nothing for the truth write as they please, since that is what they seem to enjoy. As for us, we have set the truth before us as our aim. Matters remote from the subject before us we think worth only a brief mention; but what has happened to us Jews we set out with care, not shrinking from making plain either our misfortunes or our sins. I will now return, then, to the account of our own affairs.

In the first year of Nero’s reign, when Azizus, the ruler of Emesa, died, his brother Soemus succeeded to his rule; and Aristobulus, son of Herod king of Chalcis, was entrusted by Nero with the government of Lesser Armenia. Caesar also gave Agrippa a certain part of Galilee, ordering Tiberias and Tarichaeae to be subject to him, and he gave him Julias, a city of Perea, with the fourteen villages around it. [d]

Affairs in Judea kept getting worse and worse. The country was again filled with robber bands and with impostors who deceived the crowd. Felix caught many of these every day, together with the robbers, and put them to death. He also took alive by a trick Eleazar son of Dinaeus, who had organized the band of robbers: he gave him a pledge that he would suffer no harm, persuaded him to come to him, and then bound him and sent him to Rome. Felix was also hostile to the high priest Jonathan, because Jonathan often admonished him to govern the affairs of Judea better, so that he himself would not incur the people’s blame, since it was he who had asked Caesar to send Felix as procurator of Judea. So Felix looked for a pretext by which he could get rid of a man who was continually troublesome to him; for constant admonition is a burden to those who mean to do wrong. With this in mind, Felix persuaded the most trusted of Jonathan’s friends, a native of Jerusalem named Doras, by promising to give him a great deal of money, to bring the robbers on Jonathan to kill him. Doras agreed, and arranged for the robbers to commit the murder in this way. Some of them went up to the city as if to worship God, with daggers under their clothes, mingled with the people around Jonathan, and killed him. Since this murder went unpunished, from then on the robbers went up at the festivals in complete safety. With their weapons hidden in the same way, they mingled with the crowds and killed some of their own enemies and others for pay in the service of other men, not only in the rest of the city but some even in the temple; for they dared to slaughter people even there, without thinking that even this was impious. This, I think, is why God, hating their impiety, turned away from our city, and, judging the temple no longer a pure dwelling for himself, brought the Romans upon us and a purifying fire upon the city, and brought slavery upon us with our wives and children, wishing to bring us to our senses by our calamities. [e]

So the deeds of the robbers filled the city with impiety of this kind. Meanwhile impostors and deceivers persuaded the crowd to follow them into the wilderness, saying they would show them clear wonders and signs worked by the providence of God. Many were persuaded and paid the penalty for their folly, for Felix had them brought back and punished. About this time there came to Jerusalem from Egypt a man who said he was a prophet. He advised the common people to go out with him to the mountain called the Mount of Olives, which lies opposite the city, about five-eighths of a mile away. For he said he wanted to show them from there how, at his command, the walls of Jerusalem would fall down, and he promised to give them a way into the city through them. When Felix learned of this, he ordered his soldiers to take up their weapons, set out from Jerusalem with a large force of cavalry and infantry, and attacked the Egyptian and his followers. He killed four hundred of them and took two hundred alive. The Egyptian himself escaped from the battle and disappeared. And again the robbers stirred up the people to war against the Romans, telling them not to obey them in anything; and they burned and plundered the villages of those who would not comply. [f]

Now an uprising also arose between the Jews who lived in Caesarea and the Syrians there, over equal civic rights. The Jews claimed precedence on the ground that Herod, the founder of Caesarea, their king, was a Jew by birth. The Syrians did not deny what was said about Herod, but they said that Caesarea had formerly been called Strato’s Tower, and that at that time not a single Jew had lived in their city. When the Roman officers of the region heard of this, they seized those responsible for the uprising on both sides, had them flogged, and in this way calmed the disturbance for a little while. For the Jews of the city, confident in their wealth and for that reason despising the Syrians, abused them again, expecting to provoke them. The Syrians, though inferior in wealth, were proud that most of the men serving under the Romans there were from Caesarea and Sebaste. For a while they too insulted the Jews in words; then they began to throw stones at one another, until many on both sides were wounded and fell. Still, the Jews won. When Felix saw that the quarrel had turned into a kind of war, he rushed forward and urged the Jews to stop. When they would not obey, he armed his soldiers and let them loose on them. He killed many and took still more alive, and he allowed his soldiers to plunder some of the houses in the city, which were full of great wealth. The more considerate of the Jews, who were also foremost in rank, were afraid for themselves and begged Felix to recall his soldiers with the trumpet, to spare them from now on, and to give them room to repent of what they had done. And Felix was persuaded.

About this time King Agrippa gave the high priesthood to Ishmael son of Phabi. And strife flared up between the high priests on one side and the priests and the leaders of the people of Jerusalem on the other. Each of them gathered a band of the most reckless and revolutionary men and made himself its leader; and when they clashed, they abused one another and threw stones. There was no one at all to rebuke them; these things were done with full license, as in a city without a government. Such shamelessness and boldness seized the high priests that they dared to send their slaves to the threshing floors to take the tithes owed to the priests, so that the poorer priests died of want. So completely did the violence of the factions prevail over all justice. [h]

When Porcius Festus was sent by Nero to succeed Felix, the leaders of the Jews living in Caesarea went up to Rome to accuse Felix. He would certainly have paid the penalty for his wrongs against the Jews, had not Nero yielded to the many entreaties of his brother Pallas, whom he held in the very highest honor at that time. The leading Syrians in Caesarea also persuaded Beryllus, who had been Nero’s tutor and was now in charge of his Greek correspondence, by giving him a great deal of money, to ask Nero for a letter annulling the Jews’ equal civic rights with them. Beryllus asked the emperor and obtained the letter. This letter gave our nation the causes of the evils that followed. For when the Jews of Caesarea learned what had been written, they kept up their quarrel with the Syrians all the more, until at last they kindled the war. [j] When Festus arrived in Judea, he found it ravaged by the robbers, with all the villages being burned and plundered. The sicarii, as they were called, who are robbers, were then especially numerous. They used small swords, about the size of the Persian acinaces but curved, like the weapons the Romans call sicae; and from these the bandits took their name, killing many. For, as we said before, they mingled at the festivals with the crowds that streamed into the city from every quarter for worship, and easily slaughtered whomever they wished. Often too they came armed against the villages of their enemies, plundering and burning them. Festus also sent a force of cavalry and infantry against those who had been deceived by an impostor, who promised them rescue and an end to their troubles if they would follow him into the wilderness. The troops that were sent destroyed both the deceiver himself and those who had followed him. [l]

About this time King Agrippa built an exceptionally large room in the royal palace at Jerusalem, near the Xystus. The palace had been built long before by the sons of Asamonaeus. It stood on high ground and gave a most delightful view to anyone who wanted to look out over the city. The king loved this view, and from there, reclining at table, he would watch what was being done in the temple. When the leading men of Jerusalem saw this, they were extremely angry; for it was not in keeping with our ancestral customs that what was done in the temple, and above all the sacrifices, should be watched. So they built a high wall on the hall that stood in the inner court of the temple, facing west. When it was built, it blocked not only the view from the royal dining room but also the view of the western colonnade of the outer court, where the Romans kept guard over the temple at the festivals. King Agrippa was angry at this, and Festus the procurator still more, and Festus ordered them to pull it down. But they asked him to let them send an embassy to Nero about it; for they said they could not bear to live if any part of the temple were torn down. Festus gave them leave, and they sent ten of their leading men to Nero, together with Ishmael the high priest and Helcias the keeper of the treasury. When Nero had heard them, he not only pardoned what they had done but also allowed the building to stand as it was. He did this as a favor to his wife Poppaea, who was a worshiper of God and had pleaded on behalf of the Jews. She ordered the ten to go home, but kept Helcias and Ishmael with her as hostages. When the king heard of this, he gave the high priesthood to Joseph, surnamed Cabi, the son of Simon who had been high priest. [m]