The works of the Reverend and learned John Lightfoot D. D., late Master of Katherine Hall in Cambridge such as were, and such as never before were printed : in two volumes : with the authors life and large and useful tables to each volume : also three maps : one of the temple drawn by the author himself, the others of Jervsalem and the Holy Land drawn according to the author's chorography, with a description collected out of his writings.

THE ROMAN, AND JEWISH Story,

For the Year of CHRIST XXXIX. The second Year also of CAIUS CALIGULA. Being the Year of the WORLD 3966. And of the City of ROME 791.

Consuls

• M. Aquila Iulianus.
• P. Nonius Asprenas.

PART I. The ROMAN Story.

§. 1. Cruelties at Rome.

THIS year began at Rome with a fatal Omen. For on the first of January, Ma∣chaon a Servant went up to the shrine of Jupiter Capitolinus, and there having presaged and prophecied 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 Caius addicted himself wholly to bloodi∣ness, 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 content∣ment 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 tast 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 Caius favour 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 be∣ing 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 plaies: 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 Caius, 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 Caius. 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 labour to examine.

PART II. The JEWISH Story.

§ 1. Troubles of the Jews in Alexandria.

FLACCUS Avilius was now Governour 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 Emperour 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 carelesness 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 Caius 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, Caius 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 Ma∣cro. 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 Caius, whose displeasure he so much doubted: But what must he do now, when they cannot make their own peace? He yeeldeth 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 favour 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 Counsellors invent a course to procure his peace and the Emperours favour, 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 cowardize,

if so be he may be called a Governor still. Caius the Emperour, 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 up∣on them, and thou canst not perform an act more acceptable to the Prince, nor more profitable for thy self. The wretched Flaccus that took to heart no mans 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 pro∣fessing 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 Alexan∣dria a poor private man, returneth now thither in prosperity and a King. Caius 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 counsellours, and his coming misconstrued, through their malice to the Jews. They perswade 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 Governour was ready enough to hearken to such buzzings as these, and to yeeld them impression in his mind, yet durst he not put any thing in execution against the King for fear of him that sent him. He therefore thought it best to carry a fair out∣side 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 publick 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 Governour 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 outragious multitude, which commonly in such mischievousness need small incourage∣ment: Their madness among other things shewed it self 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 publick 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 in stead of his robes, and a piece of Reed for a Scepter in his hand: and thus have they solemnly and suddainly 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 Governour Flaccus, that suffered such a thing. Their mimi∣cal King being thus accoutred with his robes and royalty, they bring him forth in a so∣lemn 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* 1.1 with the title of Mare, which in the Syrian rongue, the Language of the Country of Agrip∣pa, (whom by this very word they shewed 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 Emperour? 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 mum∣mery 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 Saviour 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 Na∣tion, as beloved among the Alexandrians. For in them is fulfilled that prophesie of Ho∣sea Chap. 3. 4. where they neither are as yet to God, nor as yet to any other, but on the one hand detesting false Gods, and yet on the other hand not imbracing the true: hating the Images of any creature for adoration, but withall hating him that is the very Image and Character of the living God, the Creator.

This enterprise of prophaning 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. Caius will be a God.

A special incouragement to this insolency at Alexandria was Caius the Emperours de∣meanour 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 Logick 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 Gods: This his opinion founded upon impiety, backed with flattery, and strengthned by his uncontrouled power, he followed with such vehemency and vigour, that now no Deity must be thought on but the God Caius, and all the Gods as he pleased were ingrossed 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, to mor∣row 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 terrour that attended him when he would be this God last named, walking in his armour, with his drawn sword in his hand, and a band of cut-throats about him, shewed to the people but little of any divine qualities, or celestial intenti∣ons, but terrified them with expectation of devilish cruelty and murders: Sometimes would he sit betwixt the two statues of Castor and Pollux and indure 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 peeces of the Gods of that Country, and struck off their heads, and on the trunck he set the representa∣tion 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 it self, 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 rustick 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 Caius 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 easie 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 humour of the Emperour was blown up with flattery and blasphe∣mous clawing at home, so was it soon blazoned and divulged abroad, and they that delighted in many Gods, 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 adversa∣ries, as their adversaries themselves could have desired. For now thinks Flaccus, he may ingratiate himself to Caesar indeed by being ungratious to the Jews, and now have the Alexandrians a double forwarding beside their own malice, their Governour 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 forreigners, and at last gave free and open liberty to the Alexandrians to use their wills upon them, in what manner and mea∣sure 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 defence 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 every thing 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, some one way, some another, but the misery of them also was no less than theirs that staid impounded, but that it was not so lingring. For wheresoever they were caught, as no where could they go but de∣scried, they were either stoned, clubbed, or burned to death, yea, often man, wife, children and whole families so murdred all of a heap. Some they smoaked and choaked to death in a fire where they wanted fewel to burn them out, some they haled 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 adjoyning, 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 Counsellors (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 publickly scourged, some to death, some to the lingring out of a miserable life. He caused also a pretended search to be made throughout all the Jews houses for ar∣mour, pretending a suspicion of their insurrection, but intending thereby to give the Souldiers 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 intertainment 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. Hero∣dias, the incestuous wife of Herod the Tetrarch, and once some comfort to this her brother whilest he was in distress, growes 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 po∣verty and shame, unable to pay the monies that he ought, and which was worse, as un∣able 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 inferioritie. Taxeth him with dulness 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, perswadeth 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 Caius. A∣grippa 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.

PART III. The Roman Story again.

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

AFTER the sight of the goodly Godship of the Emperour shewed 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 shew, what the utmost extent of vitiousness could do in the ut∣most height of power and liberty. You would wonder, but that his defiance of the Gods 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 in∣cest, Livia with base birth, Tiberius but with what he deserved, his own mother with bastardize, and whosoever was most near and most honour to him, with some ignominy and reproach or other. But such words were curtesies in comparison of his actions. All his sisters he first deflowred, 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 be∣fore of his pleasure; she was the wife of M. Lepidus, but still the whore of her brother Cains, 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 Gemi∣nius played the knight o'th post, and swore devoutly that he saw her ascend to heaven, and conversing with the Gods. 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 intrapped 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 rejoyce 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 Emperours 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 mony 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 hus∣band 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 for ever 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 shew her to the Souldiers, in armour, and sometimes to his friends stark naked, transforming her by these vicissitudes into two extreams 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 behaviour 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 Soul∣diers 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 housholders 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 humane 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 offensive∣ness 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 Caius, 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, boast∣ing and vanting that he scoured the prisons: And ever as any one came to suffer, he com∣manded 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.

Notes

• * 1.1

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