The heads of Samaria now went in a body to Nu|midius Quadratus, governor of Syria, who was at Tyre, with a charge against the Jews, of firing and plundering their villages, for which, they said, they were not so much concerned on their account, as for the encroachment on the sovereign authority of Rome, which had singly and solely the cognizance of cases of that nature. They observed, that they committed lawless depredations, and usurped a right of judgment, thereby setting the Roman le|gislature at open defiance.
The Jews, on the other hand, affirmed that the Samarians were the authors of this tumult, and of course the disasters which ensued. They laid the main stress of the charge upon Cumanus, who, they said, had been bribed into connivance at a most notorious murder. Quadratus, having attended to the allegations on both sides, adjourned the hear|ing, assuring the parties, that he would go himself into Judaea, and, upon a perfect investigation of the whole matter, pass judgment accordingly; so that they were dismissed for the present. Quadratus went soon after this into Samaria, where, upon hearing the cause, he concluded that the Samarians were guilty of the riot. He was likewise informed that many of the Jews had been accessary to com|motions, and therefore caused several prisoners, whom Cumanus had taken into custody, to be put to death. From thence he went to Lydda, a place of considerable extent, where he heard the Sama|rian cause a second time, and understanding that one Dortus, an eminent Jew, with four more of his own tribe, had incited the populace to an insurrec|tion, he passed sentence of death upon them all. But Ananias the high-priest, and Ananus, the principal officer, were sent bound to Rome, to answer for themselves before Caesar. He likewise ordered into Italy the principal men both of the Samarians and the Jews, with Cumanus, the governor, and Celer, the tribune, that the emperor might hear and de|termine upon the cause depending; but returned himself to Jerusalem, lest new tumults might re|quire the exertion of his authority. Finding how|ever every thing in a peaceable state, and the Jews wholly intent upon the celebration of one of their usual festivals, he would not interrupt them in the exercise of their profession, and so went back to Antioch.
When Cumanus and the Samarians arrived at Rome, they were ordered to appear at the time and place appointed for the trial, and having made very powerful interest before hand, would most probably have carried the cause, had it not been for the in|terposition of Agrippa the younger, who finding the Jews in danger of being overpowered by numbers, importuned Agrippina, the wife of Claudius, to press her husband for a candid and impartial hear|ing, and an indiscriminate execution of justice upon the authors of this encroachment on the sovereignty of the Roman empire. Claudiu•• 〈◊〉〈◊〉 so prevailed upon by this intercession, that 〈◊〉〈◊〉 gave both sides a fair hearing, and finding, upon the whole, that the Samarians had been the authors of this tumult, passed sentence of death upon those who came up to him; of exile upon Cumanus; and commanded Celer, the tribune, to be carried to Jerusalem, and dragged to execution through the streets in the face of all the people. He then appointed Felix, the brother of Pallas, to the government of Judaea.
Claudius Caesar, in the twelfth year of his reign, conferred upon Agrippa the tetrarchy of Philip, with Batanaea; and added to it Trachon and Abila, which had been the tetrarchy of Lysanias; but he took Chalcis from him, after it had been under his government four years. Agrippa, having received those bounties from Caesar, gave his sister Drusilla, in marriage to Azizus, king of Emesa, who was now become a Jew. She had before been promised to Epiphanes, the son of Antiochus, on condition of his embracing the Jewish religion; but, upon refu|sal, the match broke off. He married Mariamne, ano|ther of his sisters, to Archelaus, the son of Chel|cias, to whom she had been contracted some time be|fore by her father Agrippa, from which marriage was derived a daughter, whose name was Berenice.
Soon after this Drusilla and Azizus were parted on the following occasion. Drusilla possessing great personal charms, Felix, the governor of Judaea, be|came passionately enamoured of her. To obtain his desire, he sent for Simon, his particular friend, (a Jew of Cyprus, who pretended to divination,) and enjoined him to use all his art with Drusilla to de|tach her from her husband, and persuade her to marry him, with full assurance that nothing should be wanting to compleat her happiness. Drusilla, to avoid the envy of her sister Berenice, on account of her beauty, imprudently acceded to the proposal, renounced her religion as well as her husband, and married the Roman governor, by whom she had a son, called Agrippa, who, in the days of Titus Caesar, and in the prime of life, perished, with his wife, at a conflagration of the Mount Vesuvius.
Berenice lived in a state of widowhood a consider|able time after the death of Herod, who was both her husband and her uncle, but lying under the dis|graceful imputation of incestuous familiarity with her brother, in order to wipe off that stigma, she persuaded Polemon, king of Cilicia, to embrace the Jewish religion, and take her to wife, as it might pass for a confutation of the report. Pole|mon, lured by her fortune, came into the proposal; but Berenice, being a woman of a licentious dispo|sition, soon parted with her husband, as he did with his new religion. Mariamne also put away Arche|laus, and was married to Demetrius, the most emi|nent Jew of Alexandria, as well for birth as fortune, and at that time alab••rcha of this place, by whom she had a son, called Agrippinus.
Claudius Caesar, having reigned thirteen years, eight months, and twenty days, departed this life, not without a strong presumption of his having been poisoned by his wife Agrippina. She was the daugh|ter of Germanicus, the emperor's brother. Her first husband was Domitius Aen••b••rbus, a man of emi|nence in the city of Rome, who leaving her a wi|dow, she remained in that state till Claudius took her to wife. She had a son by Domitius, who was called by his father's name, which, upon his being adopted by Claudius, was changed for that of Nero. This emperor had a former wife, whose name was Messalina, by whom he had issue, Britannicus and Octavia. He caused Messalina to be put to death, upon a suspicion of jealousy, and married Antonia, his eldest child, whom he had by Petronia, a former wife, to Nero, his adopted son.
Agrippina being bent upon the advancement of his own son to the empire, it is reported that she consulted the death of Claudius and the securing the succession to Nero at the same time, lest Germa|nicus should interpose and supplant him. She had suborned Burrhus, commanding officer of the guards, with some tribunes, friends, and favorites, to be in immediate readiness, upon the demise of Claudius, to carry Nero into the camp, and pro|claim him emperor. This they no sooner did, but his first exploit, after his elevation, was the poison|ing of Britannicus, which was followed by the attrocious murder of his own mother, in requital for the life she had given him, and the empire she had procured him. He put his wife Octavia to death, and divers persons of the first eminence for integrity and honour. But the history of Nero is so well known, that it is needless to enlarge upon the subject. Some writers are as extravagant in their panegyric, as others have been in their defamation; so that truth, the chief excellence of an historian, is totally obscured. Nor do I much wonder at the palpable contradictions evident in the recital of the acts of Nero by different authors of his life, when I consider the partiality and prejudice that are as evident in the histories of his predecessors. With respect to myself, truth shall ever be my direct aim. Matters foreign and contingent shall be passed over with brevity; while particular attention shall be paid to the concerns of our own nation, which shall be related without the guise of exaggeration of our virtues, or palliation of our vices. But to re|turn to the subject before us.