Against Flaccus

Sefaria · Second Temple > Philo · 216 sections

Introduction.1
INTRODUCTION TO IN FLACCUM
Introduction.2
The story told in this treatise is as follows.
Introduction.3
Flaccus, whose misgovernment and cruelty to the Jews and ultimate fate are here described, was appointed prefect of Alexandria and Egypt in or about A.D. 32 near the end of the principate of Tiberius. Philo tells us that he showed considerable ability and industry during his first five years of office. He remarks that he praises him to exhibit his villainy in a clearer light, and he might have added that his description goes to prove that his toleration of the abominable cruelty shown to the Jews by the Alexandrian populace was not due to weakness but to definite intention (1–7). He had stood well with Tiberius, but the accession of Gaius in 37 endangered his position, for he had been a partisan of Tiberius Gemellus, the rival candidate for the succession, had been concerned in the steps taken to prosecute Agrippina, Gaius’s mother, and was friendly with Macro, who, though he had done much to protect Gaius from the distrust and dislike of Tiberius, soon fell into disfavour with Gaius and was put to death (8–15). This last event reduced Flaccus to despair, and it was at this point that according to Philo the anti-Semitic party in Alexandria, though they included some who at bottom were his enemies, approached him and suggested that if he would give them his support they and the city as a whole would stand by him to protect him against the hostility of the Emperor (16–24). All this may be partially or even wholly true, but it is compatible with the view held by some, who have more right to pronounce an opinion than I, that behind it lies a movement on the part of the Jews to enlarge to full citizenship the special privileges which they had as a πολίτευμα, and that it was this which roused the Greeks to take action and enlist Flaccus’s support.
Introduction.4
Philo represents Flaccus as only gradually throwing his lot in with them and exhibiting his hostility to the Jews (24). The climax came when Herod Agrippa, recently appointed by Gaius to the kingship of his uncle Philip’s tetrarchy, visited Alexandria on his way to his kingdom, and the Alexandrians deeply resenting this exaltation of a Jew and (though Philo does not tell us this) further exasperated by the enthusiasm with which the Jews welcomed their compatriot, staged an insulting mockery by bringing the lunatic Carabas into the Gymnasium and greeting him with royal honours. Philo does not accuse Flaccus of taking an active part in this, and, indeed, admits that in public he behaved to Agrippa with courtesy and friendliness, but charges him with abetting it in as much as he took no steps to suppress the demonstration or punish the offenders (25–40).
Introduction.5
The Alexandrians, presumably aware that they might compromise themselves by insulting Gaius’s favourite, then proceeded to a step which would naturally be gratifying to the Emperor. They desecrated the synagogues by setting up images of Gaius in them. We are told very little about this in this treatise. Philo enlarges upon the consequences it entailed, on the danger of such a movement extending beyond Alexandria, and on its futility because the desecrated synagogues would cease to exist as synagogues and the Jews would be unable to pay the homage which they were accustomed to pay by dedicating them in honour of the Emperor or installing such emblems as had been lawfully installed in them in the past (41–52). He passes on to a second wrong, a certain proclamation issued by Flaccus. This which is vaguely described as denouncing the Jews as foreigners and aliens may be fairly connected with the eviction from four of the five “letters” or quarters of the city which is mentioned in the same section (53–54). Then comes a third wrong. He permitted the mob not merely to evict the householders but to plunder their houses, and one consequence of the evictions was that the Jews were unable to carry on their businesses. In fact, a regular pogrom ensued and its brutalities are described in lurid terms. The items selected are somewhat different from those of the Legatio but the story is substantially the same (54–72). One point on which Philo dwells with considerable length is the treatment of the Jewish senators. Apparently these as a body were accused of some offences and, though only about half of the members were arrested, they were cruelly flogged. In particular some of them had lost all their property in the sack, and though Flaccus had already been informed of this they were scourged none the less (73–77). A further indignity was the instruments used. Alexandrian citizens were scourged with blades, and hitherto Alexandrian Jews had had the same privilege, but on this occasion there were substituted the scourges used on the Egyptians (78–80). Further, apparently all this took place on or about the Emperor’s birthday, which was usually considered an occasion for mercy, but on this occasion brutal treatment of Jews was actually made part of the birthday celebrations (81–85).
Introduction.6
The next outrage seems far less serious. The Jews or some of them were accused of having stocks of arms. Their houses were searched and according to Philo none were found, in marked contrast to the huge number taken when a similar investigation had been held of the Egyptians. His indignation seems overdone, and, indeed, the only specific complaint he makes is that the modesty of the women was offended by a military investigation of their intimate belongings, and in connexion with this he mentions other ill-treatment which the women had received in the pogrom (86–96).
Introduction.7
The last item in the list of Flaccus’s crimes is that he suppressed the resolution of congratulation which the Jewish senate had passed at Gaius’s accession and which he had promised to transmit to the Emperor. The Jews suspecting that he had not sent it on had consulted Agrippa when he visited Alexandria and received from him an undertaking which they believed that he had carried out (97–103).
Introduction.8
So much for Flaccus’s offences. We pass on to his punishment. The story of his arrest with a detailed account of the circumstances and of the exultation felt by the Jews, is related with all the vividness of which Philo is a master. We note that this occurred during the Feast of Tabernacles, not much more than a month after the birthday of the emperor and that his journey to Rome, during which he suffered from stormy weather, was at the beginning of winter (104–125). We do not know exactly what he was charged with, but are told that Isidorus and Lampo, who were mentioned earlier as leaders of the faction which urged him to secure his position by persecuting the Jews, now appeared as his accusers (126–127). And here Philo interrupts his narrative to tell us something about these two. His tirade against Lampo amounts to a charge that as secretary to the prefect acting as judge he persistently perverted justice, though we also incidentally learn that he had been for a time in serious trouble under Tiberius (128–134). As to Isidorus, we have a lengthy account of an incident belonging to the early days of Flaccus’s prefectship. Flaccus had originally shown him considerable favour. When he became less cordial Isidorus took umbrage and organized a gathering of his touts, who brought baseless slanders against Flaccus here represented as behaving with moderation and good sense. A meeting to which the respectable part of the people were summoned brought the whole city together full of indignation against the slanderers and sympathy with the governor. Isidorus was completely exposed and had to flee from the city (135–145). He must have reappeared and, surprising as it seems, must, if Philo’s account is true, have persuaded Flaccus that he was a friend on whose advice he could rely. What charges he and Lampo brought against Flaccus we are not told, but a trial was held in which Flaccus was condemned, his property confiscated and himself sentenced to deportation (146–150).
Introduction.9
From this point the story proceeds straightforwardly to the end. We are given an account of his journey to Andros and his miserable plight after his arrival, interspersed with speeches and soliloquies in which he laments his fall and acknowledges that his punishment is just. Whether this last represents his feeling may be doubted. We have not and probably Philo had not any means of judging. The end came when Gaius, who is said to have come to the conclusion that the life of the deported was too mild a punishment for him, determined to have him executed. The treatise closes with a description of the way in which this was carried out, followed by the assertion that the fate of Flaccus shows that God still watches over the Jews (151–191).
Introduction.10
The Flaccus has considerable literary merits. The narrative, particularly in the last forty sections, is exceedingly vivid. It is also, no doubt, historically valuable in so far as it gives a substantially true account of events of which we know very little from other sources. How far it is good history, in the sense of giving a reliable account of the motives and feelings of the actors in the story, I leave to those more competent than myself to assess. Also it is a powerful embodiment of that profound conviction that the nation is under the special Providence of God which has been the life and soul of Judaism throughout the centuries. This conviction naturally entails a belief that the enemies of Judaism are the enemies of God and their punishment a divine visitation. But this belief has its evil side, which seems to me to be very strongly exhibited in this treatise. In § 117 the Jews are represented as saying “We do not rejoice at the punishment of an enemy because we have been taught by the Holy Laws to have human sympathy.” This is easily said but not so easily done, and if Philo believed that he himself had learnt this lesson I think he deceived himself. He gloats over the misery of Flaccus in his fall, exile, and death, with a vindictiveness which I feel to be repulsive. While, as I have said in the preface, none of the treatises in this volume have any great value nor would probably have survived but for the high esteem given to his main work, this is the only one which those who admire the beauty and spirituality so often shown both in the Commentary and Exposition might well wish to have been left unwritten.
_.1.1
[1] The policy of attacking the Jews begun by Sejanus was taken over by Flaccus Avillius. He had not like his predecessor the power to ill-treat outright the whole nation, for he had less opportunities of doing so, but those whom he reached suffered the direst misery from the stabs which he dealt to them one and all. And, indeed, though his assault appeared to be only partial, by employing craft rather than power he brought them all wherever they were within the scope of his hostility. For persons naturally tyrannical who have not the addition of strength achieve their malignant designs through cunning.
_.1.2
[2] This Flaccus then, who had been given a place in the suite of Tiberius Caesar, was after the death of Iberus, who had been prefect of Egypt, made prefect of Alexandria and the country round it. He was a man who at first gave to all appearance a multitude of proofs of high excellence. He was sagacious and assiduous, quick to think out and execute his plans, very ready at speaking, and at understanding what was left unspoken better even than what was said.
_.1.3
[3] So in quite a short time he became thoroughly familiar with Egyptian affairs, intricate and diversified as they are and hardly grasped even by those who have made a business of studying them from their earliest years. His crowd of secretaries were a superfluity, since nothing small or great was beyond the reach of his experience, so that he not only surpassed them but thanks to his mastery of detail became the teacher instead of the pupil of his erstwhile instructors.
_.1.4
[4] And all matters connected with accountancy and administration of the revenue he managed successfully. These indeed, great and vital though they were, did not supply proof that he possessed the soul of a leader of men, but in a more open way he displayed qualities which revealed a more brilliant and kingly nature. Thus he bore himself with dignity, for outward pomp is very useful to a ruler. He judged important cases with the help of those in authority, humbled the arrogant and prevented any motley promiscuous horde of people from combining in opposition. The sodalities and clubs, which were constantly holding feasts under pretext of sacrifice in which drunkenness vented itself in political intrigue, he dissolved and dealt sternly and vigorously with the refractory.
_.1.5
[5] Then when he had fully established good order throughout the city and the country he began to turn his attention to supporting the armed forces. He set them in array, drilled, exercised them, cavalry, infantry and light-armed alike, training the officers not to withhold the pay of their men and so incite them to pillage and rapine, and also each single soldier not to interfere in things outside his military duties but remember that he had been appointed also to maintain the peace.
_.2.1
[6] Possibly someone may say “My dear sir, after deciding to accuse a man you have stated no charge but come out with a long string of praises. Are you out of your senses and gone quite mad?” No, my friend, I have not gone mad and I am not a silly person who cannot see what the sequence of an argument demands.
_.2.2
[7] I praise Flaccus not because I thought it right to laud an enemy but to show his villainy in a clearer light. For to one who sins through ignorance of a better course pardon may be given, but a wrongdoer who has knowledge has no defence but stands already convicted at the bar of his conscience.
_.3.1
[8] Flaccus held his prefectship for six years and for the first five of these while Tiberius Caesar was alive maintained peace and held command with such activity and vigour that he excelled all his predecessors.
_.3.2
[9] But in the last year when Tiberius was dead and Gaius had been appointed Emperor he began to let everything slip from his hands. This may have been due to his profound grief at the death of Tiberius. For how greatly he mourned the loss of one whom he looked on as his closest friend was shown by his constant depression and the stream of tears which poured ceaselessly from him as from a fountain. Or it may have been the ill-will he bore to his successor, since he had been a devoted partisan of the actual rather than the adopted children. Or again as he had been one of those who had attacked Gaius’s mother when she lay under the charges for which she was put to death, his fear of being held guilty on this count caused him to neglect his duties.
_.3.3
[10] And for a time he held out and did not entirely lose his grasp of affairs, but when he heard that the grandson of Tiberius, who shared the sovereignty, had been killed by Gaius’s orders, this misfortune was so terrible a blow that he threw himself down and lay speechless, and for a considerable time before this his thinking powers had become feeble and paralysed.
_.3.4
[11] For while the youth lived, his hopes of preserving his own safety were still alight, but with his death it seemed that his personal hopes had died also, even though some little waft of possible assistance still reached him in his friendship with Macro, who originally was all-powerful with Gaius, said to have contributed more than anyone to his gaining the principate and still more to his preservation.
_.3.5
[12] For Tiberius had been often minded to get Gaius out of the way as a person ill-disposed and devoid of natural gifts for rulership, and also because he was concerned for his grandson, who he feared might at his death be got rid of as an encumbrance. But Macro often tried to eliminate his suspicions and would praise Gaius as straight-forward and free from vice and liberal and particularly devoted to his cousin, so much so that he would willingly relinquish the principate to his sole charge, or, at any rate, the premier place.
_.3.6
[13] Deceived by these representations Tiberius unwittingly left behind him an implacable enemy to himself, his grandson, his family, Macro the intercessor and all mankind.
_.3.7
[14] For when Macro saw him straying from the regular way and letting his impulses range unbridled anywhither and in any way he would admonish and exhort him, thinking that he was the same Gaius who while Tiberius still lived was reasonable and docile. But, alas, poor wretch, for his excessive goodwill he paid the extreme penalty, being slain with his whole house, wife and children as a burden, a superfluity and a nuisance.
_.3.8
[15] For whenever Gaius caught sight of him at a distance he would talk in this strain to his companions, “Let us not smile, let us look downcast, for here comes the monitor, the stickler for straight speaking, who has begun to take charge as tutor of a grown man and an emperor, at this very time which has dismissed and set aside those who tutored him from his earliest years.”
_.4.1
[16] So when Flaccus learnt that Macro too had been put to death he completely lost any hope that he still had and could no longer keep any grip of affairs, so utterly enfeebled was he and incapable of solid judgement.
_.4.2
[17] And when the ruler despairs of keeping control the subjects necessarily at once become restive, particularly those who are naturally excited by quite small and ordinary occurrences. Among such the Egyptian nation holds the first place, accustomed as it is to blow up the tiniest spark into grave seditions.
_.4.3
[18] Flaccus, thus left without help or resources, was much agitated and at the same time as his reasoning powers deteriorated made changes in all his recent policy, beginning with his treatment of his closest companions. For he suspected and repelled those who were well disposed and particularly friendly to him, while he allied himself to those who from the first had been his avowed enemies and took them for his counsellors in every matter. But their rancour was still there.
_.4.4
[19] The apparent reconciliation was a counterfeit, existing only in words. In real fact they cherished an implacable vindictiveness and acting as in a theatre the part of genuine friends they carried him off into complete captivity. The ruler became the subject, the subjects leaders, who put forward very pernicious proposals and straightway set on them the seal of reality.
_.4.5
[20] They proceeded to confirm all their plans, and took Flaccus like a masked dummy on the stage with the title of government inscribed upon him merely for show, to be an instrument in the hands of a popularity-hunting Dionysius, a paper-poring Lampo, an Isidorus, faction leader, busy intriguer, mischief contriver and a name which has gained special currency—state embroiler.
_.4.6
[21] All these combining concerted a plot of the most damaging kind against the Jews and coming to Flaccus privately said,
_.4.7
[22] “Lost are your prospects from the boy Tiberius Nero, lost too the hope that you had next to him in your comrade Macro, and your expectations from the Emperor are anything but favourable. We must find you a really powerful intercessor to propitiate Gaius.
_.4.8
[23] Such an intercessor is the city of the Alexandrians which has been honoured from the first by all the Augustan house and especially by our present master; and intercede it will if it receives from you some boon, and you can give it no greater benefaction than by surrendering and sacrificing the Jews.”
_.4.9
[24] Though on hearing these words it was his duty to repulse and frown upon the speakers as sedition-makers and enemies of the commonwealth he subscribed to their suggestions. At first he showed his hostile intentions in a somewhat less obvious way by refusing to give a fair and impartial hearing to the parties in disputes and leaning to one side only, while in all other matters he gave them no right of free speech, but whenever any Jew approached he turned away, while to all others he made himself easily accessible. But later he also showed his ill-will openly.
_.5.1
[25] The infatuation due to instruction from others rather than to his own nature, which thus was shown in his conduct, was further strengthened by the following incident. Gaius Caesar gave to Agrippa, the grandson of King Herod, the kingship over that third part of his grandfather’s territory, the revenues of which were taken by Philip the tetrarch, Agrippa’s paternal uncle.
_.5.2
[26] When he was about to set out thither Gaius advised him not to undertake the voyage from Brundisium to Syria which was long and wearisome but wait for the etesian winds and take the short route through Alexandria. He told him that thence there were swift-sailing merchant vessels and highly skilled pilots who manage them as a charioteer manages race-horses and provide a straightforward passage along the direct route. Agrippa did as he was told, partly out of deference to his lord and master, and also because the course he enjoined seemed to be advisable.
_.5.3
[27] He went down to Dicaearchia, and seeing there some ships of Alexandria lying at anchor and ready to sail he embarked with his retinue, and after a good voyage came to land a few days later without being expected or his purposes detected. He had ordered the pilots when they sighted Pharos in the late afternoon to furl the sails and lie outside round about it and not far off until the evening had well set in, and then by night to put in at the harbour, so that he might disembark when everyone had settled down to sleep and reach the house of his host without anyone seeing him.
_.5.4
[28] His reason for making his visit in such an unassuming way was that he wished if possible to slip out of the city quietly and unobserved by the whole population. For he had not come to see Alexandria as he had stayed there before on his voyage to Rome to join Tiberius, and he only wanted to get a short route for his journey home.
_.5.5
[29] But jealousy is part of the Egyptian nature, and the citizens were bursting with envy and considered that any good luck to others was misfortune to themselves, and in their ancient, and we might say innate hostility to the Jews, they resented a Jew having been made a king just as much as if each of them had thereby been deprived of an ancestral throne.
_.5.6
[30] And the unhappy Flaccus was again stirred up by his companions with incitements and appeals calculated to make him as envious as themselves. “His stay here,” they said, “is your deposition. The dignity of the honour and prestige which invest him surpasses yours; he is attracting all men to him by the sight of his bodyguard of spearmen, decked in armour overlaid with gold and silver.
_.5.7
[31] Was it right for him to come to another ruler’s domain when a fair wind could have carried him safely by sea to his own? For if Gaius gave him permission or rather put compulsion on him to do so, he ought to have earnestly entreated to be excused from coming here, so that the governor of the country would not be thrown into the background and lose prestige.”
_.5.8
[32] Such words made his temper rise still more, and while in public he played the part of friend and comrade to Agrippa through fear of him who had sent him there, in private he vented his jealousy and gave full utterance to his hatred by insulting him indirectly since he had not the courage to do so outright.
_.5.9
[33] For the lazy and unoccupied mob in the city, a multitude well practised in idle talk, who devote their leisure to slandering and evil speaking, was permitted by him to vilify the king, whether the abuse was actually begun by himself or caused by his incitement and provocation addressed to those who were his regular ministers in such matters.
_.5.10
[34] Thus started on their course they spent their days in the gymnasium jeering at the king and bringing out a succession of gibes against him. In fact they took the authors of farces and jests for their instructors and thereby showed their natural ability in things of shame, slow to be schooled in anything good but exceedingly quick and ready in learning the opposite.
_.5.11
[35] Why did Flaccus show no indignation? Why did he not arrest them? Why did he not chastise them for their presumptuous evil-speaking? Even if Agrippa had not been a king, yet as a member of Caesar’s household, did he not deserve to have some precedence and marks of honour? No, these are clear proofs that Flaccus was a party to the defamation. For it is evident that if he who could have chastised or at the very least stopped them did nothing to prevent them from acting in this way they did it with the full permission and consent of him himself. And if the undisciplined mob get a starting point for their misconduct in any direction, they do not halt there but pass on from one thing to another, always engaging in some fresh form of violence.
_.6.1
[36] There was a certain lunatic named Carabas, whose madness was not of the fierce and savage kind, which is dangerous both to the madmen themselves and those who approach them, but of the easy-going, gentler style. He spent day and night in the streets naked, shunning neither heat nor cold, made game of by the children and the lads who were idling about.
_.6.2
[37] The rioters drove the poor fellow into the gymnasium and set him up on high to be seen of all and put on his head a sheet of byblus spread out wide for a diadem, clothed the rest of his body with a rug for a royal robe, while someone who had noticed a piece of the native papyrus thrown away in the road gave it to him for his sceptre.
_.6.3
[38] And when as in some theatrical farce he had received the insignia of kingship and had been tricked out as a king, young men carrying rods on their shoulders as spearmen stood on either side of him in imitation of a bodyguard. Then others approached him, some pretending to salute him, others to sue for justice, others to consult him on state affairs.
_.6.4
[39] Then from the multitudes standing round him there rang out a tremendous shout hailing him as Marin, which is said to be the name for “lord” in Syria. For they knew that Agrippa was both a Syrian by birth and had a great piece of Syria over which he was king.
_.6.5
[40] When Flaccus heard, or rather saw all this, it was his duty to take and keep the madman in charge, to prevent him from providing an occasion to the railers for insulting their betters and then to punish those who had arrayed him thus, because they had dared both in word and deed both openly and indirectly to insult a king, a friend of Caesar’s, a person who had received Praetorian honours from the Roman Senate. Instead of this not merely did he refrain from chastising them but even shrank from restraining them, thereby giving immunity and free-play to those who displayed evil intentions and hostile feeling by pretending not to see what he saw nor hear what he heard.
_.6.6
[41] When the crowd perceived this, not the peaceful, public-spirited crowd, but the crowd which regularly fills everything with confusion and turmoil, which by its love of meddling, its eager pursuit of the worthless life, its habitual laziness and idling, is a thing that means mischief, they streamed into the theatre at early dawn, and having Flaccus purchased by the miserable price which he crazy for fame and ever-ready to be sold took to the destruction not only of himself but of the public safety, called out with one accord for installing images in the meeting-houses.
_.6.7
[42] What they proposed was a breach of the law entirely novel and unprecedented and knowing this, quick-witted as they are for villainy, they cunningly glozed it by using the name of Caesar as a screen, that name with which no guilty action can lawfully be associated.
_.6.8
[43] What then did the governor of the country do? He knew that both Alexandria and the whole of Egypt had two kinds of inhabitants, us and them, and that there were no less than a million Jews resident in Alexandria and the country from the slope into Libya to the boundaries of Ethiopia; also that this was an attack against them all, and that ancestral customs cannot be disturbed without harm, yet he disregarded all these facts and permitted the installation of the images though there were a host of considerations all tending to caution which he might have set before them either as orders from a ruler or advice from a friend.
_.7.1
[44] But since he worked hand in hand with them in all their misdeeds he did not scruple to use his superior power to fan the flames of sedition perpetually by still more novel additions of evil, and as far as lay in his power filled, one may also say, the whole habitable world with racial conflict.
_.7.2
[45] For it was perfectly clear that the rumour of the overthrowing of the synagogues beginning at Alexandria would spread at once to the nomes of Egypt and speed from Egypt to the East and the nations of the East and from the Hypotaenia and Marea, which are the outskirts of Libya, to the West and the nations of the West. For so populous are the Jews that no one country can hold them,
_.7.3
[46] and therefore they settle in very many of the most prosperous countries in Europe and Asia both in the islands and on the mainland, and while they hold the Holy City where stands the sacred Temple of the most high God to be their mother city, yet those which are theirs by inheritance from their fathers, grandfathers, and ancestors even farther back, are in each case accounted by them to be their fatherland in which they were born and reared, while to some of them they have come at the time of their foundation as immigrants to the satisfaction of the founders.
_.7.4
[47] And it was to be feared that people everywhere might take their cue from Alexandria, and outrage their Jewish fellow-citizens by rioting against their synagogues and ancestral customs.
_.7.5
[48] Now the Jews though naturally well-disposed for peace could not be expected to remain quiet whatever happened, not only because with all men the determination to fight for their institutions outweighs even the danger to life, but also because they are the only people under the sun who by losing their meeting-houses were losing also what they would have valued as worth dying many thousand deaths, namely, their means of showing reverence to their benefactors, since they no longer had the sacred buildings where they could set forth their thankfulness. And they might have said to their enemies
_.7.6
[49] “You have failed to see that you are not adding to but taking from the honour given to our masters, and you do not understand that everywhere in the habitable world the religious veneration of the Jews for the Augustan house has its basis as all may see in the meeting-houses, and if we have these destroyed no place, no method is left to us for paying this homage.
_.7.7
[50] If we neglect to pay it when our institutions permit we should deserve the utmost penalty for not tendering our requital with all due fullness. But if we fall short because it is forbidden by our own laws, which Augustus also was well pleased to confirm, I do not see what offence, either small or great, can be laid to our charge. The only thing for which we might be blamed would be that we transgressed, though involuntarily, by not defending ourselves against the defections from our customs, which even if originally due to others often ultimately affect those who are responsible for them.”
_.7.8
[51] It was by saying what he should leave unsaid and leaving unsaid what he should say that Flaccus treated us in this iniquitous way. But what were the motives of those whose favour he was seeking? Was it that they really wished to honour the Emperor! Was there then any lack of temples in the city, so many parts of which are consecrated and give all that is needed for the installation of anything they wished?
_.7.9
[52] No, what we have described is an act of aggression by bitterly hostile and crafty plotters in which the authors of the outrages would not appear to be acting unjustly and the sufferers could not oppose them with safety. For surely, my good sirs, there is no honour given by overthrowing the laws, disturbing ancestral customs, outraging fellow-citizens and teaching the inhabitants of other cities to disregard the claims of fellow feeling.
_.8.1
[53] When then his attack against our laws by seizing the meeting-houses without even leaving them their name appeared to be successful, he proceeded to another scheme, namely, the destruction of our citizenship, so that when our ancestral customs and our participation in political rights, the sole mooring on which our life was secured, had been cut away, we might undergo the worst misfortunes with no cable to cling to for safety.
_.8.2
[54] For a few days afterwards he issued a proclamation in which he denounced us as foreigners and aliens and gave us no right of pleading our case but condemned us unjudged. What stronger profession of tyranny could we have than this? He became everything himself, accuser, enemy, witness, judge and the agent of punishment, and then to the two first wrongs he added a third by permitting those who wished to pillage the Jews as at the sacking of a city.
_.8.3
[55] Having secured this immunity what did they do? The city has five quarters named after the first letters of the alphabet, two of these are called Jewish because most of the Jews inhabit them, though in the rest also there are not a few Jews scattered about. So then what did they do? From the four letters they ejected the Jews and drove them to herd in a very small part of one.
_.8.4
[56] The Jews were so numerous that they poured out over beaches, dunghills and tombs, robbed of all their belongings. Their enemies overran the houses now left empty and turned to pillaging them, distributing the contents like spoil of war, and as no one prevented them they broke open the workshops of the Jews which had been closed as a sign of mourning for Drusilla, carried out all the articles they found, which were very numerous, and bore them through the middle of the market-place, dealing with other people’s property as freely as if it was their own.
_.8.5
[57] A still more grievous evil than the pillaging was the unemployment produced. The tradespeople had lost their stocks, and no one, husbandman, shipman, merchant, artisan, was allowed to practise his usual business. Thus poverty was established in two ways: first, the pillaging, by which in the course of a single day they had become penniless, completely stripped of what they had, and secondly, their inability to make a living from their regular employments.
_.9.1
[58] Unbearable though these things were, yet compared with subsequent actions they were tolerable. Poverty, indeed, is grievous, particularly when it is effected by enemies, but it is less grievous than bodily injuries if suffered through wanton violence, even the slightest.
_.9.2
[59] But so excessive were the sufferings of our people that anyone who spoke of them as undergoing wanton violence or outrage would be using words not properly applicable and would I think be at a loss for adequate terms to express the magnitude of cruelty so unprecedented that the actions of conquerors in war, who are also naturally merciless to the conquered, would seem kindness itself in comparison.
_.9.3
[60] Those conquerors do seize property and take numerous captives but they have run the risk of losing their own if they were defeated. And indeed, multitudes of the prisoners of war, whose ransoms are provided by their kinsfolk and friends, are released by their captors, not perhaps because they have weakened towards mercy, but because they cannot resist their desire for money, though of that one might say, “to the benefited the method of their rescuing is a matter of indifference.”
_.9.4
[61] Observe, too, that enemies fallen in war are allowed burial. The mild and humane give it at their own expense and those who extend their hostility even to the dead restore the bodies under a truce, that they may not lack the final boon which the established rites supply.
_.9.5
[62] This is what enemies do in war. Let us see what was done in peace by our friends of yesterday. After the pillaging and eviction and violent expulsion from most parts of the city the Jews were like beleaguered men with their enemies all round them. They were pressed by want and dire lack of necessities; they saw their infant children and women perishing before their eyes through a famine artificially created,
_.9.6
[63] since elsewhere all else was teeming with plenty and abundance, the fields richly flooded by the overflow of the river and the wheat-bearing parts of the lowlands producing through their fertility the harvest of grain in unstinted profusion.
_.9.7
[64] Unable any longer to endure their privation, some of them contrary to their former habits went to the houses of their kinsmen and friends to ask for the mere necessities as a charity, while those whose high-born spirit led them to avoid the beggar’s lot as fitter for slaves than for the free went forth into the market solely to buy sustenance for their families and themselves.
_.9.8
[65] Poor wretches, they were at once seized by those who wielded the weapon of mob rule, treacherously stabbed, dragged through the whole city, and trampled on, and thus completely made away with till not a part of them was left which could receive the burial which is the right of all.
_.9.9
[66] Multitudes of others also were laid low and destroyed with manifold forms of maltreatment, put in practice to serve their bitter cruelty by those whom savagery had maddened and transformed into the nature of wild beasts; for any Jews who showed themselves anywhere, they stoned or knocked about with clubs, aiming their blows at first against the less vital parts for fear that a speedier death might give a speedier release from the consciousness of their anguish.
_.9.10
[67] Some, made rampant by the immunity and licence which accompanied these sufferings, discarded the weapons of slower action and took the most effective of all, fire and steel, and slew many with the sword, while not a few they destroyed with fire.
_.9.11
[68] Indeed, whole families, husbands with their wives, infant children with their parents, were burnt in the heart of the city by these supremely ruthless men who showed no pity for old age nor youth, nor the innocent years of childhood. And when they lacked wood for fire they would collect brushwood and dispatch them with smoke rather than fire, thus contriving a more pitiable and lingering death for the miserable victims whose bodies lay promiscuously half-burnt, a painful and most heart-rending spectacle.
_.9.12
[69] And if the persons enlisted to get brushwood were too slow, they would burn the owners with their own furniture taken out of the spoil. Costly articles, indeed, they appropriated but anything that was not very useful they put on the fire to serve instead of ordinary wood.
_.9.13
[70] Many also while still alive they drew with one of the feet tied at the ankle and meanwhile leapt upon them and pounded them to pieces.
_.9.14
[71] And when by the cruel death thus devised, their life ended, the rage of their enemies did not end, but continued all the same. They inflicted worse outrages on the bodies, dragging them through almost every lane of the city until the corpses, their skin, flesh and muscles shattered by the unevenness and roughness of the ground, and all the parts which united to make the organism dissevered and dispersed in different directions, were wasted to nothing.
_.9.15
[72] While those who did these things like actors in a farce assumed the part of the sufferers, the friends and kinsmen of the true sufferers, simply because they grieved over the misfortunes of their relations, were arrested, scourged, tortured and after all these outrages, which were all their bodies could make room for, the final punishment kept in reserve was the cross.
_.10.1
[73] Having broken into everything like a burglar and left no side of Jewish life untouched by a hostility carried to the highest pitch, Flaccus devised another monstrous and unparalleled line of attack worthy of this perpetrator of enormities and inventor of novel iniquities.
_.10.2
[74] Our Senate had been appointed to take charge of Jewish affairs by our saviour and benefactor Augustus, after the death of the ethnarch, orders to that effect having been given to Magius Maximus when he was about to take office for the second time as Governor of Alexandria and the country. Of this Senate the members who were found in their houses, thirty-eight in number, were arrested by Flaccus, who having ordered them to be straightway put in bonds marshalled a fine procession through the middle of the market of these elderly men trussed and pinioned, some with thongs and others with iron chains, and then taken into the theatre, a spectacle most pitiable and incongruous with the occasion.
_.10.3
[75] Then as they stood with their enemies seated in front to signalize their disgrace he ordered them all to be stripped and lacerated with scourges which are commonly used for the degradation of the vilest malefactors, so that in consequence of the flogging some had to be carried out on stretchers and died at once, while others lay sick for a long time despairing of recovery.
_.10.4
[76] The great lengths of malevolence to which the plan was carried have been fully proved in other ways, but all the same they will be shown still more clearly by the following statement. Three members of the Senate, Euodus, Trypho and Andro, had become penniless, having been robbed in a single inroad of all that they had in their houses; and that they had been so treated was known to Flaccus, who had been so informed when on an earlier occasion he sent for our magistrates, ostensibly to reconcile them with the rest of the city.
_.10.5
[77] Nevertheless, though he knew quite well that they had been deprived of their property, he beat them before the eyes of their despoilers. Thus, while they suffered a twofold misfortune, poverty and the outrage to their persons, the others had a twofold pleasure, enjoying the possession of the wealth which was not their own and sating themselves with gloating on the dishonour of those from whom that wealth was taken.
_.10.6
[78] One point in the deeds committed at this time I mention only with hesitation, lest by being considered an insignificant matter it may detract from the magnitude of these horrors. Yet even if it is a small thing it is an evidence of no small malignancy. There are differences between the scourges used in the city, and these differences are regulated by the social standing of the persons to be beaten. The Egyptians actually are scourged with a different kind of lash and by a different set of people, the Alexandrians with a flat blade, and the persons who wield them also are Alexandrians.
_.10.7
[79] This custom was also observed in the case of our people by the predecessors of Flaccus and by Flaccus himself in his first years of office. For it is surely possible when inflicting degradation on others to find some little thing to sustain their dignity, or when wantonly maltreating them, to find some accompaniment to counteract the wantonness, if one allows the nature of the case to be determined on its own merits and does not import some personal feeling of malice which removes and dislodges all ingredients of the milder type.
_.10.8
[80] Surely then it was the height of harshness that when commoners among the Alexandrian Jews, if they appeared to have done things worthy of stripes, were beaten with whips more suggestive of freemen and citizens, the magistrates, the Senate, whose very name implies age and honour, in this respect fared worse than their inferiors and were treated like Egyptians of the meanest rank and guilty of the greatest iniquities.
_.10.9
[81] I leave out of account the point that if they had committed a host of crimes he ought to have postponed the punishments in respect for the season, for rulers who conduct their government as they should and do not pretend to honour but do really honour their benefactors make a practice of not punishing any condemned person until these notable celebrations in honour of the birthdays of the illustrious Augustan house are over.
_.10.10
[82] Instead he made them an occasion for illegality and for punishing those who had done no wrong, whom he could have punished at a later time if he wished. But he hurried and pressed on the matter to conciliate the mob, who were opposed to the Jews, thinking that this would help to bring them to make his policy their own.
_.10.11
[83] I have known cases when on the eve of a holiday of this kind, people who have been crucified have been taken down and their bodies delivered to their kinsfolk, because it was thought well to give them burial and allow them the ordinary rites. For it was meet that the dead also should have the advantage of some kind treatment upon the birthday of an emperor and also that the sanctity of the festival should be maintained.
_.10.12
[84] But Flaccus gave no orders to take down those who had died on the cross. Instead he ordered the crucifixion of the living, to whom the season offered a short-lived though not permanent reprieve in order to postpone the punishment though not to remit it altogether. And he did this after maltreating them with the lash in the middle of the theatre and torturing them with fire and the sword.
_.10.13
[85] The show had been arranged in parts. The first spectacle lasting from dawn till the third or fourth hour consisted of Jews being scourged, hung up, bound to the wheel, brutally mauled and haled for their death march through the middle of the orchestra. After this splendid exhibition came dancers and mimes and flute players and all the other amusements of theatrical competitions.
_.11.1
[86] But why dwell on these things, for he had a second plan of spoliation hatching. He desired to use the large body of soldiers serving under him as a weapon against us, and to do this he invented a strange calumny to the effect that the Jews had stocks of every kind of arms in their houses. Accordingly having sent for a centurion named Castus, whom he especially trusted, he bade him take the most intrepid soldiers in the company under him and without loss of time and without giving notice enter and search the houses of the Jews to see whether they had any arms stored there.
_.11.2
[87] Castus hurried off to do what he was told. The Jews as they knew nothing of the scheme at first stood dumbfoundered in consternation, while their women and children clung to them bathed in tears in the fear of being taken into captivity. For they lived in expectation of this which was the one thing left to complete the spoliation.
_.11.3
[88] When they heard one of the searching party say “Where do you stock your arms?” they revived somewhat and laid open everything, even the contents of the recesses.
_.11.4
[89] In one way they felt pleased, in another deeply pained. They were pleased that the refutation of the calumny would be self-evident but indignant first that such grave slanders, fabricated against them by their enemies, were so readily believed, secondly that their women kept in seclusion, never even approaching the outer doors, and their maidens confined to the inner chambers, who for modesty’s sake avoided the sight of men, even of their closest relations, were displayed to eyes, not merely unfamiliar, but terrorizing through the fear of military violence.
_.11.5
[90] And after this careful investigation, what an enormous amount of defensive weapons was discovered, the helmets, breastplates, shields, daggers, pikes, outfits of armour, piles of which were produced, and on another side, the missile kind, javelins, slings, bows and arrows! Why! absolutely nothing, not even the knives which suffice the cooks for their daily use.

Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, 1941. Via Sefaria (sefaria.org), Sefaria-Export. Version source: https://www.nli.org.il/en/books/NNL_ALEPH001216057/NLI Licence: Public Domain. Source.