Against Flaccus

Sefaria · Second Temple > Philo · 216 sections

_.11.6
[91] This last in itself showed clearly the simplicity of the life led by people who discarded the expensive habits and luxury which naturally breed that satiety, whose child is the wanton insolence which is the source of all evils.
_.11.7
[92] And yet not long before, when the Egyptians in the country districts had their weapons collected by one Bassus, on whom Flaccus had laid this task, there was a great array of ships to be seen which had sailed to the bank and moored in the harbours of the river brimful of all manner of weapons, also a great number of beasts of burden with spears tied in bundles hung on each side to balance equally. Also there was a procession of waggons sent from the camp, nearly all full of outfits of armour, moving regularly one after the other so as to form a single ordered line, all visible at once, and the space between the harbours and the armoury in the palace where the arms had to be deposited was, taken altogether, about ten stades long.
_.11.8
[93] Those who procured these equipments might well have had their houses searched, for they had often revolted and were suspected of favouring sedition. Indeed, the authorities ought to have copied the sacred contests by instituting new triennial celebrations for the collection of arms, so that the Egyptians would not have time to provide them or at least only a few instead of this great quantity, as they had no opportunity for replacing them.
_.11.9
[94] But why should we have been subject to anything of the kind? When were we suspected of revolting? When were we not thought to be peacefully inclined to all? Were not our ways of living which we follow day by day blameless and conducive to good order and stability in the State? Indeed, if the Jews did have arms in their possession, they had been dispossessed from over four hundred houses from which they were driven to wander by those who seized their property. Why then did not their despoilers have their property searched, since they would have, if not arms of their own, at any rate those which they had seized?
_.11.10
[95] But the whole proceeding was as I have said a malicious plot, due to the ruthlessness of Flaccus and the turbulent outbreaks, the effect of which was felt by women also. For they were seized like captives not only in the market-place but also in the middle of the theatre and taken on to the stage on no matter what calumnious charge, meanwhile being subjected to outrage of an intolerable and most barbarous kind.
_.11.11
[96] Then, if they were recognized to be of another race, since many were arrested as Jewesses without any careful investigation of the truth, they were released. But if they were found to be of our nation then these onlookers at a show turned into despotic tyrants and gave orders to fetch swine’s flesh and give it to the women. Then all the women who in fear of punishment tasted the meat were dismissed and did not have to bear any further dire maltreatment. But the more resolute were delivered to the tormentors to suffer desperate ill-usage, which is the clearest proof of their entire innocence of wrongdoing.
_.12.1
[97] To all these we have to add that Flaccus had before this been seeking to utilize the emperor to supplement his own efforts to injure us and laid his plans accordingly. We had decreed and ratified with our actions all the tributes to Gaius which were possible and were allowed by the laws and had submitted the decree to Flaccus, begging him since he would not have granted our request for an embassy to provide himself for its transmission.
_.12.2
[98] He read it and nodded his head several times in assent at each point, smiled gently, and looked pleased or pretended to be pleased, and said “I commend you all for your piety, and I will send it as you ask or will fulfil the duties of an envoy myself that Gaius may learn your gratitude.
_.12.3
[99] I will also testify myself from my own knowledge to your abundantly orderly and loyal behaviour without adding anything else, for the truth in itself is all-sufficient praise.”
_.12.4
[100] When we heard these promises we rejoiced and were thankful, feeling in our hopefulness as though Gaius had already read the decree. The hope was reasonable, since any communication sent by a viceroy with urgency secures a prompt decision by the head.
_.12.5
[101] But Flaccus, dismissing all consideration for our intentions and his own words and agreements, detained the decree in his own possession so that it might be supposed that we alone among men who dwell under the sun were hostile. Do not these actions show long unsleeping vigilance and careful preparation of the insidious attack against us and that it was not improvised in a fit of insanity, in an ill-timed outburst due to some perversion of the reason?
_.12.6
[102] But God, it is clear, who takes care for human affairs, rejected his flattering words so elegantly framed to cajole and the treacherous counsels against us debated in his lawless mind and in His compassion before long provided us with grounds for thinking that our hopes would not be disappointed.
_.12.7
[103] For when King Agrippa visited Alexandria and we told him of Flaccus’s malignant action, he rectified the matter, promised us that he would have the decree transmitted and took it and as we understand sent it, apologizing also for the delay and stating that we had not been slow to learn the duty of piety to the house of our benefactors; on the contrary we had been eager to show it from the first but had been deprived of the chance of proving it in good time by the spite of the Governor.
_.12.8
[104] At this point justice, the champion and defender of the wronged, the avenger of unholy men and deeds, began to enter the lists against him. For in the first place he was subjected to an unprecedented indignity and disaster such as had not befallen any of the viceroys in the past since the Augustan House assumed the sovereignty of land and sea.
_.12.9
[105] Some, indeed, of those who held governorships in the time of Tiberius and his father Caesar, had perverted their office of guardian and protector into domination and tyranny and had spread hopeless misery through their territories with their venality, robbery, unjust sentences, expulsion and banishment of quite innocent people, and execution of magnates without trial. But these people on their return to Rome, after the termination of their time of office, had been required by the emperor to render an account and submit to scrutiny of their doings, particularly when the aggrieved cities sent ambassadors.
_.12.10
[106] For on these occasions the emperors showed themselves impartial judges; they listened equally to both the accuser and the defender, making it a rule to condemn no one offhand without a trial, and awarded what they thought to be just, influenced neither by hostility nor favour but by what actually was the truth.
_.12.11
[107] Flaccus, on the other hand, not after his time of office, but in advance of the regular date, was encountered by justice, who hates evil and was indignant at the boundless excesses of his unjust and lawless actions.
_.13.1
[108] The manner of his arrest was as follows. He supposed that Gaius had been by now propitiated as to the matters on which he was under suspicion, partly through his written dispatches, which overflowed with flattery, partly through the obsequiousness of his public harangues, in which he span together fawning words and long screeds of insincere encomium, partly again by the high esteem in which he was held by the chief part of the city.
_.13.2
[109] But he little knew that he was deceiving himself, for the hopes of the wicked are without foundation. Their prognostications are favourable but their experiences fraught with evil omens are what they deserve. A centurion named Bassus was sent from Italy by Gaius’s appointment with the company of soldiers which he commanded.
_.13.3
[110] Having embarked on one of the swiftest sailing ships he arrived in a few days at the harbours of Alexandria, off the island of Pharos, in the late afternoon and bade the pilot wait at sea outside till sunset, his scheme being to avoid observation, so that Flaccus might not get knowledge of it beforehand and by planning some act of violence, make his mission unsuccessful.
_.13.4
[111] When it was evening the ship was brought to land and Bassus disembarking with his men went forward without recognizing or being recognized by anyone. And finding on the way a soldier belonging to the quaternions acting as sentries, he ordered him to show him the house of the military commander. For he wished to communicate his secret instructions to him so that if a strong force was required he might have someone to support him in the contest.
_.13.5
[112] And learning that the commander as well as Flaccus was feasting with someone, he hurried with unabated speed to the house of the giver of the feast, by name Stephanio, one of the freedmen of Tiberius Caesar. It was in his house that the two were being entertained, and Bassus keeping in the background a little way off sent on one of his men to reconnoitre attired as an attendant, hoping by this artifice to maintain secrecy. The soldier made his way into the dining-hall in the guise of a servant of one or other of the visitors and having taken a careful look all round returned with his information to Bassus.
_.13.6
[113] He, learning the unguarded condition of the entrances and the scantiness of Flaccus’s retinue, for barely ten or fifteen of his household slaves had accompanied him, gave the signal to his companions and rushed in suddenly. Some of the soldiers taking their stand along the dining-hall, with swords in their girdles, surrounded Flaccus before he saw them, since he was drinking the health of some particular person and toasting the company.
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[114] But when Bassus came forward into the middle of the room he saw him and was at once struck speechless with consternation. He wished to rise but when he surveyed the guard around him, he knew even before he heard it what Gaius wanted to do with him and what orders had been given to the newcomers and what would be his fate in the immediate future. For the mind has a marvellous power of seeing all at once and hearing altogether the successive events which will cover a long space of time.
_.13.8
[115] As for his fellow-guests, each of them rose shuddering and petrified with fear lest their presence in his company at the feast was a crime destined for punishment. For it was unsafe to fly and, moreover, impossible, since the entrances had been occupied in advance. Flaccus himself at Bassus’s orders, was led away by the soldiers. Thus it was from a convivial gathering that he made his final departure, for it was only right that a hospitable hearth should be the scene where justice first fell on one who had destroyed numberless hearths and homes of persons that had done no wrong.
_.14.1
[116] Such was the unprecedented blow which fell upon Flaccus, carried off like a prisoner in war in the country which he was governing. It was caused, I am convinced, by his treatment of the Jews, whom in his craving for aggrandisement he had resolved to exterminate utterly. We have a clear proof of this also in the time of his arrest, for the Jews were holding then the national feast of the autumn equinox, in which it is the custom of the Jews to live in tents.
_.14.2
[117] But nothing at all of the festal proceedings was being carried out. The rulers after suffering deadly and intolerable injuries and outrages were still in prison and their misfortunes were regarded by the commoners as shared by the whole nation, while the special sufferings which each of them experienced individually made them extremely depressed.
_.14.3
[118] For painful sensations are apt to double themselves most especially at feast time in persons who are unable to observe the feast, both because they are deprived of the cheerful gaiety which the festal gathering demands and also because they communicate to each other their sorrow—sorrow which in this case laid them prostrate through their powerlessness to find any remedy for their great miseries.
_.14.4
[119] They were in this very painful condition oppressed by an overwhelming burden when there came to them while crowded in their houses, because night was falling, some messengers who announced the arrest that had been made. They supposed that it was no true story but something fabricated to try them and were still more pained at what seemed a mockery and a snare.
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[120] But when a tumult arose in the city and the night-watch were running up and down and horsemen busily riding backwards and forwards at full speed to and from the camp, some of them, stirred by so unusual an event, advanced from their houses to get information of what had occurred. For it was clear that there was some upheaval.
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[121] And when they learnt of the arrest and that Flaccus was now within the toils, with hands outstretched to heaven they sang hymns and led songs of triumph to God who watches over human affairs. “We do not rejoice, O Lord,” they said, “at the punishment meted to an enemy, for we have been taught by the holy laws to have human sympathy. But we justly give thanks to Thee because Thou has taken pity and compassion on us and relieved our unbroken and ceaseless afflictions.”
_.14.7
[122] All night long they continued to sing hymns and songs of praise and at dawn pouring out through the gates, they made their way to the parts of the beach near at hand, since their meeting-houses had been taken from them, and standing in the most open space cried aloud with one accord
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[123] “Most Mighty King of mortals and immortals, we have come here to call on earth and sea, and air and heaven, into which the universe is partitioned, and on the whole world, to give Thee thanks. They are our only habitation, expelled as we are from all that men have wrought, robbed of our city and the buildings within its walls, public and private, alone of all men under the sun bereft of home and country through the malignancy of a governor.
_.14.9
[124] Thou givest also a glimpse of cheering hopes that Thou wilt amend what remains for amendment, in that Thou hast already begun to assent to our prayers. For the common enemy of the nation, under whose leadership and by whose instruction these misfortunes have befallen it, who in his windy pride thought that they would promote him to honour, Thou hast suddenly brought low; and that not when he was afar off, so that they whom he ill-treated would hear it by report and have less keen pleasure, but just here close at hand almost before the eyes of the wronged to give them a clearer picture of the swift and unhoped-for visitation.”
_.15.1
[125] Besides the two circumstances which I have mentioned there is a third which seems to me to have been brought about by divine providence. He had started on his voyage in early winter and endured a multitude of hardships, tasting of the terrors of the sea also, a just fate for one who had filled the elements of the universe with his impious deeds. When with difficulty he arrived in Italy the charges against him were taken up by two of his worst enemies, Isidorus and Lampo.
_.15.2
[126] It was not long since these men had ranked as his subjects and hailed him as their master and benefactor and saviour and the like. But now they appeared to plead against him with a strength which was not a mere match for his but vastly more powerful. For not merely had they confidence in the justice of their case but their most important advantage was that they saw that he who presided over human affairs was his mortal enemy, who would assume, indeed, the guise of a judge to save himself from appearing to condemn anyone by anticipation and without trial, but in his actions would be revealed as an enemy, who forestalled the accusation and defence by condemning him already in his soul and had fixed his punishment at the uttermost.
_.15.3
[127] And no lot is so hard as for superiors to be accused by inferiors and rulers by their former subjects; as well might masters be accused by the slaves whom they have bred in their house or purchased with their money.
_.16.1
[128] But this as we shall see was a lighter evil compared with another still greater. For they were not simply in the position of subjects who suddenly attacked him and by mutual agreement addressed themselves to accusing him. On the contrary, throughout the greater part of his time of governorship of the country, they were above all others his bitterest enemies. Lampo had been put on his trial for impiety to Tiberius Caesar and as the trial had dragged on for two years he had broken down under it.
_.16.2
[129] For the ill-will of his judge had concocted postponements and delays, as he wished, even if he was acquitted on the charge, to keep hanging over him for as long as possible the fear of the uncertain future, and so render his life more painful than death.
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[130] Afterwards when he appeared to have won his case he declared that he was the victim of an outrageous attack upon his property. For he was forced to act as gymnasiarch and protested that he had not sufficient means to meet the great expenses of the office. The excuse may be due to meanness and illiberality in spending his money, or it may be that he really had not the means, and though before the test he had pretended to be quite rich he was shown under examination to be not very wealthy, owning in fact hardly anything beyond the proceeds of his iniquitous deeds.
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[131] For he stood beside the governors when they were giving judgement, and took the minutes of the cases which he introduced in virtue of this position. He would then expunge some of the evidence or deliberately pass it over and sometimes insert statements which had not been made, sometimes, too, tamper with the documents by remodelling and rearranging them and turning them upside-down, while he picked up money at every syllable, or rather at every jot and tittle, like the paper-porer that he was.
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[132] Frequently the whole people, truly and appropriately, denounced him as a pen-murderer, whose writings had done multitudes to death and made more miserable than the dead multitudes of the living, who, when they might have won their case and enjoyed abundance, had suffered a defeat and poverty utterly undeserved, both purchased by their enemies from this cheapjack and vendor of other people’s property.
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[133] For it was impossible that the governors who had the management of so large a territory should keep in mind the perpetual flood of new cases private and public, particularly as they not only acted as judges but received the calculations of revenues and tributes, the scrutiny of which took up the greater part of the year.
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[134] But Lampo, who was commissioned to guard the most vital trust, justice and the verdicts based with all sanctity on justice, traded on the short memory of the judges and recorded defeat for those who should have had victory and for those who should have been defeated a victory in return for the accursed fee, better described as hire, which he received.
_.17.1
[135] Such was the Lampo who appeared against Flaccus as an accuser. And with him was Isidorus nothing behind him in villainy, a mob courter, popularity hunter, practised in producing disturbance and confusion, a foe to peace and tranquillity, an adept at creating factions and tumults where they do not exist and organizing and fostering them when made, ever at pains to keep in contact with him an irregular and unstable horde of promiscuous, ill-assorted people, divided up into sections, or what might be called syndicates.
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[136] In the city there are clubs with a large membership, whose fellowship is founded on no sound principle but on strong liquor and drunkenness and sottish carousing and their offspring, wantonness. “Synods” and “divans” are the particular names given to them by the people of the country.
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[137] In all or most of the clubs Isidorus held the first place and was called the feast ruler or divan master and state embroiler. Then when he wished to get some worthless project carried out, a single call brought them together in a body and they said and did what they were bidden.
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[138] And at one time being annoyed with Flaccus, because, whereas at first he seemed to be regarded by him as a person of some importance, he afterwards found himself no longer in the same favour, he hired the beggarly lot who regularly served him as vocalists, the people who sell their yells as in a market to willing purchasers, and ordered them to come to the gymnasium.
_.17.5
[139] They filled the building and launched accusations against Flaccus with no foundation, inventing against him things which had never happened and spinning long lying screeds of ribald doggerel, so that not only Flaccus but everyone else was utterly astonished at so unexpected an onset and conjectured, as indeed was the case, that there was surely someone whom they wanted to gratify and that they had never themselves suffered any injury past mending nor had real knowledge of any offence committed against the rest of the State.
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[140] Then on deliberation the authorities decided to arrest some and ascertain the cause of so reckless and sudden an outburst of insanity. The persons arrested without being put to the question confessed the truth and also added the proofs supplied by the facts, the payment agreed upon, both what had already been given and what was to be given afterwards according to the promises; the persons chosen as ringleaders of the agitation to distribute the money, the place and occasion where and when the act of bribery had taken place.
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[141] And as everyone was naturally indignant and the city felt annoyed that the senselessness of some persons should also set its stamp upon her name, he decided to summon the most highly respectable part of the public on the morrow and set the dispensers of the payment before them so that he might both expose Isidorus and defend his own administration against the aspersions unjustly cast upon him. But on hearing the summons there came not only persons in high position but the whole city except that part whose acceptance of payment was to be exposed. And those who had served in this glorious capacity,
_.17.8
[142] being set on a platform so that in this conspicuous elevation they might be recognized by all, gave proof that Isidorus was responsible for the tumults and slanders against Flaccus and had employed them to supply both money and wine to no small number of people. “Whence,” they asked, “could we have had all this money to squander?
_.17.9
[143] We are poor people scarcely able to provide the daily wage needed to purchase absolute necessaries. What terrible grievance had we suffered from the governor that we should be compelled to cherish a grudge against him? No! The author and creator of all these things is that Isidorus ever envious of the prosperous and the foe of law-abiding tranquillity.” The audience, recognizing the truth of this,
_.17.10
[144] since the statement clearly represented and indicated the motives and intention of the accused, shouted out some for disfranchisement, some for banishment, some for death. These last were the majority and the rest came over and joined them so that they all cried out with one heart and voice, “Slay the ruiner of all alike, who ever since he came to the front and wormed his way into state affairs, has let no part of the city remain untainted.”
_.17.11
[145] Fearing arrest, Isidorus fled conscious-stricken, but Flaccus took no trouble about him, thinking that, since he was out of the way by his own freewill, the life of the city could now go on undisturbed by faction and intrigue.
_.18.1
[146] I have described these events at length, not in order to recall long-past iniquities but to extol the justice which watches over human affairs, because, to those who had been hostile to him from the first and of all his foes the most bitter it also fell to conduct his arraignment and so magnify his afflictions to the uttermost. For arraignment is not by itself so grievous as when it is brought by admitted foes.
_.18.2
[147] Not only was he accused, a ruler by his subjects, a potentate who but now had the life of both in his hands by inveterate enemies, but he was also condemned, suffering thereby a mighty twofold blow in that his fall was coupled with the laughter of gloating enemies, which to men of good sense is worse even than death.
_.18.3
[148] Then there came to him a rich harvest of misfortunes. He was at once deprived of all his property, both what he inherited from his parents and what he acquired himself. For his taste for things ornamental was quite exceptional. Wealth was not with him as it is with some rich men inert matter, but everything had been carefully selected for its elaborate workmanship, his cups, clothes, coverlets, utensils and all the other ornaments of the house,
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[149] all were of the choicest: besides these the staff of household slaves had been picked as the best for comeliness of form and fine condition and the faultless way in which they ministered to the needs of their master. For whatever tasks they were severally appointed to do they excelled in, so that they were held to stand either first among those who performed the same functions or certainly second to none.
_.18.5
[150] A clear proof of this is that while a vast number of properties belonging to condemned persons were sold by public auction, that of Flaccus alone was reserved for the emperor, a few articles only being excepted so as not to run counter to the law enacted about persons convicted on these grounds.
_.18.6
[151] And when his property had been taken from him he was sentenced to banishment and expelled not only from the whole continent, which is the larger and better section of the habitable world, but also from every one of the islands in which life can prosper. For he was to be exiled to the most miserable of the Aegean islands, called Gyara, had he not found an intercessor in Lepidus who enabled him to exchange Gyara for Andros, the island which lies nearest to it.
_.18.7
[152] He then again travelled along the road from Rome to Brundisium which he had travelled a few years before at the time when he had been appointed a governor of Egypt and its neighbour Libya, so that the cities which then beheld him puffed with pride, parading the grandeur of his good fortune, might once more behold him covered with dishonour instead.
_.18.8
[153] As fingers pointed at him and reproaches poured upon him he was oppressed by the heavier afflictions caused by the change which had overwhelmed him, for his misery was ever being renewed and rekindled by the accession of fresh troubles which also forcibly brought back, like symptoms recurring in sickness, recollections of past mishaps which seemed for a while to have been dulled.
_.19.1
[154] Having passed through the Ionian Gulf he sailed upon the sea which extends to Corinth, a spectacle to the Peloponnesian cities on the seaboard when they heard of his sudden change of fortune. For whenever he disembarked the people flocked thither, the baser natures out of malice, the rest, whose way is to find lessons of wisdom in the fate of others, to sympathize.
_.19.2
[155] And crossing the Isthmus from Lechaeum to the opposite coast and coming down to Cenchreae, the port of Corinth, he was forced by his guards, who refused him any kind of intermission, to embark at once on a small merchant vessel and put to sea, where under the violence of a contrary wind he suffered a thousand discomforts and only with difficulty arrived storm-tossed at the Peiraeus.
_.19.3
[156] When the tempest ceased he coasted along Attica to Cape Sunium and then continued his journey along the series of islands, namely Helene, Cia, Cythnus and the rest, which lie in a row one after the other, to that which was to be the end of his journey, the island of the Andrians.
_.19.4
[157] When he saw it afar off the miserable man let a stream of tears pour down his cheeks as from a fountain and smiting his breast with bitter wailing cried “Oh my guards and escort, it is for this fine land of Andros, this unblest island that I exchange happy Italy,
_.19.5
[158] I, Flaccus, who was born and reared and educated in sovereign Rome, the school-mate and familiar associate of the grandsons of Augustus, chosen at the court of Tiberius to be among his foremost friends, entrusted for six years with the charge of Egypt the greatest of his possessions?
_.19.6
[159] This great reversal what does it mean? A night in daytime as in an eclipse has taken possession of my life. This petty island what shall I call it? My home of exile, or a new fatherland, a hapless haven and refuge? A tomb would be its truest name, for as I journey in my misery it is as though I were bearing the corpse that is myself to a sepulchre. For either through my afflictions I shall break the thread of my miserable life, or even, if I am able to survive die a long drawn-out death in which consciousness still lives.”
_.19.7
[160] In such wise did he lament and when the ship put in at the haven he got out with his whole body bowing down to the ground, as people do under the pressure of an exceedingly heavy load, his neck over-weighted with his misfortunes, lacking either the strength even to lift his head, or else the courage to face those who met him and came to gaze at him as they stood in front on either side of the road.
_.19.8
[161] His escort brought him to the popular assembly of the Andrians and exhibited him to them all, calling them to witness to the arrival of the exile at the island.
_.19.9
[162] Then having fulfilled their service they departed, but Flaccus having no longer before his eyes any familiar face felt his sufferings renewed thereby more poignantly as his imaginations grew more vivid. And gazing at the wide desolation around him, in the midst of which he was isolated, it seemed to him that a death by violence in his native land would be the lighter evil, or rather in comparison with his present plight a welcome boon. His wild gesticulations were just like those of a madman. He would often jump about, run up and down, clash his hands together, smite his thighs, fling himself on the ground and often cry out,
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[163] “I am Flaccus, who but now was governor of Alexandria, that great city, or multitude of cities, ruler of the highly blest land of Egypt, to whom so many thousands of inhabitants paid regard, who had among his subjects great forces of infantry, cavalry, naval, not a mere lot of counters but all men of the best-proved excellence, who every day when I proceeded forth went escorted by a host of followers.
_.19.11
[164] But was this then a phantom, not the truth? Was I asleep and dreamt the light-heartedness of those days, saw but spectres moving in a void, figments of a soul which recorded as we may suppose things which had no existence as though they were? Yes, I have been deluded.
_.19.12
[165] They were the shadow of realities, not the realities themselves, a counterfeit of clear vision, not the clear vision which exposes the falsehood to the light. For just as when we wake up we find nothing of what we saw in our dreams, but all are gone and have taken flight together, so, too, that brightness which surrounded my life has been quenched in one short moment of time.”
_.20.1
[166] Such were the thoughts which held him ever firmly in their grip and so to speak flung him prostrate to the ground. He shunned meeting with people in large numbers because of the sense of shame which accompanied him. He did not go down to the harbour nor bring himself to enter the market but shut himself at home and there lay hidden not having even the courage to pass the threshold.
_.20.2
[167] Sometimes, too, in the dark hours of the morning when everyone else was still in bed he would come out without a soul seeing him and advance outside the wall and spend the day in the solitude, turning aside if anyone was about to meet him, his soul lacerated, poor wretch, and devoured by the vivid memories of his calamines. Then when the night had quite closed in he would go indoors, praying in his endless and boundless sorrow that the evening might be morning, so much did he dread the darkness and the weird visions which it gave him, if he chanced to fall asleep. So in the morning again he prayed for evening, for to the gloom that surrounded him everything bright was repugnant.
_.20.3
[168] A few months later he bought a small piece of ground and spent much of his time there in solitude, bewailing with tears and groans that such should be his fate.
_.20.4
[169] It is said that once about midnight he became possessed as in a Corybantic frenzy, and coming out of the shelter put up there turned his eyes to heaven and the stars, and beholding that veritable world within a world, lifted up his voice.
_.20.5
[170] “King of gods and men,” he cried, “so then Thou dost not disregard the nation of the Jews, nor do they misreport Thy Providence, but all who say that they do not find in Thee a Champion and Defender, go astray from the true creed. I am a clear proof of this, for all the acts which I madly committed against the Jews I have suffered myself.
_.20.6
[171] I allowed them to be robbed of their possessions by giving free licence to the plunderers. For that I had taken from me my heritage from father and mother and all I received by way of benefactions and gifts and other possessions which do not fall under this head.
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[172] I cast on them the slur that they were foreigners without civic rights, though they were inhabitants with full franchise, just to please their adversaries, a disorderly and unstable horde, whose flattery, to my sorrow, deceived me, and, therefore, I have lost my rights and have been driven in exile from all the habitable world to be shut up here.
_.20.8
[173] Some I marched into the theatre and ordered them to be maltreated before the eyes of their bitterest enemies unjustly, and, therefore, justly was I maltreated in my miserable soul rather than in my body, with the utmost contumely; I was not indeed marched into one theatre or one city but was paraded through all Italy to Brundisium and through all the Peloponnese to Corinth and past Attica and the islands to Andros my prison.
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[174] And I have a clear conviction that this is not the limit of my misfortunes but there are others in reserve to complete the sum and counterbalance all that I did. I killed some and when others killed them took no steps to punish the murderers. Some were stoned, some while still alive were burnt to death or dragged through the middle of the market-place till nothing at all was left of their bodies.
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[175] That their avenging furies await me I know full well. The ministers of punishment are already as it were standing at the barriers and press forward eager for my blood; every day or rather every hour I die in anticipation and suffer many deaths instead of the final one.”
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[176] He often became frightened and scared and while the limbs and members of his body shivered and shuddered, his soul shaken with his pantings and palpitations quailed with dread. For the one thing which is naturally capable of consoling human life, the comforter hope, he had lost.
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[177] No favourable omen was vouchsafed to him, only all of evil omen, sinister sounds and voices, his waking hours spent in weariness, his sleep full of terrors, his solitude as the solitude of the beasts of the field. Then was life in the crowd what he craved for most? No, staying in a city was most hateful of all. Did his lone rural life, a slur though it was, bring safety? No, danger menacing with shameless insistence. Someone approaches quietly, he suspects him: “He is plotting something against me,”
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[178] he says. “This one who comes walking fast surely has no other purpose for his hurry than to pursue me. This bland agreeable person is laying a snare. This frank talker is showing his contempt. My food and drink are given to me as to animals to keep them for the slaughter.
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[179] How long shall I steel my heart against all these misfortunes? Yet I know that I do not boldly face death. For my destiny in its malignancy does not permit me to cut abruptly the thread of my wretched life, because there is still a huge stock of deadly ills which it treasures against me as boons to those whom I treacherously murdered.”
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[180] Such were the wild thoughts that he revolved as he waited anxiously for the fated end. And continual pangs kept his soul reeling in confusion. But Gaius, naturally ruthless and never satisfied with the revenges he had taken, did not like some others show clemency to those who had been punished once, but always in his unceasing anger was preparing some great new blow to inflict upon them. He hated Flaccus especially, so much so that in his dislike of his name he looked askance at all who shared it with him.
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[181] He was often seized with regret that he had condemned him to exile instead of death and censured his intercessor Lepidus, in spite of the respect which he had for him, so that Lepidus was prostrate with fear of finding himself punished. For he naturally dreaded that by helping to lighten the sentence of another he would himself incur one still more severe.
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[182] So as no one had any longer the courage to plead for mercy Gaius allowed his fierce passions to range unsoftened and unbridled, passions which were not blunted, as they should be, by time, but grew still more sharp-edged like relapses in bodily disease, which are more severe than those which preceded them.
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[183] And so they say that one night as he lay awake his thoughts turned upon the exiles of high rank, how though nominally they were supposed to be people in misfortune they had really secured a life of release from business, of tranquillity and true liberty.
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[184] He proposed also to change the title from exile to residence abroad, “for,” said he, “the banishment of such people is a sort of residence abroad where they have abundance of necessaries and can exist released from business and in general well-being and it is preposterous that they should luxuriate in the enjoyment of peace and the advantages of the philosopher’s life.”
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[185] He then ordered that the most distinguished and those who were held in the highest account should be put to death and gave a list of the names headed by that of Flaccus. When the persons appointed to execute him arrived at Andros, Flaccus happened to be passing from the country to the town, and the party from the harbour came forward to meet him.
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[186] When they were at some distance they saw him and he saw them and thence inferred the purpose which was urging them on. For the soul of every man is highly prophetic, particularly in distressing circumstances. He struck out from the road and raced away from them through the rough ground forgetting, perhaps, that Andros is not the mainland but an island in which speed is no use since it is enclosed by the sea. For there are only two possible alternatives, to go on farther and fall into the sea or to be caught on arriving at the very edge.
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[187] And surely if we compare two evils it were better to perish on the land than in the sea, since nature has assigned the land to men and all the creatures that dwell on it as the most appropriate place not only in their lifetime but at their death; it received them when they first came into existence, it should also receive them when they finally depart from life.
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[188] The assassins never lost a moment in pursuing him. When they caught him some of them at once dug a pit while others violently dragged him along, resisting and screaming and struggling hard, the result of which was that as wild beasts do, he ran upon the blows and had his whole body pierced with wounds.
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[189] For, as he clutched hold of the slaughterers and was so entangled in the scramble with them that they had no room to apply their swords directly but dealt their blows downwards and sidewards, he caused himself to suffer more severely, and with hands, feet, head, breast and sides slashed and cut to bits, he lay carved like a sacrificial victim. For it was the will of justice that the butcheries which she wrought on his single body should be as numerous as the number of the Jews whom he unlawfully put to death.
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[190] The whole place was flooded with the blood which poured out like a fountain from the many veins which one after the other were severed, while as his corpse was dragged into the pit which had been dug, most of the parts fell asunder as the ligaments which bind the whole body together in one had been rent.

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.