But I suppose you imitated Hercules in your unwearied labours and your incessant displays of valour and virtue; you, O most wretched of men! having filled every continent and every island with good laws, and principles of justice, and wealth, and comfort, and prosperity, and abundance of other blessings, you, wretched man, full of all cowardice and iniquity, who have emptied every city of all the things which can con- duce to stability and prosperity, and have made them full of everything which leads to trouble and confusion, and the most utter misery and desolation.
Tell me then, 0 Caius! do you, after having made all these contributions to universal destruction, do you, I say, seek to acquire immortality in order to make the calamities which you have heaped upon mankind, not of brief duration and short- lived, but imperishable and everlasting? But I think, on the contrary, that even if you had previously appeared to be a god, you would beyond all question have been changed on account of your evil practices into an ordinary nature, resembling that of common perishable mortals; for if virtues can make then- possessors immortal, then beyond all doubt vices can make them mortal. Do not, therefore, inscribe your name by the side of that of the twin sons of Jupiter, those most affectionate of deities, you who have been the murderer and destruction of your brethren, nor claim a share in the honours of Hercules or Bacchus, who have benefited human life. You have been the undoer and destroyer of those good effects which they produced.
XIII. But the madness and frenzy to which he gave way were so preposterous, and so utterly insane, that he went even beyond the demigods, and mounted up to and invaded the 120 PHILO JUDjEUS.
veneration and worship paid to those who are looked upon as greater than they, as the supreme deities of the world, Mercury, and Apollo, and Mars.
And first of all he dressed himself up with the caduceus, and sandals, and mantle of Mercury, exhibiting a regularity in his disorder, a consistency in his confusion, and a ratiocina- tion in his insanity.
Afterwards, when he thought fit to do so, he laid aside these ornaments, and metamorphosed and transformed himself into Apollo, crowning his head with garlands, in the form of rays, and holding a bow and arrows in his left hand, and holding forth graces in his right, as if it became him to proffer blessings to all men from his ready store, and to display the best ar- rangement possible on his right hand, but to contract the punishments which he had it in his power to inflict, and to allot to them a more confined space on his left. And imme- diately there were established choruses, who had been carefully trained, singing paeans to him, the same who had, a little while before, called him Bacchus, and Evius, and Lyseus, and sang Bacchic hymns in his honour when he assumed the disguise of Bacchus.
Very often, also, he would clothe himself with a breastplate, and march forth sword in hand, with a helmet on his head and a shield on his left arm, calling himself Mars, and on each side of him there marched with him the attendants of this new and unknown Mars, a troop of murderers and executioners who had already performed him all kinds of wicked services when he was raging and thirsting for human blood; and then when men saw this they were amazed and terrified at the marvellous sight, and they wondered how a man who did exactly the contrary to what was done by those beings to whom he claimed to be equal in honour, did not choose to imitate their virtues, but assumed the outward character of each with the most abominable conduct. And yet all those ornaments and decorations which belonged to them were attached to his statues and images, which indicated by symbols the benefits which the beings who are thus honoured confer upon the race of mankind. Mercury, for instance, requires wings attached to his ankles. Why so? Is it not because it behoves him to be the interpreter and declarer of the will of the gods (from ON THE VIRTUES AND OFFICE OF AMBASSADORS. 121 which employment, in fact, he derives his Greek name of Hermes*), announcing good news to mankind (for not only no god but no sensible man ever will become the messenger of evil), and therefore it is necessary for him to be exceedingly swift-footed, and all but winged, from the unhesitating rapidity with which he requires to proceed. Since it is right that beneficial news should be announced with great promptness, just as bad news ought to be brought slowly, unless indeed any one should prefer saying that such ought to be entirely sup- pressed in silence.
Again, he takes with him his caduceus or herald's wand, as a token of reconciliation and peace, for wars receive their respites and terminations by means of heralds, who restore peace; and wars which have no heralds to terminate them cause endless calamities to both parties, both to those who invade their neighbours and to those who are endeavouring to repel the invasion. But for what purpose did Caius assume the winged sandals of Mercury? Was it because he wished to spread with power, and rapidity, and loudness that miserable and ill-omened intelligence which ought rather to be buried in silence altogether, conveying his voice everywhere with un- ceasing eelerity?
And yet what need had he of such rapid motion? for even while standing still he poured forth unspeakable evils upon evils as if from an unceasing fountain, showering them dow?n upon every portion of the habitable world. And of what use was the herald's wand to him, who never either said or did anything bearing upon peace, but who rather filled every house and every city within Greece and in the countries of the barbarians with civil wars? Let him, therefore, imposter that he is, lay aside the name of Mercury, since by assuming it he is only profaning an appellation which does not belong to him.
XIV. Again, of all the attributes of Apollo, what is there which in the least degree resembles his characteristics? He wears a crown emitting rays all around, the artist who made it having given a most admirable representation of the beams of the sun; but how can the sun, or in fact any light at all, be a welcome object to him, and not rather night, or anything else, if there be such more completely enveloped darkness, or even anything darker than darkness itself, for the performance of * i.e. from ipprivtvu), "to interpret."
122 PHILO JUDiEUS.
122 PHILO JUDiEUS.
his lawless actions? Since good actions do require the bril- liancy of noonday for their proper display, but shameful actions, as they say, are suited to the extreme depths of Tartarus, into which they ought to be thrust in order to be concealed from sight, as is becoming. Let him also transpose the things which he bears in each of his hands, and not pollute the proper arrangement, for let him bear his arrows and his bow in his right hand, for he knows how with good aim to shoot at and to pierce men and women, and whole families, and populous cities, to their complete destruction. And let him either at once throw away his graces altogether, or else let him keep them in the shade in his left hand, for he has defaced their beauty, directing all his eyes and exciting all his desires against vast properties, so as to plunder them in an iniquitous manner, in consequence of which their owners were murdered, finding themselves unfortunate through their good fortune.
But no doubt he with great felicity gave a new representa- tion of the medical skill of Apollo, for this god was the inventor of healing medicines,* so as to cause health to men, thinking fit himself to heal the diseases which were inflicted by others, by reason of the excessive mildness and gentleness of his own nature and habits, but this man, on the contrary, loads those who are in good health with disease, and inflicts mutilations on those who are sound, and in short visits the living with most cruel death, caused by the hand of man before the time of their natural death, preparing every imaginable engine of destruction in abundant plenteousness, by means of which, if he had not himself been previously put to death in accordance * This is one of the attributes of Apollo of which he boasts to Daphne.
Inventum medicina meum est, opiferque per orbem Dicor et herbarum subjecta potentia nobis: Hie mihi quod nullis amor est medicabilis herbis Nee prosunt domino quae prosunt omnibus artes. — Met. 1.461. Or as it is translated by Dry den — u Medicine is mine; wbat herbs and simples grow In fields and forests, all their powers I know, And am the great physician called below.
Alas, that fields and forests can afford No remedies to heal their love -sick lord.
To cure the pains of love no plant avails, And his own physic the physician fails."
ON THE VIRTUES AND OFFICE OF AMBASSADORS. 123 with justice, everything glorious or respectable in every city would long ago have been destroyed.
For his designs were prepared against all those in authority and all those possessed of riches, and especially against those in Rome and those in the rest of Italy, by whom such quanti- ties of gold and silver had been treasured up that even if all the riches of all the rest of the habitable world had been collected together from its most distant borders, it would have been found to be very inferior in amount.
On this account he began, he, this hater of the citizens, this devourer of the people, this pestilence, this destructive evil, began to banish all the seeds of peace from his country, as if he were expelling evil from holy ground; for Apollo is said to have been not only a physician but also an excellent prophet, by his oracular predictions announcing what was likely to con- duce to the advantage of mankind, in order that no one, being overshadowed by uncertainty, going on without seeing his way before him like a blind man, might hastily fall into unexpected evils as if they were the greatest benefits; but that men having previously acquired a knowledge of the future as if it were really present, and looking at it with the eye of their mind, might guard against future evils just as they can see evils actually before them with the bodily eye, and in this way secure themselves against any irremediable disaster.
Is it fitting now to compare with these oracles of Apollo the ill-omened warnings of Caius, by means of which poverty, and dishonour, and banishment, and death were given premature notice of to all those who were in power and authority in any part of the world? What connexion or resemblance was there between him and Apollo, when he never paid any attention to any ties of kindred or friendship? Let him cease, then, this pretended Apollo, from imitating that real healer of mankind, for the form of God is not a thing which is capable of being imitated by an inferior one, as good money is imitated by bad.
XV. A man, indeed, may expect anything rather than that a man endowed with such a body and such a soul, when both of them are effeminate and broken down, could ever possibly be made like to the vigour of Mars in either particular; but this man, like a mummer transforming himself on the stage, putting on all sorts of masks one after another, sought to deceive the spectators by a series of fictitious appearances.
124 PHILO JUDiEUS.
124 PHILO JUDiEUS.
Come, then, let him be subjected to an examination in respect of all the particulars of his soul and body, by reason of his utter unlikeness to the aforesaid deity in every position and in every motion. Was he not utterly unlike Mars, not in respect only of his appearance as celebrated in fable, but as to his natural qualities? Mars, who is endued with pre-eminent valour, which we know to be a power calculated to avert evil, to be the assistant and ally of all who are unjustly oppressed, as indeed his very name shows, for he appears to me to be called Mars from his helping * which is the same as assisting, being as such the god who is able to put down wars and to cause peace, of which this representation of his was the enemy, being the comrade of wars, and the man who changed peace and stability into disorder and confusion.
XVI. Have we not, then, learned from all these instances, that Caius ought not to be likened to any god, and not even to any demi-god, inasmuch as he has neither the same nature, nor the same essence, nor even the same wishes and intentions as any one of them; but appetite as it seems is a blind thing, and especially so when it takes to itself vain-gloriousness and am- bition in conjunction with the greatest power, by which we who were previously unfortunate are utterly destroyed, for he regarded the Jews with most especial suspicion, as if they were the only persons who cherished wishes opposed to his, and who had been taught in a manner from their very swaddling-clothes by their parents, and teachers, and instructors, and even before that by their holy laws, and also by their unwritten maxims and customs, to believe that there was but one God, their Father and the Creator of the world; for all others, all men, all women, all cities, all nations, every country and region of the earth, I had almost said the whole of the inhabited world, although groaning over what was taking place, did nevertheless flatter him, dignifying him above measure, and helping to increase his pride and arrogance; and some of them even introduced the barbaric custom into Italy of falling down in adoration before him, adulterating their native feelings of Roman liberty.
But the single nation of the Jews, being excepted from these actions, was suspected by him of wishing to counteract his * The Greek word is apijyuv, from which Philo supposes 'Apije, the Greek name of Mars, to be derived.
ON THE VIRTUES AND OFFICE OF AMBASSADORS. 125 desires, since it was accustomed to embrace voluntary death as an entrance to immortality, for the sake of not permitting any of their national or hereditary customs to be destroyed, even if it were of the most trivial character, because, as is the case in a house, it often happens that by the removal of one small part, even those parts which appeared to be solidly established fall down, being relaxed and brought to decay by the removal of that one thing, but in this case what was put in motion was not a trifle, but a thing of the very greatest importance, namely, the erecting the created and perishable nature of a man, as far at least as appearance went, into the uncreated and imperishable nature of God, which the nation correctly judged to be the most terrible of all impieties (for it would have been easier to change a god into man, than a man into God), besides the fact of such an action letting in other most enormous wick- edness, infidelity and ingratitude towards the Benefactor of the whole world, Avho by his own power gives abundant supplies of all kinds of blessings to every part of the universe.
XVII. Therefore a most terrible and irreconcileable war was prepared against our nation, for what could be a more terrible evil to a slave than a master who was an enemy? And his subjects are the slaves of the emperor, even if they were not so to any one of the former emperors, because they governed with gentleness and in accordance with the laws, but now that Caius had eradicated all feelings of humanity from his soul, and had admired lawlessness (for looking upon himself as the law, he abrogated all the enactments of other lawgivers in every state and country as so many vain sentences), we were properly to be looked upon not only as slaves, but as the very lowest and mose dishonoured of slaves, now that our ruler was changed into our master.
XVIII. And the mixed and promiscuous multitude of the Alexandrians perceiving this, attacked us, looking upon it as a most favourable opportunity for doing so, and displayed all the arrogance which had been smouldering for a long period, disturbing everything, and causing universal confusion, for they began to crush our people as if they had been surrendered by the emperor for the most extreme and undeniable miseries, or as if they had been subdued in war, with their frantic and most brutal passion, forcing their way into their houses, and driving out the owners, with their wives and children, which 126 PHILO JUD^US.
they rendered desolate and void of inhabitants. And no longer watching for night and darkness, like ordinary robbers out of fear of being detected, they openly plun- dered them of all their furniture and treasures, carrying them off in broad daylight, and displaying their booty to every one whom they met, as if they had inherited it or fairly purchased it from the owners.
And if a multitude joined together to share any particular piece of plunder, they divided it in the middle of the market- place, reviling it and turning it all into ridicule before the eyes of its real owners. These things were of themselves terrible and grievous; how could they be otherwise? Surely it was most miserable for men to become beggars from having been wealthy, and to be reduced on a sudden from a state of abundance to one of utter indigence, without having done any wrong, and to be rendered houseless and homeless, being driven out and expelled from their own houses, that thus, being compelled to dwell in the open air day and night, they might be destroyed by the burning heat of the sun or by the cold of the night.
Yet even these evils were lighter than those which I am about to mention; for when the populace had driven together these countless myriads of men, and women, and children, like so many herds of sheep and oxen, from every quarter of the city, into a very narrow space as if into a pen, they expected that in a few days they should find a heap of corpses all huddled together, as they would either have perished by hunger through the want of necessary food, as they had not prepared themselves with any thing requisite, through a foreknowledge of the evils which thus suddenly came upon them; or else through being crushed and suffocated from want of any adequate space to breathe in, all the air around them becoming tainted, and all that there was of vivifying power in their respiration being cut off, or, if one is to say the truth, utterly expelled, by the breath of those who were expiring among them. By which, each individual being inflamed, and in a manner oppressed by a descent of fever upon him, inhaled a hot and unwholesome breath through his nostrils and mouth, heap- ing, as the proverb has it, fire on fire; for the power which resides in the inmost parts changed its nature, and becamo ON THE VIRTUES AND OFFICE OF AMBASSADORS. 127 most excessively fiery; upon which, when the external breezes, being moderately cool, blow, all the organs of the respiratory powers flourish, and are in a good and healthy condition; but when these breezes change and become hot, then those organs must of necessity be in a bad state, fire being added to fire.
XIX. As they then were no longer able to endure the misery of the place within which they were enclosed, they poured forth into desolate parts of the wilderness, and to the shore, and among the tombs, in their eagerness to find any pure and untainted air. And if any of them had previously been left in the other parts of the city, or if any had come in thither from the fields out of ignorance of the evils which had visited their companions, they fell into every variety of misfortune, being stoned, or else wounded with sharp tiles, or beaten on the most mortal parts of the body, and especially on the head, with branches of maple and of oak, in such a way as to cause death.
And some of those persons who are accustomed to pass their time in idleness and inaction, sitting around, occupied themselves in watching those who, as I have said before, were thus driven together and crammed into a very small space, as if they were a force which they were blockading; lest any one should secretly escape without their perceiving it. And a great many were designing to effect their escape from want of necessaries, disregarding their own safety from a fear that, if they remained, the whole body might perish with famine. So those men, expecting that they would endeavour to escape, kept a continual watch, and the moment that they caught any one, they immediately put him to death with every circumstance of insult and cruelty.
And there was another company lying in wait for them on the quays of the river, to catch any Jews who arrived at those spots, and to plunder them of every thing which they brought for the purposes of traffic; for, forcing their way into their ships they took out the cargo before the eyes of its lawful owners, and then, binding the hands of the merchants behind them, they burnt them alive, taking the rudders, and helms, and punt-poles, and the benches for the rowers to sit upon, for fuel. And thus these men perished by a most miserable death being burnt alive in the middle 128 PHILO JUDjEUS.
of the city; for sometimes, for want of other timber they brought piles of faggots together, and tying them up, they threw them on the miserable victims; and they, being already half burnt, were killed, more by the smoke of the green wood than by the flames, as the new faggots gave forth only an unsubstantial and smoky sort of flame, and were soon extinguished, not being able to be reduced to ashes by reason of their lightness.
And many who were still alive they took and bound, and fastened their ankles together with thongs and ropes, and then dragged them through the middle of the market-place, leaping on them, and not sparing their corpses even after they were dead; for, tearing them to pieces limb from limb, and trampling on them, behaving with greater brutality and ferocity than even the most savage beasts, they destroyed every semblance of humanity about them, so that not even a fragment of them was left to which the rites of burial could be afforded.
XX. But as the governor of the country, who by himself could, if he had chosen to do so, have put down the violence of the multitude in a single hour, pretended not to see what he did see, and not to hear what he did hear, but allowed the mob to carry on the war against our people without any restraint, and threw our former state of tranquillity into confusion, the populace being excited still more, proceeded onwards to still more shameless and more audacious designs and treachery, and, arraying very numerous companies, cut down some of the synagogues (and there are a great many in every section of* the city), and some they razed to the very foundations, and into some they threw fire and burnt them, in their insane madness and frenzy, without caring for the neighbouring houses; for there is nothing more rapid than fire, when it lays hold of fuel.
I omit to mention the ornaments in honour of the emperor, which were destroyed and burnt with these synagogues, such as gilded shields, and gilded crowns, and pillars, and inscriptions, for the sake of which they ought even to have abstained from and spared the other things; but they were full of confidence, inasmuch as they did not fear any chastisement at the hand of Caius, as they well knew that he cherished an indescribable hatred against the ON THE VIRTUES AND OFFICE OF AMBASSADORS. 129 Jews, so that their opinion was that no one could do him a more acceptable service than by inflicting every description <5f injury on the nation which he hated; and, as they wished to curry favour with him by a novel kind of flattery, so as to allow, and for the future to give the rein to, every sort of ill treatment of us without ever being called to account, what did they proceed to do? All the synagogues that they were unable to destroy by burning and razing them to the ground, because a great number of Jews lived in a dense mass in the neighbourhood, they injured and defaced in another manner, simultaneously with a total overthrow of their laws and customs; for they set up in every one of them images of Caius, and in the greatest, and most conspicuous, and most celebrated of them they erected a brazen statue of him borne on a four-horse chariot. And so excessive and impetuous was the rapidity of their zeal, that, as they had not a new chariot for four horses ready, they got a very old one out of the gymnasium, full of poison, mutilated in its ears, and in the hinder part, and in its pedestal, and in many other points, and as some say, one which had already been dedicated in honour of a woman, the eminent Cleopatra, who was the great grandmother of the last.