Page:Selections. Translated by H. St. J. Thackeray (1919).djvu/90

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Tiberius, after giving it a costly funeral in accordance with the laws of his country, he was anxious to set Agrippa at liberty that very day. Antonia,[1] however, restrained him, not out of any ill-will to the prisoner, but with an eye to propriety on the part of Gaius; she feared he would produce the impression of welcoming the decease of Tiberius if he were instantly to release one of his prisoners. Not many days elapsed, however, before Gaius sent to his house to fetch him, had his hair cut and his raiment changed, and then set the diadem on his head and appointed him king over Philip's[2] tetrarchy; he also conferred upon him the tetrarchy of Lysanias. In exchange for his iron chain he gave him a golden one of the same weight. . . .


Herod the Tetrarch is instigated by his wife Herodias to emulate Agrippa and go in quest of similar fortune to Rome. The result was disastrous. He was found guilty of conspiracy and sent into exile, Herodias sharing his fate. It will suffice to quote the end of the story.


. . . Herod admitted that he had the arms in his armoury; he could not do otherwise as the facts were there to confute him. Gaius, accordingly, accepting this as proof of the accusation of conspiracy, deprived him of his tetrarchy, which he added to Agrippa's kingdom; he also presented the latter with Herod's wealth. He further punished Herod by banishing him for life, appointing Lugdunum,[3] a city of Gaul, as his place of abode.—Ant. XVIII. 6. 10-7. 2 (224-252). (31) Petronius and the Statue of Gaius


The crisis produced by the mad order of the Emperor Gaius (Caligula) to have his statue erected in the Temple at Jerusalem nearly precipitated a Jewish war. Some have seen an allusion to

  1. The grandmother of Gaius and wife of Drusus, the brother of Tiberius.
  2. Philip had recently died.
  3. Lyons.