a hundred
pieces of the finest woven linen; as also vials and dishes, and vessels
for pouring, and two golden cisterns to be dedicated to God. He also
desired him, by an epistle, that he would give these interpreters leave,
if any of them were desirous of coming to him, because he highly valued
a conversation with men of such learning, and should be very willing to
lay out his wealth upon such men. And this was what came to the Jews,
and was much to their glory and honor, from Ptolemy Philadelphus.

CHAPTER 3. How The Kings Of Asia Honored The Nation Of The Jews And Made
Them Citizens Of Those Cities Which They Built.

1. The Jews also obtained honors from the kings of Asia when they became
their auxiliaries; for Seleucus Nicator made them citizens in those
cities which he built in Asia, and in the lower Syria, and in the
metropolis itself, Antioch; and gave them privileges equal to those
of the Macedonians and Greeks, who were the inhabitants, insomuch that
these privileges continue to this very day: an argument for which you
have in this, that whereas the Jews do not make use of oil prepared by
foreigners, [11] they receive a certain sum of money from the proper
officers belonging to their exercises as the value of that oil; which
money, when the people of Antioch would have deprived them of, in the
last war, Mucianus, who was then president of Syria, preserved it to
them. And when the people of Alexandria and of Antioch did after that,
at the time that Vespasian and Titus his son governed the habitable
earth, pray that these privileges of citizens might be taken away, they
did not obtain their request in which behavior any one may discern the
equity and generosity of the Romans, [12] especially of Vespasian and
Titus, who, although they had been at a great deal of pains in the war
against the Jews, and were exasperated against them, because they did
not deliver up their weapons to them, but continued the war to the very
last, yet did not they take away any of their forementioned privileges
belonging to them as citizens, but restrained their anger, and overcame
the prayers of the Alexandrians and Antiochians, who were a very
powerful people, insomuch that they did not yield to them, neither out
of their favor to these people, nor out of their old grudge at those
whose wicked opposition they had subdued in the war; nor would they
alter any of the ancient favors granted to the Jews, but said, that
those who ha