t all known in the city, but took only his most
faithful friends with him. As for any money, he found none, as Hyrcanus
had done, but that furniture of gold, and those precious goods that were
laid up there; all which he took away. However, he had a great desire
to make a more diligent search, and to go farther in, even as far as the
very bodies of David and Solomon; where two of his guards were slain, by
a flame that burst out upon those that went in, as the report was. So he
was terribly aftrighted, and went out, and built a propitiatory monument
of that fright he had been in; and this of white stone, at the mouth of
the sepulcher, and that at great expense also. And even Nicolaus [10]
his historiographer makes mention of this monument built by Herod,
though he does not mention his going down into the sepulcher, as knowing
that action to be of ill repute; and many other things he treats of in
the same manner in his book; for he wrote in Herod's lifetime, and under
his reign, and so as to please him, and as a servant to him, touching
upon nothing but what tended to his glory, and openly excusing many of
his notorious crimes, and very diligently concealing them. And as he was
desirous to put handsome colors on the death of Mariamne and her sons,
which were barbarous actions in the king, he tells falsehoods about the
incontinence of Mariamne, and the treacherous designs of his sons upon
him; and thus he proceeded in his whole work, making a pompous encomium
upon what just actions he had done, but earnestly apologizing for his
unjust ones. Indeed, a man, as I said, may have a great deal to say by
way of excuse for Nicolaus; for he did not so properly write this as a
history for others, as somewhat that might be subservient to the king
himself. As for ourselves, who come of a family nearly allied to the
Asamonean kings, and on that account have an honorable place, which
is the priesthood, we think it indecent to say any thing that is false
about them, and accordingly we have described their actions after
an unblemished and upright manner. And although we reverence many of
Herod's posterity, who still reign, yet do we pay a greater regard to
truth than to them, and this though it sometimes happens that we incur
their displeasure by so doing.

2. And indeed Herod's troubles in his family seemed to be augmented by
reason of this attempt he made upon David's sepulcher; whether Divine
vengeance increased the calamities he lay un