ntinual fear they were in from him.
Among these were accused Ptolemy and Sapinnius, who were the most
faithful friends to the king. And what more can be said, but that those
who before were the most intimate friends, were become wild beasts to
one another, as if a certain madness had fallen upon them, while there
was no room for defense or refutation, in order to the discovery of
the truth, but all were at random doomed to destruction; so that some
lamented those that were in prison, some those that were put to death,
and others lamented that they were in expectation of the same miseries;
and a melancholy solitude rendered the kingdom deformed, and quite the
reverse to that happy state it was formerly in. Herod's own life also
was entirely disturbed; and because he could trust nobody, he was sorely
punished by the expectation of further misery; for he often fancied in
his imagination that his son had fallen upon him, or stood by him with a
sword in his hand; and thus was his mind night and day intent upon this
thing, and revolved it over and over, no otherwise than if he were under
a distraction. And this was the sad condition Herod was now in.

6. But when Archelaus, king of Cappadocia, heard of the state that Herod
was in, and being in great distress about his daughter, and the young
man [her husband], and grieving with Herod, as with a man that was his
friend, on account of so great a disturbance as he was under, he came
[to Jerusalem] on purpose to compose their differences; and when he
found Herod in such a temper, he thought it wholly unseasonable to
reprove him, or to pretend that he had done any thing rashly, for that
he should thereby naturally bring him to dispute the point with him, and
by still more and more apologizing for himself to be the more irritated:
he went, therefore, another way to work, in order to correct the former
misfortunes, and appeared angry at the young man, and said that Herod
had been so very mild a man, that he had not acted a rash part at all.
He also said he would dissolve his daughter's marriage with Alexander,
nor could in justice spare his own daughter, if she were conscious of
any thing, and did not inform Herod of it. When Archelaus appeared to be
of this temper, and otherwise than Herod expected or imagined, and,
for the main, took Herod's part, and was angry on his account, the king
abated of his harshness, and took occasion from his appearing to have
acted justly hitherto, to c