circumstances which concerned him, and then prepared
himself for his trial.

3. On the next day Varus and the king sat together in judgment, and both
their friends were also called in, as also the king's relations, with
his sister Salome, and as many as could discover any thing, and such as
had been tortured; and besides these, some slaves of Antipater's mother,
who were taken up a little before Antipater's coming, and brought with
them a written letter, the sum of which was this: That he should not
come back, because all was come to his father's knowledge; and that
Caesar was the only refuge he had left to prevent both his and her
delivery into his father's hands. Then did Antipater fall down at his
father's feet, and besought him not to prejudge his cause, but that
he might be first heard by his father, and that his father would keep
himself unprejudiced. So Herod ordered him to be brought into the midst,
and then lamented himself about his children, from whom he had suffered
such great misfortunes; and because Antipater fell upon him in his old
age. He also reckoned up what maintenance and what education he had
given them; and what seasonable supplies of wealth he had afforded them,
according to their own desires; none of which favors had hindered
them from contriving against him, and from bringing his very life into
danger, in order to gain his kingdom, after an impious manner, by taking
away his life before the course of nature, their father's wishes, or
justice required that that kingdom should come to them; and that he
wondered what hopes could elevate Antipater to such a pass as to be
hardy enough to attempt such things; that he had by his testament in
writing declared him his successor in the government; and while he was
alive, he was in no respect inferior to him, either in his illustrious
dignity, or in power and authority, he having no less than fifty talents
for his yearly income, and had received for his journey to Rome no fewer
than thirty talents. He also objected to him the case of his brethren
whom he had accused; and if they were guilty, he had imitated their
example; and if not, he had brought him groundless accusations against
his near relations; for that he had been acquainted with all those
things by him, and by nobody else, and had done what was done by his
approbation, and whom he now absolved from all that was criminal, by
becoming the inheritor of the guilt of such their parricide.

4. When