made the slaughter of three
thousand of his own countrymen at the temple. How then could they avoid
the just hatred of him, who, to the rest of his barbarity, hath added
this as one of our crimes, that we have opposed and contradicted him in
the exercise of his authority? Now the main thing they desired was
this: That they might be delivered from kingly and the like forms of
government, [20] and might be added to Syria, and be put under the
authority of such presidents of theirs as should be sent to them;
for that it would thereby be made evident, whether they be really a
seditious people, and generally fond of innovations, or whether they
would live in an orderly manner, if they might have governors of any
sort of moderation set over them.

3. Now when the Jews had said this, Nicolaus vindicated the kings from
those accusations, and said, that as for Herod, since he had never been
thus accused all the time of his life, it was not fit for those that
might have accused him of lesser crimes than those now mentioned, and
might have procured him to be punished during his lifetime, to bring an
accusation against him now he is dead. He also attributed the actions of
Archlaus to the Jews' injuries to him, who, affecting to govern contrary
to the laws, and going about to kill those that would have hindered them
from acting unjustly, when they were by him punished for what they had
done, made their complaints against him; so he accused them of their
attempts for innovation, and of the pleasure they took in sedition, by
reason of their not having learned to submit to justice and to the laws,
but still desiring to be superior in all things. This was the substance
of what Nicolaus said.

4. When Caesar had heard these pleadings, he dissolved the assembly; but
a few days afterwards he appointed Archelaus, not indeed to be king of
the whole country, but ethnarch of the one half of that which had been
subject to Herod, and promised to give him the royal dignity hereafter,
if he governed his part virtuously. But as for the other half, he
divided it into two parts, and gave it to two other of Herod's sons, to
Philip and to Antipas, that Antipas who disputed with Archelaus for
the whole kingdom. Now to him it was that Peres and Galilee paid their
tribute, which amounted annually to two hundred talents, [21] while
Batanea, with Trachonitis, as well as Auranitis, with a certain part
of what was called the House of Zenodorus, [22] paid the