of any such exposition: "This [bird] [says Eusebius]
Agrippa presently perceived to be the cause of ill fortune, as it was
once of good fortune, to him;" which can only belong to that bird,
the owl, which as it had formerly foreboded his happy deliverance from
imprisonment, Antiq. B. XVIII. ch. 6. sect. 7, so was it then foretold
to prove afterward the unhappy forerunner of his death in five days'
time. If the improper words signifying cause, be changed for Josephus's
proper word angel or messenger, and the foregoing words, be inserted,
Esuebius's text will truly represent that in Josephus. Had this
imperfection been in some heathen author that was in good esteem with
our modern critics, they would have readily corrected these as barely
errors in the copies; but being in an ancient Christian writer, not
so well relished by many of those critics, nothing will serve but the
ill-grounded supposal of willful corruption and prevarication.

[22] This sum of twelve millions of drachmae, which is equal to three
millions of shekels, i.e. at 2s. 10d. a shekel, equal to four hundred
and twenty-five thousand pounds sterling, was Agrippa the Great's yearly
income, or about three quarters of his grandfather Herod's income; he
having abated the tax upon houses at Jerusalem, ch. 6. sect. 3, and was
not so tyrannical as Herod had been to the Jews. See the note on
Antiq. B. XVII. ch. 11. sect. 4. A large sum this! but not, it seems,
sufficient for his extravagant expenses.

[23] Reland takes notice here, not improperly, that Josephus omits the
reconciliation of this Herod Agrippa to the Tyrians and Sidoninus, by
the means of Blastus the king's chamberlain, mentioned Acts 12:20. Nor
is there any history in the world so complete, as to omit nothing that
other historians take notice of, unless the one be taken out of the
other, and accommodated to it.

[24] Photius, who made an extract out of this section, says they were
not the statues or images, but the ladies themselves, who were thus
basely abused by the soldiers.

BOOK 20 FOOTNOTES

[1] Here is some error in the copies, or mistake in Josephus; for the
power of appointing high priests, alter Herod king of Chalcis was dead,
and Agrippa, junior, was made king of Chalcis in his room, belonged to
him; and he exercised the same all along till Jerusalem was destroyed,
as Josephus elsewhere informs us, ch. 8. sect., 11; ch. 9. sect. 1, 4,
6, 7.

[2] Josephus here uses the word