he slew him quickly after he had conferred that dignity
upon him; but when Aristobulus had put on the holy vestments, and had
approached to the altar at a festival, the multitude, in great crowds,
fell into tears; whereupon the child was sent by night to Jericho, and
was there dipped by the Galls, at Herod's command, in a pool till he was
drowned.

3. For these reasons Mariamne reproached Herod, and his sister and
mother, after a most contumelious manner, while he was dumb on account
of his affection for her; yet had the women great indignation at her,
and raised a calumny against her, that she was false to his bed;
which thing they thought most likely to move Herod to anger. They also
contrived to have many other circumstances believed, in order to make
the thing more credible, and accused her of having sent her picture into
Egypt to Antony, and that her lust was so extravagant, as to have thus
showed herself, though she was absent, to a man that ran mad after
women, and to a man that had it in his power to use violence to her.
This charge fell like a thunderbolt upon Herod, and put him into
disorder; and that especially, because his love to her occasioned him to
be jealous, and because he considered with himself that Cleopatra was a
shrewd woman, and that on her account Lysanias the king was taken off,
as well as Malichus the Arabian; for his fear did not only extend to the
dissolving of his marriage, but to the danger of his life.

4. When therefore he was about to take a journey abroad, he committed
his wife to Joseph, his sister Salome's husband, as to one who would be
faithful to him, and bare him good-will on account of their kindred; he
also gave him a secret injunction, that if Antony slew him, he should
slay her. But Joseph, without any ill design, and only in order to
demonstrate the king's love to his wife, how he could not bear to think
of being separated from her, even by death itself, discovered this grand
secret to her; upon which, when Herod was come back, and as they talked
together, and he confirmed his love to her by many oaths, and assured
her that he had never such an affection for any other woman as he had
for her--"Yes," says she, "thou didst, to be sure, demonstrate thy
love to me by the injunctions thou gavest Joseph, when thou commandedst
him to kill me." [37]

5. When he heard that this grand secret was discovered, he was like a
distracted man, and said that Joseph would never have disclose