ariamne], and would openly proclaim the gross wickedness that was in
the kingdom; on which accounts he should not be deemed a parricide.

3. When Eurycles had made this portentous speech, he greatly commended
Antipater, as the only child that had an affection for his father,
and on that account was an impediment to the other's plot against him.
Hereupon the king, who had hardly repressed his anger upon the former
accusations, was exasperated to an incurable degree. At which time
Antipater took another occasion to send in other persons to his
father to accuse his brethren, and to tell him that they had privately
discoursed with Jucundus and Tyrannus, who had once been masters of
the horse to the king, but for some offenses had been put out of
that honorable employment. Herod was in a very great rage at these
informations, and presently ordered those men to be tortured; yet did
not they confess any thing of what the king had been informed; but a
certain letter was produced, as written by Alexander to the governor of
a castle, to desire him to receive him and Aristobulus into the castle
when he had killed his father, and to give them weapons, and what other
assistance he could, upon that occasion. Alexander said that this letter
was a forgery of Diophantus. This Diophantus was the king's secretary, a
bold man, and cunning in counterfeiting any one's hand; and after he had
counterfeited a great number, he was at last put to death for it.
Herod did also order the governor of the castle to be tortured, but
got nothing out of him of what the accusations suggested.

4. However,
although Herod found the proofs too weak, he gave order to have his sons
kept in custody; for till now they had been at liberty. He also called
that pest of his family, and forger of all this vile accusation,
Eurycles, his savior and benefactor, and gave him a reward of fifty
talents. Upon which he prevented any accurate accounts that could come
of what he had done, by going immediately into Cappadocia, and there
he got money of Archelaus, having the impudence to pretend that he had
reconciled Herod to Alexander. He thence passed over into Greece, and
used what he had thus wickedly gotten to the like wicked purposes.
Accordingly, he was twice accused before Caesar, that he had filled
Achaia with sedition, and had plundered its cities; and so he was sent
into banishment. And thus was he punished for what wicked actions he had
been guilty of about Aristob