ow I have escaped such a
deep plotter of mischief. However, since some fate or other makes my
house desolate, and perpetually raises up those that are dearest to me
against me, I will, with tears, lament my hard fortune, and privately
groan under my lonesome condition; yet am I resolved that no one who
thirsts after my blood shall escape punishment, although the evidence
should extend itself to all my sons."

3. Upon Herod's saying this, he was interrupted by the confusion he was
in; but ordered Nicolaus, one of his friends, to produce the evidence
against Antipater. But in the mean time Antipater lifted up his head,
[for he lay on the ground before his father's feet,] and cried out
aloud, "Thou, O father, hast made my apology for me; for how can I be
a parricide, whom thou thyself confessest to have always had for
thy guardian? Thou callest my filial affection prodigious lies and
hypocrisy! how then could it be that I, who was so subtle in other
matters, should here be so mad as not to understand that it was not easy
that he who committed so horrid a crime should be concealed from men,
but impossible that he should be concealed from the Judge of heaven, who
sees all things, and is present every where? or did not I know what end
my brethren came to, on whom God inflicted so great a punishment for
their evil designs against thee? And indeed what was there that could
possibly provoke me against thee? Could the hope of being king do it?
I was a king already. Could I suspect hatred from thee? No. Was not I
beloved by thee? And what other fear could I have? Nay, by preserving
thee safe, I was a terror to others. Did I want money? No; for who was
able to expend so much as myself? Indeed, father, had I been the most
execrable of all mankind, and had I had the soul of the most cruel
wild beast, must I not have been overcome with the benefits thou hadst
bestowed upon me? whom, as thou thyself sayest, thou broughtest [into
the palace]; whom thou didst prefer before so many of thy sons; whom
thou madest a king in thine own lifetime, and, by the vast magnitude of
the other advantages thou bestowedst on me, thou madest me an object of
envy. O miserable man! that thou shouldst undergo this bitter absence,
and thereby afford a great opportunity for envy to arise against thee,
and a long space for such as were laying designs against thee! Yet was
I absent, father, on thy affairs, that Sylleus might not treat thee with
contempt in thine