able to keep his province quiet, it was necessary that he should
be recalled, and punished for his want of success. To have found it
necessary to call out the troops was of course a fault in a governor;
but doubly so at a time and in a province where a successful general
might so easily become a formidable rebel. Accordingly, a centurion,
with a trusty cohort of soldiers, was sent from Rome for the recall
of the prefect. On approaching the flat coast of Egypt, they kept
the vessel in deep water till sunset, and then entered the harbour of
Alexandria in the dark. The centurion, on landing, met with a freedman
of the emperor, from whom he learned that the prefect was then at
supper, entertaining a large company of friends. The freedman led the
cohort quietly into the palace, into the very room where Flaccus was
sitting at table; and the first tidings that he heard of his government
being disapproved of in Rome was his finding himself a prisoner in his
own palace. The friends stood motionless with surprise, the centurion
produced the emperor's order for what he was doing, and as no resistance
was attempted all passed off quietly; Flaccus was hurried on board the
vessel then at anchor in the harbour on the same evening and immediately
taken to Rome.

It so happened that on the night that Flaccus was seized, the Jews
had met together to celebrate their autumnal feast, the feast of the
Tabernacles: not as in former years with joy and pomp, but in fear,
in grief, and in prayer. Their chief men were in prison, their nation
smarting under its wrongs and in daily fear of fresh cruelties; and it
was not without alarm that they heard the noise of soldiers moving to
and fro through the city, and the heavy tread of the guards marching by
torchlight from the camp to the palace. But their fear was soon turned
into joy when they heard that Flaccus, the author of all their wrongs,
was already a prisoner on board the vessel in the harbour; and they
gave glory to God, not, says Philo, that their enemy was going to be
punished, but because their own sufferings were at an end.

The Jews then, having had leave given them by the prefect, sent
an embassy to Rome, at the head of which was Philo, the platonic
philosopher, who was to lay their grievances before the emperor, and to
beg for redress. The Greeks also at the same time sent their embassy,
at the head of which was the learned grammarian Apion, who was to accuse
the Jews of not worshipp