Sunday, June 14, 2009

On the Variety of Reports about Agrippa in Josephus

Pseudo-Hegesipus [Latin]:

Agrippa was very powerful in his state, but while he wished to encircle Jerusalem with a great wall, so that it would become impregnable to the Romans---for he foresaw its imminent destruction---prevented by death he left the task unfinished. Nor did he exercise less power while Claudius was ruling, because he was also in the midst of his own beginnings, since with Gaius having been killed he had been thrust by the soldiers into the rule of the empire, the senate resisting him from weariness of the
royal power, he sent Agrippa as his deputy, with whom as negotiator the promise of
moderation having been given, an accommodation having been begun, a peace is
agreed upon. In place of Agrippa the father Agrippa his son is substituted as king by Claudius Caesar.

Slavonic Josephus

Agrippa had pacified [the soldiers]. [Claudius] gave him all his father’s kingdom
and added to it the land of Trachonitis and Auranitis, apart from these, he handed over to him another kingdom, which Lysanias had ruled. He order his magistrates to write out bronze tablets all [his] honours. And to deposit them at the Capitol, to make it known also to later generations, what honours Agrippa had received from
Claudius. And [Agrippa] speedily acquired wealth untold. And at Jerusalem he immediately began to build walls of such height and thickness as never before. If he had completed them in his own lifetime, the Romans could by no means have taken Jerusalem. But before finishing the work he himself died at Caesarea after a reign
of three years having no son. [XI 5, 6]

Jewish War [Greek]

Upon Agrippa he forthwith conferred the whole of his grandfather’s kingdom, annexing to it from over the border not only the districts of Trachonitis and Auranitis, of which Augustus had made a present to Herod, but a further principality known as the kingdom, of Lysanias. This donation he announced to the people by an edict, and order the magistrates to have it engraved on brazen tablets to be deposited in the Capitol.

He moreover presented Herod, who was at once the brother, and by marriage with Berenice, the son in law of Agrippa, with the kingdom of Chalcis. From so extensive a realm wealth soon flowed into Agrippa, nor was he long in expending his riches. For he began to surround Jerusalem with a wall on such a scale as, had it been completed, would have rendered ineffectual all the efforts of the Romans
in the subsequent siege. But before the wall had reached the projected heights, he died at Caesarea, after a reign of three year, to which must be added his previous three years’ tenure of his tetrarchies. He left issue by his wife Cypros, three daughters Berenice, Mariamme and Drusilla – and one son. And the last was a minor. Claudius again reduced the kingdoms to a province … [215 – 220]


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