נגד פלאקוס ה׳Against Flaccus 5
א׳
1[25] The infatuation due to instruction from others rather than to his own nature, which thus was shown in his conduct, was further strengthened by the following incident. Gaius Caesar gave to Agrippa, the grandson of King Herod, the kingship over that third part of his grandfather’s territory, the revenues of which were taken by Philip the tetrarch, Agrippa’s paternal uncle.
ב׳
2[26] When he was about to set out thither Gaius advised him not to undertake the voyage from Brundisium to Syria which was long and wearisome but wait for the etesian winds and take the short route through Alexandria. He told him that thence there were swift-sailing merchant vessels and highly skilled pilots who manage them as a charioteer manages race-horses and provide a straightforward passage along the direct route. Agrippa did as he was told, partly out of deference to his lord and master, and also because the course he enjoined seemed to be advisable.
ג׳
3[27] He went down to Dicaearchia, and seeing there some ships of Alexandria lying at anchor and ready to sail he embarked with his retinue, and after a good voyage came to land a few days later without being expected or his purposes detected. He had ordered the pilots when they sighted Pharos in the late afternoon to furl the sails and lie outside round about it and not far off until the evening had well set in, and then by night to put in at the harbour, so that he might disembark when everyone had settled down to sleep and reach the house of his host without anyone seeing him.
ד׳
4[28] His reason for making his visit in such an unassuming way was that he wished if possible to slip out of the city quietly and unobserved by the whole population. For he had not come to see Alexandria as he had stayed there before on his voyage to Rome to join Tiberius, and he only wanted to get a short route for his journey home.
ה׳
5[29] But jealousy is part of the Egyptian nature, and the citizens were bursting with envy and considered that any good luck to others was misfortune to themselves, and in their ancient, and we might say innate hostility to the Jews, they resented a Jew having been made a king just as much as if each of them had thereby been deprived of an ancestral throne.
ו׳
6[30] And the unhappy Flaccus was again stirred up by his companions with incitements and appeals calculated to make him as envious as themselves. “His stay here,” they said, “is your deposition. The dignity of the honour and prestige which invest him surpasses yours; he is attracting all men to him by the sight of his bodyguard of spearmen, decked in armour overlaid with gold and silver.
ז׳
7[31] Was it right for him to come to another ruler’s domain when a fair wind could have carried him safely by sea to his own? For if Gaius gave him permission or rather put compulsion on him to do so, he ought to have earnestly entreated to be excused from coming here, so that the governor of the country would not be thrown into the background and lose prestige.”
ח׳
8[32] Such words made his temper rise still more, and while in public he played the part of friend and comrade to Agrippa through fear of him who had sent him there, in private he vented his jealousy and gave full utterance to his hatred by insulting him indirectly since he had not the courage to do so outright.
ט׳
9[33] For the lazy and unoccupied mob in the city, a multitude well practised in idle talk, who devote their leisure to slandering and evil speaking, was permitted by him to vilify the king, whether the abuse was actually begun by himself or caused by his incitement and provocation addressed to those who were his regular ministers in such matters.
י׳
10[34] Thus started on their course they spent their days in the gymnasium jeering at the king and bringing out a succession of gibes against him. In fact they took the authors of farces and jests for their instructors and thereby showed their natural ability in things of shame, slow to be schooled in anything good but exceedingly quick and ready in learning the opposite.
י״א
11[35] Why did Flaccus show no indignation? Why did he not arrest them? Why did he not chastise them for their presumptuous evil-speaking? Even if Agrippa had not been a king, yet as a member of Caesar’s household, did he not deserve to have some precedence and marks of honour? No, these are clear proofs that Flaccus was a party to the defamation. For it is evident that if he who could have chastised or at the very least stopped them did nothing to prevent them from acting in this way they did it with the full permission and consent of him himself. And if the undisciplined mob get a starting point for their misconduct in any direction, they do not halt there but pass on from one thing to another, always engaging in some fresh form of violence.