they will lend nothing to any non-Jew, even if he is dying of starvation, still less to any Jew who has put himself outside the congregation, as they call it, by following un-Jewish customs in foreign lands - unless they are quite, sure that they will get some substantial return for their generosity.
MY mother and I were unaware of Herod's return to Italy until one day a hurried note came from him, saying that he was coming to see us and adding darkly that he counted on our help to tide him over a great crisis of his fortunes. `If it's money that he wants,' I said to my mother, `the answer is that we have none.' And indeed we did not have any money, to throw away at this time,, as I have explained in my previous book. But my mother said: `It is very base to talk in that strain, Claudius. You were always a boor. If Herod needs money because he is in difficulties we must certainly raise money in some way or other: I owe it to the memory of his dead mother Berenice. In spite of her outlandish religious habits Berenice was one of my best friends. And such a splendid household manager, too!'
My mother had not seen Herod for some seven years and had missed him greatly. But he had been a most dutiful correspondent, writing to her about each of his troubles in turn and in such an amusing way, that they seemed the most delightful adventures that you would find anywhere in Greek story-books, instead of genuine troubles. Perhaps the gayest letter of all was the one that he wrote from Edom shortly after leaving Rome, telling how his sweet, dear, silly wife Cypros had discouraged him from, his leap from the fortress battlements. `She was quite right,' he concluded. `It was an excessively high tower.' A recent letter, also written from Edom, was in the same strain; it was while he was waiting for the money from Acre. He told of his shame at having sunk so low morally as to steal a Persian merchant's riding-camel. However, he wrote, shame had soon turned to a feeling of virtue for having done the owner so signal a service: the beast being apparently the permanent home of seven evil spirits, each worse than the last. The merchant must have, been incomparably relieved to have awakened one morning and found his treasured possession really gone, saddle, bridle, and all. It had been a most terrifying journey through, the Syrian desert, the camel doing its best to kill him at every dry water-course or narrow pass that they came to and even sneaking up at night to trample on his sleeping body. He wrote again from Alexandria to tell us that he had turned the beast loose in Edom, but that it had stalked him with a wicked look in its eye all the way down to the coast. `I swear to you, most noble and learned Lady Antonia, my; earliest friend and my most generous benefactress, that it was terror of that horrible camel rather than fear of my creditors that made me give the Governor the slip at Anthedon. It would certainly have insisted on sharing my prison cell with me if I had yielded to arrest.' There was a postscript: `My cousins of Edom were extraordinarily hospitable, but I must not allow you to carry away the impression that they were extravagant. They carry economy so far that they only put on clean linen on three occasions - when they marry, when they die, and when they raid a caravan which supplies them with clean linen free of charge. There is not a single fuller in the whole of Edom.' Herod naturally put the most favourable construction possible on his quarrel, or misunderstanding as he called it, with Flaccus. He blamed himself for his thoughtlessness and praised Flaccus as a man with almost too high a sense of honour, if that were possible certainly it was much too high for the people whom he governed to appreciate: they regarded him as an eccentric,
Herod now told us the parts, of his story that he had omitted from his letters, concealing nothing, or practically nothing, for he knew that this was the best way to behave with my mother; and he especially delighted her - though of course she pretended to be dreadfully shocked - with his story of the kidnapping of the soldiers and his attempt to bluff the Alabarch. He also described his voyage from Alexandria in a dangerous storm when everyone but himself and the captain had, so he said, been prostrated by seasickness for five days and nights. The captain had spent all his time weeping and praying, leaving Herod to navigate the vessel single-handed.
Then he went on: `When at last, standing in the forecastle of our gallant ship, which had now stopped its rolling and pitching, and heedless of the thanks and praises of the now convalescent crew, I saw the Bay of Naples stretched shining before me, its shores gleaming with beautiful temples and villas, and mighty Vesuvius towering above, and reeking with wisps of cloud, like a domestic hearth - I confess, I wept. I realized that I was coming home to my first and dearest homeland. I thought of all my beloved Roman friends from whom I had been so long parted, and especially of you, most learned and beautiful and noble Antonia - of you too, Claudius, naturally - how happy we would be to greet one another again. But first, it was clear, I had to establish myself decently. It would have been most unsuitable for me to have presented myself at your door like a beggar or poor client, asking for relief. As soon as we had landed and I had cashed the Alabarch's draft, which was on a Naples bank, I wrote at once to the Emperor, at Capri, begging to be allowed, the privilege of an audience. He granted it most graciously, saying that he was pleased to hear of my safe return, and we had a most encouraging talk together the next day. I am sorry to say that I felt bound to divert him - for he was in a rather morose, humour at first - with some Asiatic stories that I certainly would not injure your modesty by repeating here. But you know how it is with the Emperor: he has an ingenious mind and is very catholic in his tastes. Well, when I had told him a particularly characteristic story in that style he said, ‘Herod, you're a man after my own heart. I wish you to undertake an appointment of great responsibility - the tutoring of my only grandchild, Tiberius Gemellus, whom I have here with me. As an intimate friend of his dead father you will surely not refuse it, and I trust that the lad will take to you. He is, I am sorry to say, a sullen, melancholy little fellow and needs an open-hearted lively elder companion on whom to model himself.’
'I stopped the night at Capri, and by morning the Emperor and I were better friends than ever - he had disregarded his doctors' advice and drunk with me all night. I thought that my fortunes were restored at last, when suddenly the single horse-hair, by which the- sword of Damocles had so long been suspended over my unlucky head, contrived to snap. A letter arrived for the Emperor from that idiot of a Governor at Anthedon reporting that he had served a warrant on me for non-payment of a twelve-thousand debt to the Privy Purse and that I had 'eluded arrest by an artifice' and had escaped, kidnapping two of his garrison, who had not yet returned and had probably been murdered. I assured the Emperor-that the soldiers were alive and that they had stowed away in my vessel without my knowledge and that no warrant had been served on me. Perhaps they had been sent to serve it, I said, but had decided to go for a holiday to Egypt. At all events we found them hiding in the cargo when we were half- way to Alexandria. I assured the Emperor that at Alexandria I had returned them at once to Anthedon for punishment.'
`Herod Agrippa,' said my mother severely, `that was a deliberate lie and I am most ashamed of you.'
`Not so ashamed as I have been of myself since, dear. Lady Antonia,' said Herod. `How often have you told me that honesty is the best policy? But in the East everyone tells lies and one naturally discounts nine-tenths of what one hears, and expects one's hearers to do the same. For the moment I had forgotten that I was back in a country where it is considered dishonourable to deviate a hair's breadth from the strict-truth
`Did the Emperor believe you?' I asked.
'I hope so, with all my heart,' said Herod. `He asked me, 'But what about the debt?' I told him that it was a loan granted me in proper, form and on good security by the Privy Purse, and that if a warrant had been issued for my arrest' on that account it must have been that traitor Sejanus's doing: I would speak to the Treasurer at once and settle the matter with him. But the Emperor said: 'Herod, unless that debt is paid in full within a week you shall not be tutor to my grandson.' You know how strict he is about debts to the Privy Purse. I said in as casual a tone as I could command, that I would certainly pay it within three days. But my heart was like lead. And so I immediately wrote to you, my dear benefactress, thinking that perhaps ...'
My mother said again, `It was very, very wrong of you, Herod, to tell the Emperor such lies.'
'I know it, I know it,' said Herod, feigning deep repentance. `If you had been, in my position you would undoubtedly have told the truth:' but I lacked the courage. And, as I say, these seven years in the East away from you have greatly blunted my moral sensibilities.'
`Claudius,' said my mother with sudden resolution, `how can we raise twelve thousand in a hurry? What about the letter you had from Aristobulus this morning?'
By a pretty coincidence I had had a letter from Aristobulus only that morning asking me to invest some money for him in landed property, which was going cheap at that time, because of the scarcity of coin. He had enclosed a banker's draft for. 10,000. My mother told Herod about it.
`Aristobulus!' cried Herod. `How in the world did he rake ten thousand together? The unprincipled fellow must have been making use of his influence with Flaccus to take bribes from the natives.'
`I consider, in that case,' said my mother, `that he behaved very shabbily towards you in reporting to my old friend Flaccus that the Damascenes were sending you a present for having pleaded their cause so well. I should
