The Jews put on sackcloth and lay in their tens of thousands prostrate on the ground about the Palace, even in that terrible heat. Agrippa saw them from the window of the upper room where his bed was laid and began to weep for them. `Poor. Jews,' he said. 'You have waited a thousand years, and must now wait, a thousand more, perhaps two thousand, before your day of glory breaks. This has been a false dawn. I deceived myself and I deceived you.' He called for pen and paper and wrote me a letter while he still had strength to hold the pen. I have the letter here before me with the others he wrote me and it is pitiful to compare the 'handwritings the others boldly and decisively written, line under line as regular as a flight of steps, and this scrawled crookedly, each letter jagged and broken with pain, like confessions written by criminals after they have been put on the rack or flogged with the cat-o’-nine-tails. It is short:
My last letter: I am dying. My body is full of maggots. Forgive your old friend, the, Brigand, who loved you dearly, yet secretly plotted to take the .East away from you. Why did I do this? Because Japhet and Shem can live as brothers, but each must rule his own house. The West would have remained yours from Rhodes to Britain. You would have been able to rid Rome of all the Gods and customs of the East: then and only then could the ancient liberty that you prize so much have returned to you. I have failed. I played too dangerous a game. Marmoset, you are a fool, but I envy you your folly: it is a sane folly. Now I charge you with my dying breath not to revenge yourself on my family. My son Agrippa is innocent: he knows nothing of my ambitions, and neither do my daughters. Cypros did all that she could to dissuade me. The best course for you now is to appear to know nothing. Treat all your Eastern allies as faithful allies still. With Herod gone what are they? Adders, but their fangs are drawn. They trusted me, but they have no trust in the Parthian. As for my dominions, make them a Roman province again, as in the time of Tiberius. Do not injure my honour by returning them to my uncle Antipas. To appoint my son Agrippa as my successor would be dangerous, but honour him in some way or other for: my sake. Do not put my dominions under the rule of Syria, under, my enemy Marsus. Rule them yourself, Marmoset. Make Felix your governor. Felix is a nobody and will do nothing either wise or foolish; I can write little more. My fingers fail me. I am in torrent. Do not weep for me: I have had a glorious life and regret nothing. but my one single folly - that I underrated the pride and power and jealousy of the ever-living God of Israel, that I bore myself towards Him like any foolish philosophizing Gadarene Greek. Now farewell for the last time, Tiberius Claudius, my friend whom I love more truly than you ever supposed. Farewell, little Marmoset, my school fellow, and trust nobody, for nobody about you is worthy of your trust.
Your dying friend Herod Agrippa, surnamed
THE BRIGAND
Before he died Herod called Helcias and Thaumastus and his brother Herod Pollio to him again and said to them: 'One last charge I lay upon you. Go to Silas in prison and tell him that I am dying. Say that Herod's Evil is on me. Remind him of the oath that I rashly swore at Alexandria in the house of Alexander the Alabarch. Tell him of the agony in which you see me writhing. Ask him to forgive me, if I have wronged him. Tell him that he may visit me and clasp my hand in friendship once more. Then deal with him as you think best, according to his answer.'
They went to the prison, where they found Silas in his cell with his writing-tablet on his knee. At sight of them he flung it face downwards on the floor. Thaumastus said: 'Silas, if that tablet is filled with reproaches against your King and master, Herod Agrippa, you do well to throw it down. When we tell you of the condition in which the King is lying you will surely weep. You will wish that you had never spoken a word of reproach against him, or put him to public shame by your unmannerly tongue. He is dying in agony. His disease is Herod's Evil, with which in a rash moment he once cursed himself at Alexandria, should he ever offend the Majesty of the Most High.'
`I know,' said. Silas. 'I was present when he swore that, and afterwards I warned him ...'
'Silence for the King's message. The King says: "Tell Silas of the agony in which you see me writhing, and ask him to forgive me if ever I have wronged him. He is at liberty now to leave his cell and come with you to the Palace. I should be pleased to clasp his hand in friendship once more before I die."'
Silas said sullenly: `You are Jews and I am only a despised Samaritan, so I suppose that I ought to feel honoured by your visit. But I'll tell you this about us Samaritans: we prize free speech and honest dealing above all the opinions, good or bad, that our Jewish neighbours may care to entertain about us. As for my, former friend and master King Herod, if he is in torment, then he has only himself to blame for not listening to my advice -'
Helcias turned to King Herod Pollio: 'He dies?'
Silas continued calmly: 'Three times I as good as saved his life, but this time I can do nothing for him. His fate is in God's hands. And, as for friendship, what sort of a friend do you call ...?'
Helcias seized a javelin from the hand of the soldier who was standing guard at the door and ran Silas through the belly. He made no movement to avoid the thrust.
Silas died at the very moment that, worn out by five days of incessant pain, King Herod Agrippa himself died, in Cypros's arms, to the indescribable grief and horror of the Jewish nation.
By now the whole .story was known. Herod's curse seemed to rest on all Jews alike: they were utterly unmanned. The Greeks were elated beyond measure. The regiments re-armed by Helcias at Herod's orders behaved in the most shameless and revolting way. They attacked the Palace and seized Cypros and her. daughters, intending to lead them in mockery through the streets of Caesarea. Cypros snatched sword from a soldier and killed herself, but her daughters were forced to put on their embroidered dresses and accompany their captors, and even to join in the hymns of thanksgiving sung for their father's death. When the procession ended they were taken to the regimental brothels and subjected there, on the roof-tops, to the grossest outrages and indecencies. And not only in Caesarea but in the Greek city of Samaria too, public banquets were spread in the squares and the Greeks, with garlands on their heads, and sweet-smelling ointments, ate and drank to their hearts' content, toasting each other and pouring libations to the Ferryman. The Jews did not raise a hand or voice in protest. `Whom God has cursed, is it lawful to succour?' For God's curse was held to descend to a man's children. These princesses were aged only six and ten years when they were so mistreated.