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XXIII. He was unwilling to be thought or called the grandson of Agrippa, because of the obscurity of his birth; and he was offended if any one, either in prose or verse, ranked him amongst the Caesars. He said that his mother was the fruit of an incestuous commerce, maintained by Augustus with his daughter Julia.
He gave his daughter Julia in the first instance to Marcellus, his sister's son, who had just completed his minority; and, after his death, to Marcus Agrippa, having prevailed with his sister to yield her son-in-law to his wishes; for at that time Agrippa was married to one of the Marcellas, and had children by her.
I have not gone fully into the reasons that induced Whitaker to believe that the discoveries showed that the building was a Rotunda, but it is curious that he should have thought they had a similarity to the Pantheon at Rome, which antiquaries since his time have proved was not 'built for a temple, but that it was an entrance hall or vestibule of the Baths of Agrippa, although it is doubtful if the Rotunda was built at the same time as the Portico, which was, without doubt, erected B.C. 27.
In this way the chronicler wanders on between bare chronology and digression, until he reaches the reign of Agrippa, when he again finds written sources to help him. The romance of Agrippa's rise from a bankrupt courtier to the ruler of a kingdom is treated with something of the same full detail as the events of Herod's career, and probably the historian enjoyed here the use of royal memoirs.
Herod sailed from Judea; and when he met with him, he had none with him but Antipater, whom he delivered to Agrippa, that he might take him along with him, together with many presents, that so he might become Caesar's friend, insomuch that things already looked as if he had all his father's favor, and that the young men were already entirely rejected from any hopes of the kingdom.
They were unlettered, plebeian, unimportant. If there were distinguished converts, we do not know their names. Ecclesiastical history is silent as to distinguished persons except as persecutors, or as great contemporaries. We read of the calamities of the Jews, of Herod Agrippa, of Philo, of Nero's persecution, of the emperors, but not of Christians.
The predictions of its downfall, already circulated among the Christians, began to mingle with the shouts of its fanatical inhabitants; and already, even at the accession of Agrippa the Second to his limited sovereignty, every thing portended that miserable consummation which at no distant period closed the temporal scene of Hebrew hope and dominion.
Hereupon Zenodorus was grieved, in the first place, because his principality was taken away from him; and still more so, because he envied Herod, who had gotten it; So he went up to Rome to accuse him, but returned back again without success. However, some of the Gadarens came to Agrippa, and accused Herod, whom he sent back bound to the king without giving them the hearing.
Augustus's idea is clear: he was trying to please everybody the partisans of Caius Cæsar by not opposing the law, and Tiberius, by giving the most splendid compensation, making him his colleague in place of Agrippa. Unfortunately, Tiberius was not the man to accept this compensation.
XXII. He did not make the death of Augustus public, until he had taken off young Agrippa.
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