Legatio Ad Gaium

Philo Judaeus

The works of Philo Judaeus, the contemporary of Josephus, volume 4. Yonge, C. D., translator. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1855.

And do not seek for any more abundant causes; for you have a sufficient foundation with respect to the customs of the Jews and the national laws of that people, in which you yourself were bred up, and in which you have been instructed from your very earliest childhood, not by one man only, but by that most chattering and vexatious portion of the city of Alexandria. So now, make an exhibition of your learning."

By these preposterous and accursed arguments

v.4.p.138

he excited his own expectations, and trained himself, and inflamed his own wishes; and then he attended upon and courted Caius, day and night, never leaving him for a moment, but being with him at all times and on all occasions, and employing every moment when he was by himself, or when he was resting, to pour forth accusations against our nation, like a most infamous man as he was, exciting pleasure in the mind of the emperor by ridiculing the Jews and their laws and customs, that thus his calumnies might wound us the more effectually; for he never openly confessed himself to be our accuser, nor could he in fact make such a confession; but he went by all kinds of crooked paths, and practised every sort of manoeuvre, and thus was a more dangerous and formidable enemy than even those men who openly recorded their hatred of and hostility towards us.

They say also that some of the ambassadors of the Alexandrians, being completely aware of this, had secretly hired him by considerable bribes, and not only by money but by hopes of future honours, which they led him to expect he might attain to at no distant period, when Caius should come to Alexandria.

And he, being continually declaiming of that time in which, while his master was present, and in conjunction with him, he should be almost supreme in his power over a large portion of the world (for it was notorious enough that by his assiduous courting of Caius, he would be able to acquire power over the most illustrious portion of the citizens, and over all those who are held in especial honour by the most magnificent and glorious city, [*](There seems some corruption in the text here. ) promised every thing).