Philo and his comrades, half-dead with agony, could only
pray; and in response to the prayer, says our moralizing chronicler,
the emperor's heart was turned to pity, so that he dismissed them
without giving any hostile answer. According to Josephus, he drove
them away in a passion, and Philo had to cheer his companions by
assuring them of the Divine aid.[78]
The affair was a pathetic farce, and the Jewish actors in it had a
sorry time. The people about the palace, taking their lead from the
emperor, treated them as clowns, and hissed and mocked them, and even
beat them. The scene is somewhat revolting when one conjures up the
picture of the aged Jewish philosopher being roughly handled by the
set of ruffians and impudent slaves who surrounded a Roman emperor.
Happily Gaius jeered once too often in his mad life. One Chaerea, a
Roman of position, nursed an insult of the emperor, and stabbed him
shortly after these events; and the world had the respite of a
tolerably sane emperor before the crowning horror of Nero was let
loose upon it.
The murder of the capricious tyrant released not only the Jews of
Alexandria, but also the Jews of Palestine, from the burden of fear
for their religion. The order had been given to set up a bronze statue
of the emperor in the temple; the Roman governor Petronius was averse
to obeying the edict, but the emperor insisted.
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