Note 285 — Chapter XVII · THE JEWS OF THE EMPIRE TILL THE REVOLT

Horace, Ep. II. ii. 184. The sumptuous present of Aristobulus, which formed part of Pompey’s triumphal procession, Josephus, Ant. XIV. iii. 1. Pliny, Hist. Nat. XXXVII. ii. 12, must have made the Jewish kings symbols of enormous wealth. None the less, Herod’s unsparing severity toward his own sons was also well known, and it is said to have elicited from Augustus the phrase mallem Herodis porcus esse quam filius—Macrob. Sat. II. iv. 11—a jest which, as Reinach points out (Textes, p. 358), is of doubtful authenticity, and certainly not original.