Page:Historical Works of Venerable Bede vol. 2.djvu/328

 256, and slay themselves. From which period some date the first year of the reign of Augustus. Up to this time, the descendants of Lagus had reigned in Egypt 295 years.

THE SIXTH AGE. A.M. 3952 [A.D. 1].

In the forty-second year of Augustus Cæsar, in the twenty-seventh from the death of Antony and Cleopatra, when Egypt became a Roman province, in the third year of the 193rd Olympiad, and in the 752nd from the building of the city, in the year when all commotions of nations were stilled throughout the whole world, and, by the appointment of God, Cæsar had established real and durable tranquillity, Jesus Christ consecrated by his advent the sixth age of the world. In the forty-seventh year of the reign of Augustus, Herod died a miserable and justly merited death, his body being dropsical and swarming with worms. His son Archelaus was appointed in his stead by Augustus, and reigned 9 years unto the end of Augustus's reign. For then the Jews, no longer able to endure his ferocity, made accusation against him before Augustus; whereupon he was banished to Vienne, a town of Gaul; and with a view to lessen the greatness of the kingdom of Judæa, and to bridle the insolence of the people, his four brothers, Herod, Antipater, Lysias, and Philip, were made Tetrarchs: of whom Philip and Herod, who was before called Antipas, had been made Tetrarchs, while Archelaus was yet alive.

A.M. 3979 [38].

Tiberius, step-son of Augustus, being the son of his wife Livia by a former husband, reigned 23 years. In the twelfth year of his reign he appointed Pilate governor of Judæa. Herod the Tetrarch, who ruled over the Jews 23 years, built Tiberias and Libias in honour of Tiberius and his mother Livia.