Page:Lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ (1836).djvu/206

 Caesar to the throne, raised Agrippa from his chains to freedom, and to the most intimate favor of the new monarch. The tetrarchy of Iturea and Trachonitis, then vacant by the death of Philip, was immediately conferred on him; and soon after, Herod Antipas having been exiled, his territories, Galilee and Peraea, were added to the former dominions of Herod Agrippa, and with them was granted to him the title of king, which had never yet been given to any of the descendents of Herod the Great. In this state were the governments of these countries at the time of the events last narrated; but Herod Agrippa, often visiting Rome, left all Palestine in the hands of Publius Petronius, the just and benevolent Roman president of Syria. In this state, affairs remained during all the short reign of Caius Caligula Caesar, who, after four years mostly characterized by folly, vice and cruelty, ended his days by the daggers of assassins. But this great event proved no check to the flourishing fortunes of his favorite, king Herod Agrippa; who, in the course of the events which ended in placing Claudius on the throne, so distinguished himself in the preliminary negociations between the new emperor and the senate, sharing as he did the confidence and regard of both parties, that he was justly considered by all, as the most active means of effecting the comfortable settlement of their difficulties; and he was therefore deemed well deserving of the highest rewards. Accordingly, the first act of Claudius's government, like the first of Caligula's, was the presentation of a new kingdom to this favorite of fortune,—Judea being now added to the other countries in his possession, and thus bringing all Palestine into one noble kingdom, beneath his extensive sway. With a dominion comprising all that the policy of his grandfather had been able to attain during a long and active life, he now found himself, at the age of fifty-one, one of the most extraordinary instances of romantic fortune that had ever occurred; and anxious to enjoy something of the solid pleasure of visiting and governing his great and flourishing kingdom, he set sail from Rome, which had been so long to him the scene of such varied fortune, such calamitous poverty and tedious imprisonment,—and now proceeded as the proud king of Palestine, going home in triumph to the throne of his ancestor, supported by the most boundless pledges of imperial favor. The emperor Claudius, though regretting exceedingly the departure of the tried friend whom he had so much reason to love and cherish, yet would not detain