Page:Selections. Translated by H. St. J. Thackeray (1919).djvu/23

 1 Esdras and Esther, some legends of Alexander the Great, the Letter of Aristeas, 1 Maccabees and (occasionally) Polybius. From this point he relies largely on two lost Universal Histories of Augustan writers, Strabo and Nicolas of Damascus. The latter was undoubtedly his chief authority for the very full account of the reign of Herod the Great, though he does not accept all his statements without question, and appears to have had access to some less eulogistic history of that monarch. Mention is once made of the "Memoirs of King Herod" (XV, 174). With the accession of Archelaus the history, unfortunately for the student of the N.T., again becomes meagre, expanding into greater fullness when the reign of Agrippa I is reached. With regard to him Josephus would obtain information from his son, Agrippa II, and for the events leading up to the war he could draw on his own recollections. The account of the assassination of Gaius, which is of primary importance for the Roman historian, was thought by Mommsen to be derived from the work of Cluvius Rufus, a witness of the events which immediately preceded it. Besides these authorities Josephus had access to priestly records (he notes the succession of high priests throughout the narrative) and to important decrees concerning privileges granted on various occasions to Jews resident in Asia and elsewhere.

(iii) The Life was written as a sequel to the Antiquities, to which it is appended in the MSS. A promise of such an appendix is made at the end of Ant. (XX. 266); and the Life closes with a dedication of the whole history to Epaphroditus, the patron named in the exordium to the larger work. But the Life seems to have been an afterthought, added only after an interval of some six or seven years, since it is implied that, Agrippa II is already dead, and his death is said to have occurred in 100.