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Against Apion by Flavius Josephus
page 77 of 134 (57%)
that he did rightly and very justly in so doing; for that
Ptolemy who was called Physco, upon the death of his
brother Philometer, came from Cyrene, and would have
ejected Cleopatra as well as her sons out of their kingdom,
that he might obtain it for himself unjustly. (5) For this
cause
then it was that Onias undertook a war against him on
Cleopatra's account; nor would he desert that trust the royal
family had reposed in him in their distress. Accordingly, God
gave a remarkable attestation to his righteous procedure; for
when Ptolemy Physco (6) had the presumption to fight
against Onias's army, and had caught all the Jews that were
in the city [Alexandria], with their children and wives, and
exposed them naked and in bonds to his elephants, that they
might be trodden upon and destroyed, and when he had
made those elephants drunk for that purpose, the event
proved contrary to his preparations; for these elephants left
the Jews who were exposed to them, and fell violently upon
Physco's friends, and slew a great number of them; nay, after
this Ptolemy saw a terrible ghost, which prohibited his hurting
those men; his very concubine, whom he loved so well, (some
call her Ithaca, and others Irene,) making supplication to
him, that he would not perpetrate so great a wickedness. So
he complied with her request, and repented of what he either
had already done, or was about to do; whence it is well
known that the Alexandrian Jews do with good reason
celebrate this day, on the account that they had thereon been
vouchsafed such an evident deliverance from God. However,
Apion, the common calumniator of men, hath the
presumption to accuse the Jews for making this war against
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