Physco, when he ought to have commended them for the
same. This man also makes mention of Cleopatra, the last
queen of Alexandria, and abuses us, because she was
ungrateful to us; whereas he ought to have reproved her, who
indulged herself in all kinds of injustice and wicked
practices,
both with regard to her nearest relations and husbands who
had loved her, and, indeed, in general with regard to all the
Romans, and those emperors that were her benefactors; who
also had her sister Arsinoe slain in a temple, when she had
done her no harm: moreover, she had her brother slain by
private treachery, and she destroyed the gods of her country
and the sepulchers of her progenitors; and while she had
received her kingdom from the first Caesar, she had the
impudence to rebel against his son: (7) and successor; nay,
she corrupted Antony with her love-tricks, and rendered him
an enemy to his country, and made him treacherous to his
friends, and [by his means] despoiled some of their royal
authority, and forced others in her madness to act wickedly.
But what need I enlarge upon this head any further, when
she left Antony in his fight at sea, though he were her
husband, and the father of their common children, and
compelled him to resign up his government, with the army,
and to follow her [into Egypt]? nay, when last of all Caesar
had taken Alexandria, she came to that pitch of cruelty, that
she declared she had some hope of preserving her affairs still,
in case she could kill the Jews, though it were with her own
hand; to such a degree of barbarity and perfidiousness had
she arrived. And doth any one think that we cannot boast
ourselves of any thing, if, as Apion says, this queen did not