driven away by their kinsmen, the Egyptians, not on account
of any wickedness they had been guilty of, but on account of
the calamities they were under; for as to the Grecians, we
were rather remote from them in place, than different from
them in our institutions, insomuch that we have no enmity
with them, nor any jealousy of them. On the contrary, it hath
so happened that many of them have come over to our laws,
and some of them have continued in their observation,
although others of them had not courage enough to
persevere, and so departed from them again; nor did any
body ever hear this oath sworn by us: Apion, it seems, was
the only person that heard it, for he indeed was the first
composer of it.

12. However, Apion deserves to be admired for his great
prudence, as to what I am going to say, which is this," That
there is a plain mark among us, that we neither have just
laws, nor worship God as we ought to do, because we are not
governors, but are rather in subjection to Gentiles, sometimes
to one nation, and sometimes to another; and that our city
hath been liable to several calamities, while their city
[Alexandria] hath been of old time an imperial city, and not
used to be in subjection to the Romans." But now this man
had better leave off this bragging, for every body but himself
would think that Apion said what he hath said against
himself; for there are very few nations that have had the
good fortune to continue many generations in the
principality, but still the mutations in human affairs have put
them into subjection under others; and most nations have
been often subdued, and brought into subjection by others.