From the Taking of Jerusalem by Antiochus Epiphanes to the Death of Herod the Great - Flavius Josephus

some offenses had been put out of that honorable employment. Herod was in
a very great rage at these informations, and presently ordered those men to
be tortured; yet did not they confess any thing of what the king had been
informed; but a certain letter was produced, as written by Alexander to the
governor of a castle, to desire him to receive him and Aristobulus into the
castle when he had killed his father, and to give them weapons, and what
other assistance he could, upon that occasion. Alexander said that this letter
was a forgery of Diophantus. This Diophantus was the king's secretary, a
bold man, and cunning in counterfeiting any one's hand; and after he had
counterfeited a great number, he was at last put to death for it. Herod did also
order the governor of the castle to be tortured, but got nothing out of him of
what the accusations suggested.
4. However, although Herod found the proofs too weak, he gave order to
have his sons kept in custody; for till now they had been at liberty. He also
called that pest of his family, and forger of all this vile accusation, Eurycles,
his savior and benefactor, and gave him a reward of fifty talents. Upon which
he prevented any accurate accounts that could come of what he had done, by
going immediately into Cappadocia, and there he got money of Archelaus,
having the impudence to pretend that he had reconciled Herod to Alexander.
He thence passed over into Greece, and used what he had thus wickedly
gotten to the like wicked purposes. Accordingly, he was twice accused
before Caesar, that he had filled Achaia with sedition, and had plundered its
cities; and so he was sent into banishment. And thus was he punished for
what wicked actions he had been guilty of about Aristobulus and Alexander.
5. But it will now be worth while to put Euaratus of Cos in opposition to
this Spartan; for as he was one of Alexander's most intimate friends, and
came to him in his travels at the same time that Eurycles came; so the king
put the question to him, whether those things of which Alexander was
accused were true? He assured him upon oath that he had never heard any
such things from the young men; yet did this testimony avail nothing for the
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