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

accordingly by agreement they went away, Antipater to Rome, and Pheroras
to Perea; for that they oftentimes talked to one another thus: That after Herod
had slain Alexander and Aristobulus, he would fall upon them, and upon
their wives, because, after he Mariamne and her children he would spare
nobody; and that for this reason it was best to get as far off the wild beast as
they were able: - and that Antipater oftentimes lamented his own case before
his mother, and said to her, that he had already gray hairs upon his head, and
that his father grew younger again every day, and that perhaps death would
overtake him before he should begin to be a king in earnest; and that in case
Herod should die, which yet nobody knew when it would be, the enjoyment
of the succession could certainly be but for a little time; for that these heads
of Hydra, the sons of Alexander and Aristobulus, were growing up: that he
was deprived by his father of the hopes of being succeeded by his children,
for that his successor after his death was not to be any one of his own sons,
but Herod the son of Mariamne: that in this point Herod was plainly
distracted, to think that his testament should therein take place; for he would
take care that not one of his posterity should remain, because he was of all
fathers the greatest hater of his children. Yet does he hate his brother still
worse; whence it was that he a while ago gave himself a hundred talents, that
he should not have any intercourse with Pheroras. And when Pheroras said,
Wherein have we done him any harm? Antipater replied, "I wish he would
but deprive us of all we have, and leave us naked and alive only; but it is
indeed impossible to escape this wild beast, who is thus given to murder,
who will not permit us to love any person openly, although we be together
privately; yet may we be so openly too, if we have but the courage and the
hands of men."
4. These things were said by the women upon the torture; as also that
Pheroras resolved to fly with them to Perea. Now Herod gave credit to all
they said, on account of the affair of the hundred talents; for he had no
discourse with any body about them, but only with Antipater. So he vented
his anger first of all against Antipater's mother, and took away from her all
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