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

Chapter 33
Herod Commands Antipater to Be Slain
1. Now Herod's distemper became more and more severe to him, and
this because these his disorders fell upon him in his old age, and when he
was in a melancholy condition; for he was already seventy years of age, and
had been brought by the calamities that happened to him about his children,
whereby he had no pleasure in life, even when he was in health; the grief
also that Antipater was still alive aggravated his disease, whom he resolved
to put to death now not at random, but as soon as he should be well again,
and resolved to have him slain [in a public manner].
2. There also now happened to him, among his other calamities, a
certain popular sedition. There were two men of learning in the city
[Jerusalem,] who were thought the most skillful in the laws of their country,
and were on that account had in very great esteem all over the nation; they
were, the one Judas, the son of Sepphoris, and the other Mattbias, the son of
Margalus. There was a great concourse of the young men to these men when
they expounded the laws, and there got together every day a kind of an army
of such as were growing up to be men. Now when these men were informed
that the king was wearing away with melancholy, and with a distemper, they
dropped words to their acquaintance, how it was now a very proper time to
defend the cause of God, and to pull down what had been erected contrary to
the laws of their country; for it was unlawful there should be any such thing
in the temple as images, or faces, or the like representation of any animal
whatsoever. Now the king had put up a golden eagle over the great gate of
the temple, which these learned men exhorted them to cut down; and told
them, that if there should any danger arise, it was a glorious thing to die for
the laws of their country; because that the soul was immortal, and that an
eternal enjoyment of happiness did await such as died on that account; while
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