sac. I 25. The mention of Gallio (xviii. 12), would furnish a note of time, were the date of his pro consulate in Achaia on record. We can only con , jecture that it was through the interest of his brother Seneca, who, disgraced and in exile from 41 to 43, thereafter stood in the highest favour with Claudius and Agrippina, that Gallio was pre sently made consul (suffect) and then proconsul of Achaia (Plin. H. N. xxxi. 33 ; comp. Senec. los). So, the date would be not earlier than 49, and not much later.
26. The decree of Claudius for the expulsion of all Jews from Rome (xviii. 2) is mentioned by Suetonius in a well-known passage, Claud. 25, but neither dated nor placed in any discoverable order of time (Dion Cass. lx. 6, relates to merely re strictive measures taken or contemplated in the beginning of the reign). If, as is likely, it formed part of a general measure for the expulsion of the ' astrologers ' (Chaldevi, mathematici, astrologi), its date may be as late as 52, in which year de mathe maticis Italia pellendis factlem SC. alma- et isritanz (Tacit. Ann. xii. 52). But Zonaras (p. 972, ed. Reimar) in the summary compiled from Dion Cass., places an expulsion of the astrologers from Italy immediately after the elevation of Agrippina, A.D. 49, and before the arrival of Caractacus at Rome, A.D. 50; and in Tacitus, ae. s. 22, we find Agrip pina, just after her marriage, accusing her rival Lollia of dealings with Chaldeans and Magi. It is not likely that any general severe measure against the Jews would be taken while the younger Agrippa, a special favourite of Claudius, was still at Rome, as he certainly was to the end of 48, when he succeeded his uncle Herod as king of cis (Anlig. xx. 5. 2, and 7. i ; Bell. yud. ii. 14. 4, where for ETTGC/Cat5eKaTOV we must read gvvecucat8).
The insurrectionary movements in Judma early in 49 may have been connected with the decree as cause or effect (Antiq. xx. 5. 3, 4). All these indi cations point to the year 49, and it is remarkable that that is the year named by Orosius (Hist. vii. 6, 'ninth year of Claudius ') from some lost source of intelligence ; at Yosepnus tradit, he says ; but that is a mistake.
27. The year of the recall of Felix and appoint ment of Festus as his successor (Acts xxiv. 27) is not on record, and the arrival of St. Paul at Rome, in the spring of the following year, has been as signed to every one of the years, from 56 to 63 in clusive. The earliest is that given by the ancients, and is advocated in Ordo Soclorant, sec. 108, ff. But the writer perceives now that one principal argument there used is not tenable. From the statement of Josephus (Antiq. xx. 8. 9) that Felix on his return to Rome escaped condemnation upon the charges laid against him before Nero, chiefly through the influence of his brother Pallas, whose consideration with that emperor was 'just then at its highest' (imiXicra. ToTE aca, rcidp gXCOP eICEIPOP), combined with the fact, related by Tacitus (Ann. xiii. 14, 15), of Pallas's removal from his office at the head of the fiscies, shortly before the death of Britannicus, who had nearly completed his t4th year, and with the latter part of the state ment in Sueton. Claud. 27, that Britannicus was born vigesimo lintel-ii die inque consulate ( = A. D. 42), it was inferred that not long before Feb. 56 A. D. , Pallas had ceased to be at the height of imperial favour, consequently the recall of Felix could not be placed later than the summer of A.D. 55. This must he rejected ; for Tacitus, Si. s. 15, evidently places the death of Britannicus early in 55, the events of which year begin at ch. t., and end with ch. 25 ; therefore the former part of Suetonius's statement is alone true—that Britannicus was born on the loth day of the reign of Claudius, = 13th Feb. A.D. 41. Dion Cassius, indeed, mentions the birth under the second year (lx, to), but not until he has expressly returned to the former year, 7-c.3 7rporgpco grn. Hence it is
clear that if the date of Pallas's loss of office is decisive for the date of his brother's recall, this must have occurred, at latest, in 54, before the death of Claudius (t3th Oct. of that year) and no part of the procuratorship of Felix would have been under Nero : a result totally incompatible with the narrative of Josephus, Antiq, xx. S; Bell. 7ad. ii. 13. On the other hand, it is hard to say at what conjuncture in Nero's time Pallas could be said to have been held ,uciAta-ra Sit rbre &A At the very beginning of the reign it is noted of him that tristi arrogantia modunt liberti egressus ttodiant sai moverat (Tacit. Ann. xiii. 2) ; within a month or two he is removed from the fisczts ; about a year later, when impeached, together with Burrus, nec tam grata Pallantis innocentia guam gravis superbia foil (Tacit. u. s. 23) ; as the ally of Agrippina he was an object more of fear than of favour ; and his great wealth caused his removal by death A. D. 62, good immensant pecuniam Tonga senecta detineret (Ann. xiv. 65). The present writer strongly suspects that in this matter of Pallas's influence, exercised on behalf of his brother, Josephus was misinformed. Of very ma terial circumstances relative to Felix he certainly was ignorant, unless we are to suppose that Tacitus had no documentary warrant for the very circum stantial account which he gives under the year 52 (Ann. xii. 54) ; how Felix was then jam pridem 7znitote impositus, holding a divided command with Cumanus, at haic Galiltoortent natio, Felici Samari ta parerent. He may have mistaken the nature of this divided rule ; in fact, there is reason to be lieve that Felix held a military command, as Sue tonius relates (Claud. 28) ; Felicent legionibzts et alis provinciague Yltairte imposait, and Victor (in the Epitome, p. 36t) ; Felicem legion bus yiedtete rtefecit. Of that associated government, and of Felix's equal share in the wrongs of which Cuma nus was accused, Josephus is ignorant ; but what he says of Pallas and Felix is far more suitable to that earlier conjuncture, as described by Taci tus, than to the later occasion to which he refers it. At that time, viz., when Cumanus was de posed, ' Felix would certainly have suffered for the wrongs done by him to the Jews, but for the in tercession of his brother Pallas, whom the emperor [Claudius] at that very time held in the highest consideration ;' for that Pallas just then had reached the pinnacle of his commanding influence, Tacitus shews in the preceding recital of the public honours decreed to him, and by him recorded as the crowning glory of his life in his own epitaph (Plin. Ep. vii. viii. 6). Even in the account Josephus gives of that earlier conjuncture (in which he speaks only of Cumanus and the final hearing before Claudius, Ant. xx. 6. 3), he mentions the ' very great exertions made by the emperor's freed men and friends for Cumanus and the Samaritans.' The absence of dates, of which Josephus is not sparing when he has them, of itself implies that his materials for the account of Felix were scanty ; and the way in which Burrus is introduced, after the passage relating to Pallas (Ant. xx. S. 9), strength ens the suspicion raised by the conflicting account in Tacitus, that the Jewish historian in this para graph is mixing up with his recital of what took place on the recall of Felix, occurrences of an earlier time. Certainly the accompanying notice, oirros Se ratotcycory6s itv roil NOcopos is more apposite to that earlier conjuncture in the time of Claudius (A.D. 52), when Nero was barely fourteen years old : it might still in some sense be notable as the ground of Burrus's influence in the beginning of Nero's reign, when he and Seneca are spoken of as rectores imperatorito juventce (Tacit. Ann. xiii. 2); but the description is very strange when re ferred to the year 61, the last of Burrus's life, especially as this is not the first mention of him.