whereas wooden water-vessels were declared by the Law to be unclean, an exception was made by their tradition in favour of the larger size of the water-wells in the Alexandrian ships.  Agrippa had seen Egypt before, on his way to Rome, and he meant to make no stay there; but, though he landed purposely after dark, and with no pomp or show, he seems to have raised the anger of the prefect Flaccus, who felt jealous at any man of higher rank than himself coming into his province.  The Greeks fell into the prefect’s humour, and during the stay of Agrippa in Alexandria they lampooned him in songs and ballads, of which the raillery was not of the most delicate kind.  They mocked him by leading about the streets a poor idiot dressed up with a paper crown and a reed for a sceptre, in ridicule of his rather doubtful right to the style of royalty.

As these insults towards the emperor’s friend passed wholly unchecked by the prefect, the Greeks next assaulted the Jews in the streets and market-place, attacked their houses, rooted up the groves of trees around their synagogues, and tore down the decree by which the privileges of citizenship had been confirmed to them.  The Greeks then proceeded to set up by force a statue of the emperor in each Jewish synagogue, as if the new decree had included those places of worship among the temples, and, not finding statues enough, they made use of the statues of the Ptolemies, which they carried away from the gymnasium for that purpose.  During the last reign, under the stern government of Tiberius, Flaccus had governed with justice and prudence, but under Caligula he seemed to have lost all judgment in his zeal against the Jews.  When the riots in the streets could no longer be overlooked, instead of defending the injured party, he issued a decree in which he styled the Jews foreigners; thus at one word robbing them of their privileges and condemning them unheard.  By this the Greeks were hurried forward into further acts of injustice, and the Jews of resistance.  But the Jews were the weaker party:  they were overpowered, and all driven into one ward, and four hundred of their houses in the other wards were plundered, and the spoil divided as if taken in war.  They were stoned, and even burnt in the streets, if they ventured forth to buy food for their families.  Flaccus seized and scourged in the theatre thirty-eight of their venerable councillors, and, to show them that they were no longer citizens, the punishment was inflicted by the hands of Egyptian executioners.  While the city was in this state of riot, the Greeks gave out that the Jews were concealing arms; and Flaccus, to give them a fresh proof that they had lost the rights of citizenship, ordered that their houses should be forcibly entered and searched by a centurion and a band of soldiers.