8 PHILO'S POLITICS
justifiable fears that he might be equally suspect. Three Alexandrians
persuaded him that his only recourse was to play into their hands and
so gain the support of the city of Alexandria.^13 Their price, according to
Philo, was that he give Alexandrians a free hand with the Jews. Flaccus
capitulated, and had begun by turning against the Jews every lawsuit
in which a Jew was involved, when a crisis was brought on by the un
fortunate coming of Agrippa to Alexandria. Agrippa had just been
confirmed at Rome by Gaius as king in his Palestinian principality, and
called at Alexandria on his return to the east instead of sailing directly
to Palestine. At Alexandria he conducted himself with all modesty, says
Philo, but Flaccus was forced to recognize his presence, even though
Agrippa's higher title, "king," seemed to reflect upon the dignity of the
prefect. Agrippa was of course reckoned as being a Jew. The situation
was at once capitalized by the Jew baiters of the city as a pretext for in
sults to Agrippa and the Jews in general, and at last culminated in a
great "rag" in which a harmless madman was taken to the gymnasium,
set up in mock royal splendor before the multitude, and hailed as king
by the Syriac word for king so that no one would mistake the person
being caricatured.
After this the crowd naturally went farther. Under pretence of loy
alty to Gaius, using that loyalty "as a screen," the mob decided to set up
images of the emperor in the synagogues. Tracy suggests that the
"screen" was intended deliberately to shield from punishment those
who had insulted Agrippa, and he may be right, though it seems just as
likely that the mob was simply running away with itself. Certainly
Flaccus made no attempt to stop the rioters: instead he soon outlawed
the Jews as a body and turned them over to the mob without reserva
tion. Perhaps, as Tracy thinks, Flaccus justified this last step by the fact
that some Jews had forcibly resisted the Alexandrians who had set up
images of Gaius in the synagogue. In any case, the dam was now com
pletely down. Murder, public humiliation of prominent Jews, plunder,
and rape, the usual business of a pogrom, went on unchecked.
The story now becomes slightly confused, since Philo does not indi
cate periods of time with any accuracy. It would appear that on the ac
cession of Gaius, certainly some time before the rioting, the Jews of
Alexandria had drawn up an honorific decree for the new emperor in
- Viae, 20-24. On these men see Stein in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopadie, IX, 2061 f.;
XII, 581.