to complain to an Emperor about his own portrait, but Caligula was known to be a charming and reasonable young man, and the deputation had been selected for its tact.
As they crossed the harbour, the Temple of Cæsar stood out on the right, so impressive, so brilliant, that Philo could not repress his enthusiasm and recalled the view in after years.
It is a piece incomparably above all others (he writes). It stands by a most commodious harbour, wonderfully high and large in proportion; an eminent sea mark: full of choice paintings and statues with donatives and oblatives in abundance; and then it is beautiful all over with gold and silver: the model curious and regular in the disposition of the parts, as galleries, libraries, porches, courts, halls, walks, and consecrated groves, as glorious as expense and art could make them, and everything in its proper place; besides that, the hope and comfort of seafaring men, either coming in or going out.
When would he see this temple as he came in? Although Cleopatra had begun it for Antony, and Augustus finished it for himself, it filled him with love, and he turned from it with reluctance to the coast on the left, really more important, because Jehovah had translated the entire Bible into Greek there. There stood those seventy huts! O wonder! It was one of the anecdotes with which he hoped to rivet the attention of Caligula, when they arrived at Rome.
That charming and reasonable young man had lately recovered from a severe illness, at which the whole civilised world rejoiced, and the Eternal City was full of embassies waiting to congratulate him. Among these, ominously enough, was a counter-deputation from Alexandria, strongly anti-Semite in tone.
Philo watched it narrowly. The imperial
