But Herod's concern at present, now he had gotten his enemies
under his power, was to restrain the zeal of his foreign
auxiliaries; for the multitude of the strange people were very
eager to see the temple, and what was sacred in the holy house
itself; but the king endeavored to restrain them, partly by his
exhortations, partly by his threatenings, nay, partly by force,
as thinking the victory worse than a defeat to him, if any thing
that ought not to be seen were seen by them. He also forbade, at
the same time, the spoiling of the city, asking Sosius in the
most earnest manner, whether the Romans, by thus emptying the
city of money and men, had a mind to leave him king of a desert,
- and told him that he judged the dominion of the habitable
earth too small a compensation for the slaughter of so many
citizens. And when Sosius said that it was but just to allow the
soldiers this plunder as a reward for what they suffered during
the siege, Herod made answer, that he would give every one of
the soldiers a reward