(= A.D. 42), Browne inferred that not long before Feb., A. D. 66, Pallas had ceased to be at the hei^^t of imperial favor ; consequently the recall of Felix could not be placed later than the summer of A.D. 55. This most be rejected ; for Tacitus (u. s, 15) evidently places the death of Britannlcos earlff in 55, the events of which year begin at ch. xi and end with ch. xz v ; therefore the former part of Suetonius's statement is alone true — that Britannicus was bom on the 20tii day of the reign of Clandins, =18th Feb., A.D. 41. Dion Cassias, in- deed, mentions the birth under the second year (Ix, 10), but not until he has expressly returned to the former year (rtji nporkpi^ ha). 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 (13th 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 (Ant. xx, 8; War^ ii, 13). On the other hand, it is hard to say at what con- juncture in Nero's time Pallas could be said to have been held thus at his highest estimation. At the very beginning of the reign it is noted of him that his arro- gance had excited the emperor's disgust (Tacit Ann, xiii, 2); within a month or two he is removed from the foots; about a year later, when impeached, together with Bumis, his reputation for insolence stood in the way of his acquittal (Tacit u, «. 23) ; as the ally of Agrippina he was an object more of fear than of favor ; and his great wealth caused his removal by death, A. D. 62, as his longevity seemed to preclude the hope of the emperor's otherwise possessing it (Ann, xiv, 65). This affords strong reason to suspect that in this mat- ter of Pallas's inBuence, exercised on behalf of his brother, Josephus was misinformed. Of very material circumstances relative to Felix he certainly was igno- rant, unless we are to suppose that Tadtus, on the oth- er hand, had no documentary warrant for the very cir- cumstantial account which he gives under the year 52 (Ann. xii, 54) ; how Felix had then been some time gov- ernor of Judflsa (** jam pridem Judsa impositU8"X hold- ing a divided command with Cumanus, the latter being over the Galilsans, while Felix was over the Samari- tans ('*ut huic GaliliBorum natio, Felid Samarita pa- rerent"). He may have mistaken the nature of this divided rule ; in fact, there is reason to believe that Felix held a mUitary command, as Suetonius relates (Claud. 28 : ** Felicem legionibus et alls provincisaquo JudsBS imposuit"), and Victor (in the Epitomej p. 861 : ** Felicem legionibus Judsss pr»fecit"). Of that asso- ciated government, and of Felix's equal share in the wrongs of which Cumanus was accused, Josephus is ig- norant ; but what he says of Pallas and Felix is fkr more suitable to that earlier conjuncture, as described by Tacitus, than to the later occasion to which he refers it At that time, viz. when Cumanus was deposed, " Felix would certainly have suffered for the wrongs done by him to the Jews but for the intercession 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 in- fluence, Tacitus shows in the preceding recital of the public honors decreed to him, and by him recorded as the crowning glory of his life in his own epitaph (Plin. Ep. vii, 29 ; 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, 8), he mentions the " very great exertions made by the emperor's freedmen and Mends for Cu- manus and the Samariiant." 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 in- troduced, after the passage relating to Pallas (Ant, xx, 8, 9), strengthens the suspicion raised by the conflict- ing account in Tadtus, that the Jewish historian in this 'ragraph is mixing up, with hii recital of what took
place on the recall of Felix, occurrences of an «ariier time. Certainly the accompanying notice (irai^7^ yog), *' he was the tutor of Nero," is more apposite to that earlier conjuncture in the time of daudins (A.D. 52), when Nero was barely fourteen years old. It mi^ht still, in some sense, be notable as the ground of Burrus's influence in the beginning of Nero's rdga. when he and Seneca are spoken of having diiarge of the imperial youth (** rectores imperatoriflB juvento," Tacit Ann. xiii, 2) ; but the description is very strange when referred to the year 61, the last of Burrus's liiiB, especially as this is not the first mention of him. See Felix.