“This report is very improbable, for a work full of hatred to the Romans and of derogatory references to the emperor Caligula could not have been read before the Roman Senate, especially when the author was a Jew” (Closs). It is in fact quite unlikely that Philo was in Rome during the reign of Claudius (see above, chap. 17, note 1). The report given here by Eusebius owes its origin perhaps to the imagination of some man who supposed that Philo was in Rome during the reign of Claudius (on the ground of the other tradition already referred to), and whose fancy led him to picture Philo as obtaining at that time his revenge upon the emperor Caligula in this dramatic way. It was not difficult to imagine that this bitterly sarcastic and vivid work might have been intended for public reading, and it was an attractive suggestion that the Senate might have constituted the audience.