According to the Jewish historian Titus Flavius Josephus, born Yosef ben Matityahu, in his book The Antiquities of the Jews, Philo was the brother of the Roman-appointed Jewish tax collector Alexander. In Josephus’s version, the Jews refused to worship Caligula even though he commanded them to and Philo believed the Jews were right and that to worship Caligula would be a sin against God. A Roman named Apion came to Alexandria to convince the Jews that they were traitors to the Emperor and that Caligula would punish them but Philo convinced them that “ they should be of good courage, since Gaius’s words indeed showed anger at them but in reality had already set God against himself”. According to Josephus, the Jews of Alexandria chose Philo to represent them to Caligula and Philo said yes because he wanted to end the violence of the Greeks against the Jews.