UNIVERSITY^
PENNSYLVANIA.
UBKARIES
^^^^^WBWI^B flVffjy
POST-BIBLIOAL
HISTORY OF THE JEWS;
CLOSE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT, ABOUT THE YEAE 420 B. C. E.
TILL THE DESTRUCTION OF THE SECOND TEMPLE,
IN THE YEAR 70 C.E.
BY
MOREIS J. RAPHAEL, M.A. Ph.Dr.
EABBI-PEEACHER AT THE SYNAaOGUE, GEEENE ST., NEW YOEK.
IN TWO VOLUMES.-VOL. 11.
PHILADELPHIA:
MOSS & BROTHER, 12 SOUTH FOURTH ST.
1855.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by
MOSS & BROTHER,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern
District of I'ennsylvania.
STEREOTTPED BY L. JOHNSON AND CO.
PHILADELPHIA.
PRINTED BT DEACON & PETEKSON.
CONTENTS.
BOOK m.
THE ASMONEANS.
CHAPTER IX.
FAGB
Simon reduces the seaport of Joppa — Its importance — Surrender and
demolitiou of the Castle of Acra — All Judea free — Demetrius II. in-
vades Parthia — His defeat and captivity — His queen transfers the
crown and her own hand to his younger brother Antiochus VII. Si-
detes — Alliance between Simon and Rome — Defeat and death of Try-
phon — Sidetes invades Judea — His army defeated by Jochanan Hyr-
canus — Simon, with two of his sons, assassinated by his son-in-law,
Ptolemy — Civil war in Judea — Hyrcanus prince and high-priest — Si-
detes's second invasion of Judea — Siege of Jerusalem — Distress of the
Jews — Truce and peace — Sidetes's moderation — Hidden treasiire —
Sidetes and Hyrcanus allies against Parthia — Foreign mercenaries in
Judea — Sidetes invades Parthia — His campaign and death — Return of
Demetrius II. ; of Hyi-canus — Ptolemy Physcon in Egypt — Zebina —
Death of Demetrius II.— (From 142 to 126 b. c. e.) 9
CHAPTER X.
Wars between Zebina and the Seleucidse — Prosperity of Judea —
The Dispersion — Connection between Jerusalem, the metropolis, and
the various Jewish colonies — Upper Asia : Armenia ; the Belgradites ;
Babylon — Egypt; Cyrene; Berenicia — Central Africa; Abyssinia; the
Falashas — Arabia; Yemen; Medina; Benai Chaibar — Greece — Italy
— Spain — Seleucus V. — Antiochus VIII. Gypus — Death of Zebina —
Antiochus IX. Cyzicenus — The rival sisters — Hyrcanus destroys the
Samaritan temple — Conquers Samaria and Idumea — His feast — Dis-
pute with the Pharisees — The three crowns — His death. — (From 126
to 107 B. c. E.) 63
CHAPTER XI.
Aristobulus I., King of .ludea — Death of his mother; of his brother
Antigonus — Conquest of Iturea — Death of Aristobulus ; state of par-
h^H>h
4 CONTENTS.
PiGE
ties at his death — The Sanhedrin— Sects : the Essenes ; the Saddu-
cees; the Pharisees — Alexander Jannai, King of Judea ; his character;
besieges Ptolemais ; defeated by P. Lathyrus — Succoured by Cleo-
patra, Queen of Egypt ; her intrigues in Syria ; her death — Civil war
between the princes of Syria — Jannai's campaigns east of Jordan ; his
victories and defeats ; siege and captm-e of Gaza ; his cruelty — Riots
in Jerusalem — The king insulted in the temple — Civil war of six years
in Judea — Exasperation of the Pharisees — Jannai victorious — Inhu-
man revenge on the vanquished — Jannai obtains the nickname of
Thracidas.— (From 107 to 85 B.C. e.) 101
CHAPTER XII.
Triumph of the Sadducee-Royalists — The Pharisee-Senatorials re-
duced to the lowest ebb — Simon ben Shetahh ; his exile and return ;
gradually revives his party — Epuration of the Sanhedrin — the Cara-
ites — The last years of Jannai's reign ; his last advice to his wife ; Ms
death — Alexandra queen-regnant of Judea — The Pharisees restored
to power — The Sadducees persecuted — Mithridates the Great ; his
wars against Rome — The sons of Jannai; Hyrcanus II., high-priest,
Pharisee — Aristobulus II., warrior, Sadducee — Tigranes, King of Ar-
menia, proposes to invade Judea ; prevented by the Romans — Death
of Alexandra — Hyrcanus II., king and high-priest — Rigid government
of the Pharisees — Revolution — Hyrcanus abdicates — Aristobulus II.,
king — His prosperous reign — The Sadducees in power — Antipater the
Idumean ; his origin ; his influence over Hyrcanus — Conspires with
the Pharisees to dethrone Aristobulus — Flight of Hyrcanus ; his treaty
with Aretas, King of the Arabs — Ai-etas invades Judea ; defeats Aris-
tobulus, and besieges him in the Temple of Jerusalem, while the city
declares for Hyrcanus — Incidents of the siege ; death of Hhoniah
Hamangol — Intervention of the Romans — Aristobulus defeats Aretas —
Conference at Damascus — The two brothers plead their cause before
Pompey — The Romans enter Judea. — (From 85 to 63 b. c. e.) 142
BOOK IV.
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA.
CHAPTER XIII.
Pompey's treachery; Aristobulus a prisoner — Hyrcanus received
into Jerusalem — Siege and capture of the temple — The observance of
CONTENTS. 5
PAGE
the Sabbath — Judea becomes tributary to Rome — Hyrcanus, stripped
of royalty, is recognised as high-priest ; and Aristobulus, a prisoner,
is carried to Italy — Fortifications of Jerusalem demolished — Pompey
enters the sanctuary of the temple ; orders the public worship to be
restored; his return to Rome and triumph — Cicero hostile to the
Jews ; his oration in defence of Flaccus — Escape of the Asmoneans
from Rome — Civil war in Judea — Alexander — Aristobulus — Crassus
plunders the temple — His campaigns against the Parthians ; his de-
feat and death — Civil war between Pompey and Caesar — Death of
Aristobulus ; of Alexander — Battle of Pharsalia — Defeat and miser-
able death of Pompey — Hyrcanus declares for the victor. — (From 63
to48B.c.E.) 194
CHAPTER XIV.
Caesar in Egypt ; besieged and in danger ; rescued, chiefly by An-
tipater — Caesar's gi-atitude — Antigonus claims Judea as heir to Aristo-
bulus ; his claim rejected ; Caesar's decrees in favour of Hyrcanus and
the Jews — Fortifications of Jerusalem rebuilt — Antipater procurator
— His sons : Phasael ; Herod, governor of Galilee — His character ; ac-
cused of tyranny ; his trial and flight — Caesar's last campaigns and
death ; Brutus and Cassius masters of the East — Mark Antony, Oc-
tavius Caesar, and Lepidus, triumvirs and masters of the West — Herod
in high favour with Cassius, who promises him the kingdom of Judea
— Death of Antipater ; of Malichus — Herod afi&anced to Mariamne the
Asmonean — Battle of Philippi ; death of Brutus and Cassius — Mark
Antony master of the East ; Herod finds favour with Antony, who ap-
points him and his brother Phasael tetrarchs — Dissatisfaction of
the Jews ; massacre of their delegates — Antony enthralled by Cleo-
patra, Queen of Egypt — He returns to Rome and marries Octavia —
The Parthians invade Judea ; place Antigonus on the throne ; seize on
the persons of Phasael and Hyrcanus by treachery ; Hyrcanus, muti-
lated, is sent prisoner to Parthia ; Phasael put to death — Herod es-
capes ; proceeds to Rome ; is appointed King of Judea — Civil war be-
tween Antigonus and Herod — The Parthians routed — Herod's party
defeated near Jericho ; his brother Joseph slain — Herod signally de-
•feats Antigonus ; marries Mariamne — Siege and capture of Jerusalem
— Number and impoi'tance of the sieges of Jerusalem by the Romans
predicted by Moses; (Deut. xxviii. 49, 50, 52;) — Antigonus, the last
Asmonean king, scoui-ged and beheaded at Antioch. — (From 48 to 37
B. c K.) 238
1*
6 CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XV. ,
PAOB
Herod I., King of Judea — Opens his reign with cruel proscriptions —
Hillel and Shammai; theii- schools— High-priests removable at the
king's pleasure — Ai-istobulus III. ; intrigues of his mother, Alexandra;
he is put to death— Herod accused before Antony ; buys his acquittal
— Family feuds ; Salome ; Mariamne — Hyrcanus invited back to Jeru-
salem—Cleopatra visits Herod ; her danger ; her rapacity — War be-
tween Herod and the Arabs ; he is betrayed by Cleopatra, and de-
feated— Earthquake, attended with loss of life and property, in Judea
— War between Antony and Octavius ; battle of Actium, and defeat of
Antony — Herod causes old Hyrcanus to be put to death, and then
makes his peace with the victor — Octavius, assisted by Herod, invades
Egypt — Death of Antony and Cleopatra — Mariamne, the avenger of
the Asmoneans, put to death by Herod ; his remorse — His internal
administration — Curries favour with the Romans ; detested by his own
people — Conspiracy to mui-der him ; detected and barbarously pu-
nished— Great famine ; public distress relieved by Herod — He sends
his two sons to be educated at Rome ; his high favour with Augustus
— Herod rebuilds the temple — Family dissensions ; Herod's wives; his
eldest son Antipater ; Herod accuses, his two sons by Mariamne, before
Augustus, who causes a reconciliation — Herod's scheme to obtain the
crown of Syria ; he loses, for a time, the favour of Augustus — Re-
newed bitter quarrels in Herod's family; he put his two sons by Mari-
amne to death — His brother, Pheroras, and his son, Antipater, con-
epire against him ; death of Pheroras ; conspiracy detected — Herod's
last illness — Disturbances in Jerusalem ; suppressed and cruelly pu-
nished— Antipater put to death — Herod's last atrocious commands ;
his death ; his last will in part confirmed by Augustus — Division of
Herod's territories — Archelaus ethnarch of Judea — Popular discontent
— The pseudo Alexander detected by Augustus — Archelaus accused,
deposed, and banished — Judea declared a Roman province — (From 37
B. c. E. to 6 c. £.) 290
CHAPTER XVI.
Judea a Roman province governed by a procurator — State of parties
and sects — The association of Zkalots ; their principles — The first
four procurators ; trafiic with the high-priestly office — Pontius Pilate ;
his oppressive administration — Christianity — Condition of the Jews
in Rome — Pilate disgraced — Caligula emperor ; orders his statue to
CONTENTS. 7
PAGB
be Tvorshipped in the temple of Jerusalem ; the Jews refuse to obey —
Herod Agrippa ; his singular changes of fortune ; his high favour with
Caligula; his visit to Alexandria — Riots and massacre of Jews
throughout Egypt — Philo the Jew; his mission to Caligula — Death
of the Emperor — II. Agrippa active in raising Claudius to the imperial
throne — The kingdom of Judea re-established in favour of Agrippa;
his short reign and death ; Judea again a Roman province — The
seven last procurators ; their rapacity — Claudius succeeded by Nero —
Famine in Judea — Conversion to Judaism of Isates King of Adiabene,
and his family — Disturbances in Jiidea ; brutality of the Roman sol-
diery ; exasperation of the people ; influence of the Zealots , tlie Si-
CARRi — War with the Parthians — ^Jews disfranchised at Cesarea;
riots in Jerusalem provoked by Gessius Florus, the last procurator ;
the people overpower and slaughter the Roman garrison — Cestius
Gallus and the Romans repulsed with great loss ; retreat from Judea
— General rising of the Judeans ; War of Independence — Ananus
president of the general coimcil — Josephus governor of Galilee —
riavius Vespasian and his son Titus invade Galilee ; siege and capture
of Jotopatha — Josephus submits to the Romans — Their successful
campaign and atrocities in GalUee — Civil war in Jerusalem; triumph
of the Zealots — Civil war in Rome ; rapid succession of emperors ;
election and final triumph of Vespasian — His son Titus lays siege to
Jerusalem ; obstinate defence ; destruction of the temple and city —
Total conquest and devastation of Judea ; wretched condition of the
Jewish people. — (From the year 6 till 70 c. e.) 360
POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY
OF
THE JEWS.
BOOK III.
THE ASMONEANS.
CHAPTER IX.
Simon reduces the seaport of Joppa — Its importance — Surrender and de-
molition of tlie Castle of Acra — All Judea free — Demetrius II. invades
Parthia — His defeat and captiyity — His queen transfers the crown and
her ovm band to his younger brother Antiocbus VII. Sidetes — Alliance
between Simon and Rome — Defeat and death of Tryphon — Sidetes in-
vades Judea — His army defeated by Jochanan Hyrcanus — Simon, with
two of his sons, assassinated by his son-in-law, Ptolemy — Civil war in
Judea — Hyrcanus prince and high-priest — Sidetes's second invasion of
Judea — Siege of Jerusalem — Distress of the Jews — Truce and peace —
Sidetes's moderation— Hidden treasure — Sidetes and Hyrcanus allies
against Parthia — Foreign mercenaries in Judea — Sidetes invades Par-
thia — His campaign and death — Return of Demetrius II. ; of Hyrcanus
— Ptolemy Physcon in Egypt — Zebina — Death of Demetrius II. — (From
142 to 126 B.c.E.)
To prove himself and his people worthy of the independ-
ence they had acquired, and to secure it against all foes,
both internal and external, was a duty to which Simon
devoted himself with unceasing assiduity. While, on the
one hand, he added continually to his defences by
strengthening the fortified places in his possession, and
especially Bethzura, the importance of which long years
9
10 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
of warfare had attested, he at the same time despatched a
strong body of troops to lay siege to Joppa, which, after
a stout resistance, was compelled to surrender. By the
terms of the capitulation the Syrian inhabitants were com-
pelled to quit the town, in which Simon located a Jewish
population. He also repaired the fortifications, and con-
structed a harbour. From that tim« Joppa (at present
Jaffa) became and remained the principal seaport to Je-
rusalem, from which city it is distant about forty miles,
and to all Judea ; opening a trade to all the coasts of the
Mediterranean Sea and to the islands, so considerable,
that Strabo deems this Jewish seaport worthy of his notice.
(Geogr. lib. xvi.)
As soon as this important conquest had been achieved,
Simon in person led his army against Gaza, a city which
had revolted after the death of Jonathan, The walls were
battered by his engines until sufficient breaches were made,
and the Jews were on the point of storming, when the
entire population of the city, men, women, and children,
appeared on the walls with their clothes rent, and prayed
for mercy with such doleful cries, that Simon took pity on
them, and granted them a capitulation on the same terms
as Joppa, replacing the Syrian population by Jews.
The next year (142 b, c. e.) the fortress of Acra, which,
for more than a quarter of a century, had been a grievous
thorn in the side of the Jews, was after a close investment
of two years starved into a surrender. Simon, who was
anxious to get possession of a fortress impregnable to his
utmost force, and to be subdued only by famine, granted
a liberal capitulation as well to the Syrians as to the
Jewish apostates who formed the garrison, whom he per-
mitted to march out and leave Judea peaceably and unmo-
lested. Hehimselfattheheadof hismen, with palm-branches
in their hands, and trumpets sounding, and singing psalms,
marched to take possession with every demonstration of joy.
THE ASMONEANS. 11
Here we meet with a singular contradiction in the original
records. For Josephus relates (Antiq., lib. xiii. cap. 9, ad
fin.) that Simon, who at first had intended to place a garri-
son of his own in Acra, and therefore ordered the fortress to
be lustrated and cleansed, subsequently altered his mind,
and proposed to the great council to have the fortress de-
molished and the hill on which it stood levelled to the ground ;
that this proposal met with general approbation ; and that,
after three years of labour, the mountain was brought to
a level with the temple-mount. But the first of Maccabees
(xiv. 36, 37) relates that Simon repaired such parts of the for-
tifications as had sufi'ered during the siege and blockade, and
that he placed a numerous body of Jewish troops in it.
Subsequently, (xv. 28,) the same authority relates that, three
years later, Antiochus, the brother of King Demetrius, re-
quired Simon to surrender to him the fortress of Acra, which,
consequently, could not then have already been demolished.
It is, however, certain that both the hill and the fortress
on its summit were levelled in the manner related by Jo-
sephus ; and therefore evident that he only antedated the
event. Antiochus claiming this fortress was probably a
sufficient hint for the Jews to destroy it, and with it the
last vestige of the heavy yoke which Syro-Grecian supre-
macy had imposed on Jerusalem and on Judea.
Though the Jews had thus cleared their country
of Syrian garrisons and of armed apostates, though they
had even obtained from the legitimate king of Syria
the recognition of their independence, yet Simon knew
too well that this recognition had been granted only
because at that time it could not be withheld; and that
with the first return of prosperity the Syrian monarchs
would be as ready as ever to enforce their supremacy
over Judea. This return of prosperity altogether de-
pended on the energy and abilities of the prince who
should wield the sceptre of the great Seleucus Nicator.
12 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
For though Tryphon^ might contrive to maintain himself
against the profligate Demetrius, it was not because the
usurper had any hold on the affections of the people, but
because the Syrian soldiery had been insulted beyond the
possibility of reconciliation by their legitimate king ; and
the people of Antioch and the western provinces hated
Demetrius. But his removal from the scene of action
would, as the event proved, at once open the way for the
undisputed sway of his lawful successor.
The house of Seleucus was still respected in all parts
of its ancient hereditary domain ; and his successors still
garrisoned many strong cities from Antioch to Seleucia-
Babylonia. They possessed many rich treasuries, and re-
tained claims of dominion or supremacy over many revolted
provinces. The tribute of these provinces, and the great
inland commerce which connected them with each other,
had long centered in Syria proper ; and the vast sums of
money which thus flowed into the hands of the kings of
Syria enabled them to hire mercenaries in Greece and
other countries abounding with military adventurers, to
whom the supremacy of Rome left no room for activity at
home, but by whose aid the heirs of Seleucus might hope
1 In order to counterbalance the great weight -which the alliance of
Simon threw into the scale of the lawful king, the usurper Tryphon sought
to propitiate the senate, and sent a submissive embassy to Rome, breath-
ing professions of unalterable fidelity, and conveying the present of a
golden Victory weighing ten thousand aurei, (about forty thousand dol-
lars in gold,) and yet more precious for the workmanship than the mate-
rials. The Romans did not reject a present which came in so auspicious
a form. But in order to show their impartial contempt of both claimants,
they caused the name of Antiochus VI., the supposed grandson of their
ally Antiochus IV. Epiphanes, to be engraved on the statue of the god-
dess : and thus proclaimed their intention of not taking any part in the
contest between Demetrius Nicator, whose right to the crown they had
not acknowledged, and Tryphon, who possessed no other right than what
treachery and murder could confer upon him.
THE ASMONEANS. 13
under favourable circumstances to re-establlsli his empire.
Such a circumstance, even now, offered itself to the liber-
tine Demetrius.
Since the return from the East of Antiochus the Great,
(204 B. c. E.,) the revolted Parthians, no longer restrained
by the strong hand of the Syro-Grecian monarch, had
gradually extended their sway and consolidated their
power to a degree that made them supreme in Central
Asia. Their fifth king, Mithridates I. — who ascended the
throne the same year that Antiochus IV. Epiphanes, by
his rapacity and persecution, drove nearly all Upper Asia
into a state of rebellion, — during his long reign of thirty-
seven years had extended his authority from the mouth
of the Oxus to that of the Euphrates. The vast central
province of Media, between the Caspian Sea and the Gulf
of Persia, was annexed to his empire, and his armies fre-
quently encamped on the great Assyrian plain.
These armies were formed by a mixed assemblage of
Scythian and Sclavonian horsemen, slaves to their here-
ditary chiefs, and the number of which, with the growing
prosperity of the empire, was continually augmented by
purchase and propagation as well as by conquest. These
slaves were trained to war and horsemanship by their mas-
ters not less carefully than their children. The chieftains
or nobility vied with each other in bringing to the stand-
ard of their sovereign numerous and well-disciplined squad-
rons, at once their property and their pride ; so that
Parthian armies, amounting to fifty thousand cavalry,
sometimes did not number four hundred freemen.
These squadrons and their chiefs were constantly em-
ployed in hunting parties or military expeditions, and
always on horseback, even in the streets of their cities.
On horseback they visited, feasted, and celebrated all their
public solemnities. Besides the mounted archers who
fought flying, and whose deceptive tactics destroyed many
Vol. TT. 2
14 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEAVS.
a Roman army, they had cataphracts, or heavy cuirassiers,
completely clad in steel, armed with long lances, and
bearing a Avondrous resemblance, in all points, to the
chivalrous warriors of the Middle Ages.
But to the lofty spirit of chivalry the Parthians were
strangers. Their king exercised the sternest dominion
even over the proudest nobles and the bravest warriors ;
and whoever became the object of his declared displea-
sure, was subjected to immediate punishment by having
his head and right hand severed from his body. Terror
was the principle of government, extending from the high-
est to the lowest ; ignorance, ferocity, and unbridled lux-
ury were the national characteristics of the Parthians —
a people who, for a length of time, rivalled the supre-
macy of Rome, and exercised great influence over Judea.
It has always been the curse of Asia that the dominant
nation at all times disdained to live on a footing of equal-
ity with the other subjects of the same sovereign. They
spurned the obligations of justice toward those whom they
deemed naturally and essentially their inferiors. And
when the Parthians became the great prominent power in
Asia, a people who obeyed only through fear could not
fail to domineer without mercy. Accordingly, this tyran-
ny of nation over nation exerted itself with unusual vio-
lence in the thirty-fourth year of Mithridates, who was
then verging to the extreme of old age, while his Par-
thians were in the full bloom of youthful audacity and
prosperous violence.
The Greeks and Macedonians, from the contrast of man-
ners and feelings, were the most exposed to the vexations
of those tyrants, and the least calculated to endure them
patiently. They communicated their grievances to each
other, excited the spirit of rebellion in those Asiatic na-
tions among whom they were scattered, and in order to
give their rising the character of legality and to insure
THE ASMONEANS. 15
its success, they invited their lawful king, Demetrius Nica-
tor, to come and place himself at their head.
Tired of being cooped up in Laodicea, and eager to re-
cover the eastern provinces of his empire, in order by
their aid to crush Tryphon and the rebellion of the West,
Demetrius at once accepted the invitation ; and leaving
his queen Cleopatra to maintain at home the war against
the usurper, Demetrius hastened across the Euphrates,
and assumed the command of the insurgents in Upper
Asia. Several battles are said to have been gained by
him, for the voluntary flights of the Parthians were con-
strued into defeats. But the incidents related of his cam-
paign are few and doubtful, while the issue of it is cer-
tain. He was defeated and taken prisoner by the Parthians,
and retained by them ten years in a loose and honourable
captivity. Mithridates, in order to quell all further at-
tempts at Greek insurrection, caused Demetrius to be ex-
hibited in different parts of his empire. But the humanity
as well as the policy of the Parthian king combined in se-
curing to the heir of Seleucus a treatment befitting his
high rank. Among the last actions of the aged Mithri-
dates was the marriage of his fair daughter Rodoguna to
Demetrius, and his order for the Syrian king to reside in
Hyrcania, with every accommodation and indulgence that
could console him for the loss of liberty and soothe his
fallen fortunes. (Grillies, viii. 124.)
The captivity of Demetrius gave a new turn to affairs in
Syria. Tryphon, as if his own power had thereby been
established on a footing not to be shaken, began to throw
aside the semblance of moderation Avhich in his internal
government he had hitherto deemed it needful to preserve,
and to play the tyrant with open and frontless audacity.
The consequence was, that the better and wealthier portion
of the Syrian people — those whose firmness of character or
patriotism aroused the fears of the usurper, or those whose
10 POST-BIBLICAL niSTORY OF THE JEWS.
riches excited his cupidity, and who were equally in danger
from his despotism and cruelty — now embraced the party of
Cleopatra, wife to the captive prince, and daughter to Pto-
lemy Philopator, with whose disinterested and honest prin-
ciples however, her own selfishness and corrupt conduct
most strongly contr-asted.
She had at an early age been married to the usurper
Balas, and was the mother of Antiochus VI. — that unfortu-
nate phantom of royalty whom Tryphon had raised and
then assassinated. After a marriage of some years, her
father took her away from her debauched husband, Avho ne-
glected her, and bestowed her on Demetrius Nicator, who,
with her hand also gained the crown of Syria, which his
father Soter had lost. On the flight of her second hus-
band from Antioch, she followed him to Seleucia-Pierea,
with her two sons ; and on his departure to the East, he
appointed her regent in his absence.
Of a bold and masculine turn of mind, able and active,
but absolutely unscrupulous, she had maintained the con-
flict against Tryphon with varied success ; and had even
drawn around her a considerable force, composed of per-
sons discontented with the usurper's government, when the
tidings reached her that her captive husband had married
a daughter of the king of Parthia, and had taken up his
abode in Hyrcania, without any likelihood of ever return-
ing to her. This offended her pride, and threatened like-
wise to become injurious to her cause and party. Policy
and revenge, therefore, combined to dictate the step to
which she now at once resorted, and to which, as Josephus
avers, (Antiq. lib. xiii. cap. 7,) a more tender feeling on her
part was no stranger.
Antiochus, the younger brother of her captive husband,
and who subsequently obtained the surname of jSidetes,
"the hunter," had been educated, as we have already
stated, in the secure and respectable commonwealth of
THE ASMONEANS. 17
Cnldus. As he grew up to man's estate, his spirit and
liberality had rendered him highly popular in Asia Minor,
Greece, and the intermediate isles. To him Cleopatra sent
her emissaries, inviting him to claim the vacant throne, of
which she doubted not to put him in possession, and as a
preliminary step to which she offered him her hand and
the regency of the kingdom. Antiochus, who received her
invitation at Rhodes, entered into her views with all the
eagerness of youthful ambition, and at once (141 B.C.E.)
assumed the title of King of Syria. But the necessity of
enlisting mercenaries, and preparing a sufficient force to
attend him on his enterprise, delayed his departure for
Syria upward of a whole year.
In the midst of his active preparations, he deemed it
advisable to secure the alliance and support of the Jews.
He therefore wrote a most friendly and obliging letter,
dated "from the isles of the sea," (Rhodes, where he still
was, 140 B.C.E.,) to " Simon the high-priest and ethnarch,
and to the people of the Jews," announcing his intention
of coming speedily to recover the dominions of his father
from the usurper Tryphon, and requesting assistance
against the common enemy. In return for this, he con-
firms all the rights and privileges granted to the Jews by
former kings. These privileges he enlarged by the further
concession of the right to coin their own money.
This seems to have been the only act of sovereignty
which the captive king had withheld, and which was want-
ing to complete the sort of secondary independence that
the Jews had acquired. Simon lost no time in using this
important right. And during the first five years of inde-
pendence, a currency in shekels of gold, silver, and copper
was struck off, with smaller divisions in the same metals.
Many of these coins are still preserved in several museums
and numismatic collections, but none of Simon's of a later
date than his fifth year. The long reign of his successor
2*
18 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
has furnished no specimen of coinage to after ages ; but
of subsequent reigns thcj are numerous, and the series is
regular.
These coins are distinguished from those of all other
nations by the entire absence of the representation of any
living thing, which Judaism condemned and deemed idola-
trous. In their stead, the coins are stamped with utensils
used in the service of the temple rasa cup, a vase, a cruse, or
a lyre, on one side; and on the other, a vine-leaf, a palm-
tree, an olive-branch, a wheat-sheaf, or other similar ob-
jects, apparently designed as emblems of the principal
productions of the country. Some have the sepulchre
which Simon erected at Modin, and a few have Aaron's
rod. (Vide Num. xvii. 8.)
It is remarkable that the inscription on these coins is
invariably in the old Hebrew or Samaritan character, and
never in the Assyrian or square character in which Ezra
had caused the Law of Moses to be transcribed ; and those
with inscriptions in the last-named character are rejected
as spurious. The inscription on the one side bears shekel,
or half-shekel of Israel, and on the other, "Jerusalem the
Holy," or " the year 1 (2, 3, 4, or 5) of the freedom of
Zion." According to the computation generally adopted,
the value of the silver shekel was 55J cents, and the gold
one, $8.76.2
At the same time that Simon hastened, by the exercise
of this newly-granted right, to proclaim the full independ-
ence of Judea, he also took care to secure the recognition
2 The numismatic cabinet attached to the Imperial Library at Paris,
possesses a rich and beautiful collection of Asmonean coins. The late
director of that cabinet, Mons. Lenormant, in his work, " Numismatigue
des Rois Grccs," places it beyond a doubt that, up to their final dispersion
under Hadrian, the Jews continued to strike coins bearing the name of
Simon the Maccabee, and which were cvuTent as well as the coinage of
the Roman emperors.
THE ASMONEANS. 19
of that independence by the alliance and protection of
Rome. For Simon had narrowly watched affairs in Syria
from the moment Demetrius marched to the East, and
especially since Queen Cleopatra had bestowed herself and
the kingdom on her third husband ; and he came to the
prudent conclusion that a young and ambitious prince,
who had felt no scruple in robbing his own brother of his
wife and crown, and his infant nephews of their right to
the throne, would assuredly not hesitate to annul privileges
so recently granted by his much-injured brother, as soon
as he should feel himself strong enough so to do. Simon,
therefore, sent an embassy to Rome, announcing the inde-
pendence of Judea, and presenting the senate, among
many other valuable gifts, with a shield of gold which
weighed a thousand mince, or of the value, according to
the usual computation, of nearly 300,000 dollars. His
presents were graciously accepted, his embassy favourably
and honourably received, the independence of Judea re-
cognised, and letters granted by the senate, according to
the wish of Simon and the usual policy of Rome to pro-
tect small states against great ones, addressed to the
principal kings in the East, admonishing them to respect
the independence of the Jews, the friends and confederates
of Rome. (1 Mace. xiv. 15.)
In the list of princes to whom these admonitions were
addressed, and who were threatened with instant war by
Rome if they attacked the independence of Judea, we find,
among others, Ptolemy VII. of Egypt, and Demetrius II.
of Syria. This last name, however, to a certain degree
counteracted the effect the letter of the senate would other-
wise have produced on the mind of Sidetes ; for the name
of the captive, addressed as rightful king of Syria, could
not fail to give great offence to the brother who usurped
his throne.
That young prince, attended by a considerable body of
20 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
mercenaries, had landed in Syria, (139 b.ce.,) and been
received as king and husband by Queen Cleopatra. From
all parts of the Syrian monarchy those who were disgusted
with the tyranny of Tryphon flocked to the standard of the
Seleucidse. Antiochus VII. had invited the Syrian ve-
terans to return to their allegiance, promising to receive
them into his service and pay ; and these soldiers, who
had not against him the ill feeling they harboured against
his brother, readily accepted his invitation, and deserted
from Tryphon. The usurper's party thus dwindled into
extreme weakness, while Antiochus VII. saw himself at
the head of an army of nearly 100,000 men, a force which
compelled Tryphon to quit the open country and to seek
refuge in Dora, a fortified town on the coast of Samaria,
where he was besieged by Antiochus, who, while before
this place, received the letters in favour of Simon and the
Jews which the senate of Rome had addressed to the
captive Demetrius, and which greatly exasperated Antiochus
Sidetes against the Jews. Nor was it long before he gave
proofs of his hostile feelings toward them. Simon, mind-
ful of his duty as a friend and ally, had sent two thousand
men, with a considerable supply of warlike stores and en-
gines, to reinforce the besieging army before Dora. But
Sidetes refused to receive them, sent them back in dis-
favour, and, with his Greek mercenaries only, assaulted
and took Dora.
Tryphon escaped by sea to the neighbouring stronghold
of Orthosias in Phoenicia : Antiochus besieged and soon
took the place ; but Tryphon once more eluded his grasp,
by scattering money, it is said, in the way of the horsemen
that were sent in pursuit of him. (Frontin, Stratag. lii.
cap. 13.) He safely reached Apamoca in Syria, near to
which city, in a castle named Secoana, he had been born
and educated. On this his natal ground he either committed
suicide or was put to death by his pursuers, for historians
THE ASMONEAXS. 21
differ in their accounts of his end. (Appian. de Reb. cap.
70; Strabo, Ixvi. p. 752; Josephus, Antiq. Ixiii. cap. 7.) He
had reigned six years — two in the name of the boy Antio-
chus VI., and four in his own. The few places which at
the time of his death still held out for him, hastened to
open their gates to Antiochus VII. Sidetes, now the hus-
band of Cleopatra, and undisturbed master of the kingdom.
While yet engaged before Dora, and at the same time
that he had sent back the Jewish auxiliary corps with which
Simon had sought to reinforce his army. King Antiochus,
in order to give vent to the resentment which the letter of
the Roman senate excited within him, despatched Athe-
nobius, one of his favourites, to Jerusalem, with a threat-
ening message to Simon. The king required the high-
priest to surrender the cities of Joppa and Gazara, and the
citadel of Acra at Jerusalem, which belonged to the Sy-
rian crown. And in the event of Simon not wishing to
give up possession, he was to pay the king five hundred
talents (about half a million of dollars) for each of the
places he retained, and five hundred talents more for the
arrears of tribute from those cities and tracts beyond the
limits of Judea of which the Jews had obtained possession,
and on account of ravages they had committed in his do-
minions. This demand was skilfully framed to steer clear
of any^ points comprehended in the treaties which were
under the protection of Rome, or in the letters-patent
which Antiochus himself had addressed to Simon ; for the
cities of Joppa and Gazara, as well as the fortress of Acra,
had been taken by the Jews after the recognition of their
independence ; and in his own letter the king confirmed to
them and to Simon their rights and immunities, but made
no mention of their conquests.
Simon, without being at all daunted by this threatening
message, coolly replied " That the Jews did not hold any
possessions but such as had belonged to their fathers,
22 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
whicli they had found means to recover ; that the fortresses
of Joppa and Gazara he had, in self-defence, been obliged
to seize upon in order to put a stop to the continual inroads
of the garrisons, into Judea, and to the ravages by them
committed ; and that for the same reason he must still con-
tinue to occupy these two places ; that for these, therefore,
he was willing to pay the king one hundred talents ; but
as to the fortress of Acra, he could by no means think that
the king had any right to demand it from him."
Historians generally have praised Simon's reply as
" wise and moderate." Dr. Kitto, however, in his History
of Palestine, (i. 701,) censures it as "feeble" and "indis-
creet," because it referred back to the right of the strong-
est, and therefore to " the correlative right of Antiochus to
bring the Jews back to subjection if he could, and if he
was not restrained by the engagements into which he had
entered," This, however, is an uncalled-for censure.
Simon no doubt truly appreciated his own position and that
of Antiochus, and that between them the right of the
strongest would eventually have to decide, which it did,
and that not in favour of Antiochus, as we shall presently
see.
With respect to the fortress of Acra, no doubt Simon was
perfectly right ; for at the time King Demetrius proclaimed
the independence of the Jews, and up to the time that
Simon compelled Acra to surrender, that fortress was held
by a garrison under the orders of Tryphon. Had it been
garrisoned by Demetrians, the king would have been bound
to withdraw them ; for no nation can be considered as in-
dependent that has a foreign garrison in an impregnable
fortress placed in the very heart of its country and capital.
But as the garrison would not have obeyed the orders of
King Demetrius to evacuate Acra, Simon had to subdue it
by the strong hand. And when King Antiochus now laid
claim to it, he plainly showed how little he intended to re-
THE ASMONEANS. 23
cognise the independence of Judea or the engagements he
had contracted.
As to Joppa and Gazara, which the king offered to sell
for five hundred talents, and for which Simon offered only
one hundred, it is impossible now to form any idea of the
real value of these two places. Probably the king's esti-
mate was as much over, as Simon's was underrated ; and
it is possible that the high-priest might have offered a
larger sum, had Athenobius given him time so to do. But
as soon as this ofiicer had heard what Simon had to say,
he did not stay to make any reply, but went off abruptly,
(such being, probably, his instructions in case of non-com-
pliance with his demand,) and returned to Antiochus, whom
he still found before Dora, and to whom he communicated
Simon's answer. At the same time he related in what
style of grandeur the high-priest lived, the magnificence
of his household, the great quantity of gold and silver ves-
sels used at his table, and altogether gave so glowing a
description of the vast wealth of Jerusalem, that he
strongly excited the king's cupidity ; for, as Josephus re-
marks, Sidetes was exceedingly covetous, and could not
bear to hear of so much wealth without envy or the irre-
sistible desire to possess it. As soon as he had taken Dora,
the king turned his attention to Jerusalem, and ordered
Cendebeus, whom he appointed governor of Phoenicia, to
invade Judea with a portion of his army, and to enforce
payment of the king's demands, while he himself, with the
remainder of his forces, marched in pursuit of Tryphon.
The Syrian general, at the head of a powerful army of
horse and foot, entered on his expedition, and began hos-
tilities by taking and fortifying Cedron or Gedor, a town
advantageously situated for his further operations, and in
which he placed a strong garrison. He then marched to-
ward Jamnia and Joppa, laid waste all that part of the coun-
try, and carried off many prisoners. At the first tidings
24 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
of the invasion, Jochanan, the son of Simon, who resided
at Gazara as governor and commander of the Jewish,
forces, hastened to his father at Jerusalem. Simon, ex-
pecting that the message brought to him by Athenobius
would most likely be followed by active hostilities, had
assembled a considerable body of troops in readiness to
meet the invader.
Josephus (Antiq. Ixiii. cap. 13) tells us that the aged
Simon put" himself at their head and marched in person
against Cendebeus. But the more truthful and reliable
account in the 1st book of Maccabees, (xv. 40, et seq.)
tells us that Simon, feeling himself too old and feeble to
head his troops, placed them under the command of his
two valiant sons, Jochanan and Judah, charging them on
his blessing to follow in the footsteps of their brave uncles,
and like them to do valiantly, and to stake their lives in
defence of their country, its religion, and freedom. The
army which he confided to these young heroes consisted
of 20,000 foot, which constituted its principal strength.
There was also a small body of cavalry, trustworthy from
the bravery and steadiness of the men, though in point
of numbers greatly inferior to the many squadrons of
horse in the army of Cendebeus.
On the first evening of their march from Jerusalem, the
two brothers reached Modin, the patrimonial home of the
Asmonean family. There the army encamped for the
night ; while the two young Maccabeans visited the
graves of their heroic grandfather and uncles, and prayed
to the Supreme Disposer of events for help and deliver-
ance in their hour of need. In the morning they resumed
their march toward the plains, where they saw the Syrian
host before them in battle array, — the dense phalanx of
foot fully equal in numbers to their own, while on each
flank a formidable body of horse threatened destruction
to the small body of Jewish cavalry they had with them.
THE ASMONEANS. 25
A rivulet, not broad but deep, divided the two armies ;
and when the Jews saw the enemy's army so greatly ex-
ceeding their own, and who in contempt of Jewish prowess
had left the opposite bank of the rivulet open for the Jews
to cross, a feeling of hesitation began to spread through
their ranks, and the new levies expressed their reluctance
to abandon their defensive position and to march and at-
tack a superior force with the deep rivulet in their rear,
which would greatly impede their retreat in case their at-
tack should fail of success.
Jochanan, however, trained in the school of his heroic
uncles and father, would listen to no such timid counsels ;
and ashamed of the backwardness of his men, he impetuously
rushed into the rapid stream, crossed it by himself, and set
foot on the plain in sight of the whole Syrian army. This
act of heroism did not fail to produce its due effect. The
Jews, animated by the gallant example of their young leader,
flung themselves into the rivulet, swam through it, and took
post on the plain beyond it. But their leader was not
only brave ; he was also skilful. He saw that the over-
whelming number of the enemy's cavalry left him no hope
that his own troop of horsemen could successfully resist
their charge ; and he therefore, after consultation with his
brother and the veterans who commanded under him, re-
solved that instead of dividing his scanty force of cavalry
to cover the flanks of his phalanx of foot, he would on the
contrary place his whole body of horse in the centre and
cover it by his infantry, which he drew up in two com-
pact squares.
This unusual disposition — to which tacticians ascribe the
defeat of the French in two great battles of the last
century (that of Blenheim or Hochstadt in 1704, and that
of Minden, 1759) — now helped to secure the victory to
the Jews. Cendebeus, who for want of skill or of deci-
sion, had missed the favourable moment for using his horse
Vol,. IT. 3
2G POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
to crush the Jewish foot as they rushed across the stream
and before they had time to form their squares, could not
retrieve the fortune of the day. His repeated charges
■were repelled with great slaughter by the solid squares
w^hich confronted his horse, and on which he could not
make any impression ; while his own foot, composed of
effeminate and unwarlike Antiochians, could offer no re-
sistance to the charge of the small but veteran body of
Jewish horse, who rode them down and cut them down in
all directions, until the entire body of Syrian infantry
sought refuge in flight. The Syrian horse, deserted by
the foot and exhausted by unavailing efforts to break into
the Jewdsh squares, began to lose heart ; so that when the
sacred trumpets sounded a general charge by all the Jew-
ish forces, the Syrian cavalry, seized with a sudden panic,
galloped off the field as fast as their blown horses could
carry them, warmly pursued by the victorious Jews.
The Syrians lost several thousand men, of which the
greater part were slain during the flight. Cendebeus, with
the remains of his routed army, found shelter within the
fortifications of Cedron, which he had erected before his
inroad into Judea, and which proved too strong to be
carried by a coup de main. Jochanan, therefore, led his
victorious warriors back to the battle-field, where he had
been obliged to leave his brother Judah severely wounded,
and who had made himself master of the Syrian camp.
The two brothers then led their troops back to Jerusalem
in triumph, having repelled the invaders in a brief and glo-
rious campaign, and without any considerable loss to their
army.
The bravery and skill displayed by Jochanan had fully
justified the partiality of his father, who had intrusted him
with the command, in ■which the young hero evinced an
appreciation of the military qualities of the Jewish foot-
soldier worthy of the experience of a veteran warrior.
THE ASMONEANS. 27
These qualities were strength of body, vigour of mind, and
unflinching firmness. Severely tried yet triumphant in
Jonathan's victory at Azotus, they had now again been
put to the test and not found wanting.
Indeed, there can be no greater contrast than that be-
tween the Jews and their foes, the Syro-Greeks. The
latter, with their bodies enervated with luxury and debau-
chery, and their minds prostrated by despotism, are inva-
riably found altogether disqualified from maintaining a firm
front against an attack so terrifying as a charge of horse.
"Whereas the Hebrew, his strength of body preserved by
living according to the letter of his Law, as his strength of
mind was sustained by its spirit, shrunk not from encoun-
tering the horse and its mail-clad rider, and of repelling
the utmost efforts of man and beast, with the bold heart,
strong arm, and the enyielding firmness of a freeman who
fears God, but knows no other fear. It is true, that on
several occasions of approaching conflict, the Jews frequent-
ly seem carried away by a sudden impulse, sometimes of
extreme bravery, and sometimes of quite the reverse.
But when once fairly engaged in battle, and under leaders
such as the Maccabean brothers, no disparity of numbers
daunts them, and they conquer or die for their faith and
their country.
An anonymous historical book which, for want of a better
designation, is called the fourth book of Maccabees, which
probably was written in Aramaic, but of which a Greek as
well as a Latin and an Arabic version are found, tells us
that Jochanan the son of Simon received the surname of
Hyrcanus on account of his having defeated a famous
general of that name, whom he slew with his own hand in
single combat. Some historians have assumed that the
general spoken of was Cendebeus, who was called the Hyr-
canian, probably because he was a native of that country.
(Univ. Hist- x. 332.) Others will have it that Jochanan
28 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
obtained this surname at a later period, when he attended
King Sidetes on his expedition into Parthia, and where, at
the head of an auxiliary body of Jewish troops, Jochanan
so greatly distinguished himself, especially in Ilyrcania,
that thenceforth he was called Hyrcanus. The Hebrew
Josephus (Ben Gorion) relates (lib. iv. cap. 2) that the
name Hyrcanjis passed from Simon's eldest son, who died,
to his second son, Jochanan. This last appears to us the
most probable account ; but whichever be the cause of Jo-
chanan assuming that surname, he rendered it so illustri-
ous that most historians designate him by no other name.
. After the defeat of Cendebeus, the land of Judea ex-
perienced three years of peace, and the aged Simon de-
voted his time and prudence to ameliorate the internal con-
dition of his people, while his three gallant sons — for his
third, Mattathias, likewise devoted himself to the public
service — watched over the protection of the frontier against
foreign aggression. And now at length Judea seemed
about to reap the reward of its long years of suffering and
constancy, in the enjoyment of political freedom, peace,
and prosperity, when the murderous hand of treason struck
the aged high-priest, and endangered the national welfare
to that degree that for a time, at least, it seemed as if the
yoke of Syria was once more to be imposed on the wretched
Jews.
Ptolemy, the son of Abobis, was descended from a family
highly distinguished for its wealth and patriotism. He
himself, along Avith his Greek name, had embraced Greek
infidelity and a fondness for Grecian customs, enjoyments,
and laxity of principle. This, however, he had known so
well how to conceal, that on the strength of his family-re-
spectability, he had become the successful suitor of the
high-priest's daughter, and had so completely gained the
confidence of the prudent Simon, that he intrusted his
son-in-law Ptolemy with the important government of
THE ASMONEANS. 29
Jericlio, wliicli he held some years, and in which he
amassed great wealth.
As his means of indulging his Grecian propensities in-
creased, the restraint he was forced to impose on his in-
clinations became more irksome, until at length it grew
quite unbearable, and filled his mind with bitter hatred
against his father-in-law. Ambition completed what licen-
tiousness had begun, and Ptolemy determined, by the as-
sassination of the high-priest and his sons, to raise himself
to supreme power in Judea, and by that means to gain
full freedom for the enjoyment of his Grecian luxuriousness.
He soon found fitting instruments among those apostates
who, by means of a mock recantation of their errors, had
obtained permission to remain in the land, and some of
the most needy and desperate of whom his great wealth
enabled him to buy over to his views. Nor had he to wait
long before an opportunity offered to carry out his execra-
ble purpose.
Simon, notwithstanding his advanced age, deemed it his
duty, at certain stated periods, to visit every part of the
country in person, to examine the condition of the people
and the state of the national defences. On such a journey
of inspection the high-priest, attended by his two younger
sons, also visited the district of Jericho, of which his son-
in-law Ptolemy was governor. In honour of his father-
in-law, the prince high-priest, the governor had prepared
a magnificent banquet at his strong castle of Doug or
Dougan, which Simon and his two sons were invited to
grace with their presence, and to which, in an evil hour
for themselves, they repaired, attended by a small retinue.
The good high-priest embraced his grandchildren that were
presented to him, and gave himself up to the pleasurable
feelings called forth by this family party. But in the
midst of his enjoyments, and while the mirth and feast
was at its height, a band of Ptolemy's ruffians rushed into
3*
30 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
the banquet-hall, and murdered Simon, his two sons, and
their retinue, of which one man only found means to escape.
As soon as this first act of the horrid tragedy had been
successfully performed, Ptolemy, without loss of time, pre-
pared to complete his purpose, and to remove the only
obstacle that might interfere with his seizing on the su-
preme power. Hyrcanus, the eldest son of the murdered
high-priest, was at Gazara, the seat of his own govern-
ment. To him, and before the tidings of the murder had
been bruited beyond the walls of Dougan, Ptolemy des-
patched messengers. Their orders w^ere to deliver letters
from his brother-in-law to Hyrcanus, requiring an imme-
diate reply ; and while he, unsuspecting, should be reading
these letters, the messengers were to stab him to the
heart.
It is singular to observe in history how events and
crimes, at the distance of centuries, are repeated by men
who probably do not know that their foul deeds are but a
plagiarism of crimes as nefarious, long since committed
and buried in oblivion. In the same manner as the ex-
cellent high-priest and his two sons were murdered in the
midst of a banquet at the castle of Dougan, so in the year
1634 the three generals, Terzky, Kinsky, and Illo, the con-
fidants and associates of the great Austrian generalissimo
Wallenstein, were murdered in the midst of a banquet at
the castle of Eger, in Bohemia. With the same pretence
of having an important letter, requiring an immediate re-
ply, under which Ptolemy despatched the murderers to
Hyrcanus at Gazara, the monk Jacques Clement ap-
proached the person of Henry III., King of France ; and
while the king was reading the letter, the monk stabbed him
to the heart, at St. Cloud, near Paris, in the year 1589.
But Hyrcanus Avas more fortunate than Henry III. That
one man of Simon's retinue who alone found means to escape
from the castle of Dougan, had hastened on the wings of
THE ASMONEANS. 31
fear to Hyrcanus, and brought liim tidings of the horrid
massacre. When, a few short hours later, Ptolemy's mes-
sengers reached Gazara, Hyrcanus was prepared for their
arrival, and caused them to be seized and at once put to
death.
Not deeming himself safe at Gazara from the further
attempts of Ptolemy, Hyrcanus hastened to Jerusalem,
and presented himself at one of the gates of the city at
the very time that Ptolemy, not doubting but his design
on Hyrcanus had been successful, craved admittance for
himself and a numerous gang of banditti by whom he was
attended, at another gate. But news of the horrid deed
had already reached Jerusalem. The citizens alarmed and
exasperated, had closed their gates and manned their
walls. On the arrival of Hyrcanus, the gate was thrown
open, and he with his retinue were honourably received,
while entrance was indignantly refused to the murderers
of the noble Simon. Indeed, Ptolemy found it needful to
make a rapid retreat amid the yells and execrations of
the populace, who were prevented by his flight alone from
rushing out and destroying him on the spot.
Thus th(3 last of the noble band of the Maccabean bro-
thers perished by the hand of a traitor. Neither his sa-
cred dignity, great personal merit, eminent public services,
or venerable age, nor yet the love of his people, could save
him from the serpent he had nurtured in his bosom till it
stung him to death. With him fell two of his sons, who
only required longer life and opportunity to emulate the
noble deeds of their sire, their grandsire, and their uncles.
But though these young heroes were not permitted like
their great kinsmen to combat and conquer for their
country, tliey could die for her sacred cause.
A family so jore-emincntly patriotic as that of Mattathias
the Asmonean and his five sons, who one and all sealed
their patriotism in their hearts' best blood, is seldom met with
32 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
in history. Mattatliias himself fell a victim to excessive
fatigue endured in the cause of God's law and of his op-
pressed people. The eldest of the brothers, Jochanan,
fell in an engagement against the lambrians shortly after
Judah, the great Miiccabee, and the third of the brothers,
had closed his glorious career on the battle-field at Eleasa.
The fourth brother, Eleazar, and who, according to the
Midrash Hhanuka, had been the first to draw the sword
against Syrian oppression, in his patriotic ardour sacrificed
his life at Bethzura, in a heroic attempt to destroy Antio-
chus v., the invader of his country. The youngest of the
brothers, Jonathan, with his two sons, had been trea-
cherously murdered by Tryphon ; and now the second and
only surviving brother, Simon, with two of his sons, pe-
rished by the hands of a parricide ; so that of all this illus-
trious family one man only, Hyrcanus, survived to follow
in the footsteps of his sires. (135 b. c.e.)
The history of his preservation from the assassins sent
to him by Ptolemy is the last event recorded in the first
book of Maccabees. We part with regret from a work so
accurate and trustworthy, which during this stirring
epoch of forty years is the safest guide we can find. In
the last verse of its last chapter it refers us, for the re-
maining life and actions of Hyrcanus, to a book of Chroni-
cles long since lost, so that we are, for a time at least,
limited to the scanty notice we find in the Talmud and
Midrashim, and to the History of Josephus.
This last, however, can only be used with extreme cau-
tion. He occasionally betrays a fondness for gossip, and
receives as true, popular legends frequently in contradic-
tion to authentic history. Thus he tells us (Antiq. lib. xiii.
cap, 14 et 15) that Hyrcanus immediately on his arrival
at Jerusalem, having been recognised by the Jewish nation
as his father's successor in the dignities of high-priest and
prince of Judca, put himself at the head of a numerous
THE ASMONEANS. . 33
army and laid siege to Ptolemy's castle of Dougan, where
that murderer kept the wife and two sons of Simon in rigid
confinement, after having put the high-priest to death.
This last account of his is quite at variance with the first
book of Maccabees, which (xvi. 16) expressly states that
Simon's two sons were assassinated at the same time with
their aged father, but which makes no mention whatever
of Simon's wife.
Josephus further relates that during the progress of the
siege, Ptolemy, becoming alarmed for his safety, caused
the mother with her sons to be brought on the walls of the
castle, where he had them severely scourged in the sight
of Hyrcanus, and even threatened to cast them down head-
long unless Hyrcanus would desist from his attacks ; that
the old lady observing that her son Hyrcanus was greatly
afiected by the cruel usage she received, and by the danger
with which her life was threatened, encouraged him by
signs from the wall to persist in his attacks, and to take no
thought of her safety or sufierings ; but that Hyrcanus,
unable to bear the sight or thought of the tortures inflicted
on his mother and brothers, had desisted from the assault
and turned the siege into a blockade ; and that eventually
the sabbatic year having come, Hyrcanus was on that
account obliged to raise the siege. This gave Ptolemy the
opportunity to escape; and after having put his three
prisoners to death, he fled to Zeno, surnamed Cotylas,
{the slayer,) a man of congenial disposition, who had
usurped the government of the city of Philadelphia, and
with whom Ptolemy found a refuge.
The fourth book of Maccabees tells much the same
story, and only differs in two circumstances from Josephus.
The first is, that Gaza, and not Jerusalem, is there named
as the place where Hyrcanus was received and Ptolemy
shut out ; and the second, that it was the feast of taber-
nacles, and not the sabbatic year, which obliged the high-
34 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
priest Ilyrcanus to absent himself from bis camp before
Dougan Castle, in oi'dcr to perform his sacred functions in
the temple, and that during his temporary absence Ptolemy
contrived to escape.
But though these two accounts agree in describing the
siege in all its minute particulars, there is reason to as-
sume that the whole story of this siege and of the suffer-
ings and fortitude of Simon's wife is a legend invented in
later times to augment the glory of the Asmoneans and
to heighten the public detestation of Ptolemy ; for not
only does the authentic history of the time (the first book
of Maccabees) positively declare that the sons of the aged
high-priest perished at the same time as theii- father, but,
moreover, the reason Josephus assigns for Hyrcanus rais-
ing the siege, is a fallacy, since the Sabbatic year did
not carry with it the obligation to abstain from war, espe-
cially when its object was to bring a murderer to justice.
As to the statement of the so-called fourth book of Mac-
cabees, and which on the face of it is more satisfactory
than Josephus, that the approaching festival of taberna-
cles rendered the presence of Hyrcanus indispensable at
Jerusalem, we shall presently see that though the high-
priest was indeed in that city during the festival, the cause
of his presence there was by no means voluntary.
The sober truth of history — rejecting the pretty legends
of Josephus and the fourth of Maccabees — reduces itself
to relate that while Hyrcanus, having been recognised as
his father's successor in the dignities of high-priest and
prince, devoted himself to the raising of an army, fortify-
ing the temple mount, and taking such measures as were
necessary to secure his personal safety, Ptolemy attempted
to form a party, and by means of presents and promises
sought to gain over some of the leading men in Judea
to espouse his cause. In this, however, he failed.
He next applied for assistance to Sidetes, and promised
THE ASMONEANS. 35
to bring Judea again under the sceptre of Syria, provided
he was succoured and appointed governor. But before
the king of Syria could assemble his forces, Ptolemy,
alarmed by the violent manifestations of popular resent-
ment, deemed it prudent not to await the coming of the
Syrian army, but fled to Zeno, tyrant of the city of Phila-
delphia. Thenceforth the assassin disappears from his-
tory, and it is not known where or how he ended his
days. His crime was the last expiring effort of that apos-
tasy which the love of Grecian philosophy, manners, and
refinements, had rendered so popular among the Jews ;
but that was eventually compelled to yield to the spirit
of nationality and conservatism, which are inseparable,
and, however sorely beset, have in the long run always
proved triumphant in the synagogue, and always must
do so, if Judaism is at all to exist.
The defeat of Cendebeus had greatly exasperated King
Antiochus Sidetes, but it had also given him an idea of
the military strength and organization of Judea very
different from that which other provinces of his empire
enabled him to form. He had therefore arrived at the
prudent conclusion that so long as the Jews were united,
and their civil and military affairs were conducted by the
experience of Simon and the valour of his sons; while,
moreover, the formidable alliance with Rome lent its moral
support to Judea, and might even become induced to use
the sword in defence of that country, — so long indeed, as
Jewish affairs continued in their actual condition, it would
be the wisest plan for the king of Syria not to renew his
claims on the high-priest of Jerusalem, or to enforce them
by a recourse to arms.
Sidetes accordingly directed his attention to the internal
administration of the extensive countries that still formed
the Syrian empire, but in one great portion of which the
action and authority of the royal government had been
36 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
inteiTuptetl by the usurpation of Tryphon, wliilc another
great portion had been seized upon by the Parthians.
During the three years that intervened between the defeat
of Cendebeus and the assassination of Simon, King Sidetea
had been fully but pi'ospcrously employed in establishing
his authority in every part of his empire, except the coun-
tries occupied by the Parthians ; and the recovery of these
valuable and extensive portions of his inheritance became
the next object of his ambition. Mithridates I., King of
Parthia, had died full of years and honour, and had been
succeeded by his son, Phrahates II.
Against this young king Sidetes conceived the hope of
levying war with better success than had been done against
his predecessor. Antiochus Sidetes had an army of Euro-
pean Greeks at his disposal, — an advantage of which his bro-
ther, Demetrius 11. , had been destitute ; and the unceasing
vexations exercised by the Parthians would procure for
him powerful auxiliaries among the nations of Upper Asia.
He had therefore determined to begin his preparations for a
Parthian campaign, when tidings from Judea, in rapid suc-
cession, acquainted him with the assassination of the high-
priest, with the civil Avar between Ptolemy and Hyrcanus,
and finally with the oifer of Ptolemy to bring back the
Jews to their former state of subjection to the Syrian
empire. His council strongly urged him to take advan-
tage of this favourable opportunity to disarm the Jews, —
hollow friends, but stubborn enemies, and who, while they
remained powerful and independent in his neighbourhood,
must mar and render fruitless all his distant projects. The
king, whose mind was taken up with his plans against the
Parthians, did not at first enter into the views of his
council, though eventually he yielded to the urgency of
his friends, and with a powerful army marched into Judea.
The delay, however, had been fatal to the murderer Pto-
lemy, who, as already related, had fled from the scene of
THE ASMONEANS. 37
his crimes, and disappears from history. Antiochus VII.
was probably not sorry to find himself relieved from the
alliance of a traitor, and from the stigma of having asso-
ciated himself with a murderer, especially as the forces
under his command rendered resistance in the field hope-
less to Hyrcanus. The small body of men that rallied
under the standard of the Maccabean were forced to re-
treat slowly, but without being able to make any effectual
stand, while the king was driving them all the way before
him to Jerusalem, the strong fortifications of which ofiFered
a shelter to Hyrcanus and his men.
Antiochus at once laid siege to the metropolis of Judea.
To render his operations more effectual, he caused two
deep and spacious trenches to be dug round the city, and
divided his army into seven camps, so that all possibility
of ingress and egress was entirely stopped. He next
erected one hundred (or, as the fourth book of Maccabees
has it, one hundred and thirty) towers, three stories high,
on which he placed Cretan archers, to clear the walls of
their defenders, while he was battering them from below.
The besieged made a vigorous defence, and by their fre-
quent sallies inflicted great loss on the besiegers.
Josephus (Antiq.lib. xiii. cap. 16) relates that the Syrian
army suffered greatly and for some time from the want of
water, but were at length relieved by an abundant and
lasting fall of rain. Hyrcanus was not so fortunate. The
store of provisions in Jerusalem at the beginning of the
siege had not been very large, and as no relief could be
expected from without, Hyrcanus determined to rid him-
self of all useless mouths, by driving out of the city women,
children, aged and infirm men ; in short, all who could not
take an active part in the defence.
Crowds of these unfortunates — whom the Syrians would
not permit to pass — became pent up between the city wall
and the trench of the besieging army, where they must
Vol. II. 4
38 POST-BIBLICAL HISTOBY OF THE JET7S.
infallibly have been starved, had they not been received
back into the city. The natural compassion "which the
besieged felt for their own flesh and blood was still height-
ened by the approach of the joyous season of the feast
of tabernacles. And when Hyrcanus and his men found
that the Syrians would not grant a passage to the wretch-
ed crowd expelled from the city, the besieged determined
rather to suifer want themselves than to prolong their own
existence by the destruction of their kindred. At the same
time the defence was maintained Avith the utmost vigour
till a day or two before the feast, when Hyrcanus sent
to solicit from the king a truce for seven days, that the
sanctity of the religious services might not be interrupted
by bloodshed.
The temple of Jerusalem, and the invisible God who
there was worshipped, were held in high veneration by the
heathens; especially since the triumphs of the Maccabee,
and the miserable end of Antiochus Epiphanes, Nicanor,
and so many other blasphemers, had vindicated the power
of that God. King Antiochus himself seems to have pos-
sessed some sense of religion ; accordingly, he not only
granted the truce, but sent into the city a considerable
number of beasts for sacrifice, their horns ornamented
with gilding, and garlands of flowers wreathed round their
necks. He also sent several rich vessels of gold and silver
filled with precious perfumes, and some money and other
necessaries, as off"erings to the temple. All these gifts
Hyrcanus directed a deputation of priests thankfully to
receive at one of the city gates, whence the whole was
conveyed into the temple.
This commencement of friendly intercourse, and the
proofs of the king's liberality and piety, the more striking
because altogether unexpected, induced Hyrcanus to en-
deavour, if possible, to convert the temporary truce into a
peace. Accordingly, he despatched an embassy to the
THE ASMONEANS. 39
camp, Avith the ostensible object to offer the thanks of the
high-priest, but with the real purpose of sounding King
Antiochus's intentions respecting the all-important question
of the renewal of hostilities; and, to their great joy, the
Jews found the king disposed to grant them terms far
more favourable than the present posture of their affairs
gave them a right to expect ; for the city was reduced to
the last extremity, the entire stock of provisions being
quite exhausted. And Avhat rendered this state of things
more dangerous, it was perfectly well known in the be-
sieging army. Many of the king's friends strongly ad-
vised him to make use of this favourable opportunity to de-
stroy and extirpate the Jewish nation, and traduced that
people in the bitterest terms as the pests of mankind and
the enemies of all other nations. But a merciful Provi-
dence, which so often during the course of their struggles
had interposed in behalf of the Jews, once more vouch-
safed to protect them.^
King Antiochus refused to give ear to the violent coun-
sels that urged him to resume the plans of his predecessor,
Epiphanes. Perhaps he wished to show to the world the
difference between a legitimate monarch and a cruel
usurper, for as such Antiochus IV. Epiphanes was re-
garded by all the descendants of Demetrius Soter. Per-
haps the brave and constant defence of the besieged, and
the losses he had already met with, rendered the king
averse to expose himself to fresh losses when his objects
might be attained by peaceful means.
But though King Antiochus VII. appears during the
3 So hopeless was their condition, and so remarkable their deliverance,
that even a heathen writer, Diodorus Siculus, (lib. xxxiv. et apud Phot,
cod. 244,) dwells on the negotiation for peace, and the easy terms the
Jews obtained, as circumstances surprising, and altogether beyond what
might have been expected from Sidetes, whose moderation and clemency
on this occasion are recorded as unprecedented.
40 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
whole of his war against Hyrcanus to have been more oc-
cupied in his own mind with the invasion of Parthia than
with that of Judea, and that so far from entering heartily
into this Jewish war, he had to be urged on by the re-
monstrances of his council, still, finding that he was in a
position to dictate the terms of peace, he was little in-
clined to renounce any advantage that he could gain con-
sistent with the engagements which he himself had entered
into with the late high-priest, and to which he more honour-
ably adhered than either his father or his brother had
done to theirs in their intercourse with the Jews. He
therefore did not pretend to deprive Judea of that species
of secondary independence which he himself had con-
firmed to the Jews, and which moreover had been guaran-
teed by, and placed under the protection of, all-powerful
Rome. But with that single exception, the terms the
king dictated were so onerous, that even in the extremity
to which he was reduced, Hyrcanus could not bring him-
self to accept them.
These terms were : 1. That the Jews should deliver up
all their arms. 2. That the walls of Jerusalem should be
demolished. 3. That a Syrian garrison be received in
Jerusalem, and that for this purpose, 4. the fortress of
Acra should be restored and surrendered to the king. 5.
That Hyrcanus should pay an annual tribute for the pos-
session of Joppa, and such other places as the Jews occu-
pied beyond the limits of Judea proper ; which country,
however, was to remain as it was, free from the payment
of any tribute to the king of Syria, and from any obedience
to the laws of the Syrian empire.
Hyrcanus declared himself ready to submit to the fifth
and last article dictated by the king, without any qualifi-
cation. But against the first four articles he strongly re-
monstrated as uttei'ly inacceptable. The fix'st and second,
which would leave the Jews disarmed and Jerusalem dis-
THE ASMONEANS. 41
mantled, would be sure to invite the active hostility of the
neighbouring nationalities, to whose malice and oppressive
inroads the Jews would become defenceless victims ; that
the third and fourth articles, the restoration of Acra and
its occupation by the Syrians, would altogether destroy
that Jewish independence which the king himself had
granted, and which Rome had guaranteed ; that to these
four articles, therefore, he could by no means subscribe;
that he was willing to compound for them by the pay-
ment of any sum of money in his power to raise, and by
the giving of such hostages as the king should demand ;
but that rather than consign the entire Jewish nation to
the certain destruction which he foresaw, he and the de-
fenders of Jerusalem would bury themselves under the
ruins of that devoted city.
This remonstrance produced its due effect. King An-
tiochus Sidetes could not expect that the fall of Jerusalem
would end the Jewish war ; for experience had proved that
though Antiochus Epiphanes had reduced Jerusalem to
the brink of ruin, the spirit of Jewish nationality had
burned far more fiercely and formidably in the midst of
extrem.e adversity than at any other time ; and King Si-
detes did not wish to rekindle that spirit. He was more-
over greedy of money, and by nature not prone to cruelty.
And as he felt that Hyrcanus's remarks were just, while
his own interests would be fully secured by the terms to
which the Jews were willing to submit, he consented to
give up the articles so strongly objected to, and to re-
ceive in their stead a compensation in money and the
hostages oifered by Hyrcanus. The sum agreed upon was
five hundred talents, (half a million dollars,) of which three
hundred were to be paid down, and the remainder within
a stipulated period. Hostages were surrendered to the
king, among whom Hyrcanus's only surviving brother
was one ; and the breaches in the city walls were en-
4*
42 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
larged in colourable compliance with the second article of
the treaty.
Josephus and the fourth book of Maccabees tell a sin-
gular story of the means to which Hyrcanus was driven in
order to raise the money necessary to be paid under the
stipulations of the treaty: That his own and the public
treasury being completely exhausted, the high-priest had
recourse to a hidden treasure laid up by some of the ancient
kings of Judea, (Josephus says in the tomb of David,) and
from which he took out a sum of three thousand talents,
(three millions of dollars ;) and that such a measure had
never been resorted to by any of his predecessors, or by
any of his successors except Herod. (Antiq. lib. xiii. cap.
16, et Bell. Jud. lib. iv. cap. 2.)
Most modern historians ridicule the idea of any such
supply, and argue at great length on the improbability
that treasures laid by so long ago as the times of David
or his immediate successors should have escaped the wants
of the last kings of the house of David — some of them suf-
ficiently unscrupulous to lay their impious hands even on
the consecrated ornaments of the temple ; while others, as
good King Hezekiah, were driven by the pressure of ad-
verse circumstances not only to take what remained of the
consecrated vessels, but even to strip the inner walls, gates,
and pillars of the holy temple of the gold with which
they were covered. That, moreover, if even the kings of
Judah did not lay hands on the treasures hidden by their
predecessors in their tombs, — a circumstance nowhere men-
tioned in Scripture, — it would be next to impossible that
these tombs and their rich contents should have escaped
the curiosity of the Assyrian and Babylonian conquerors,
or even of the Macedonians of Ptolemy or Antigonus, both
highly inquisitive, and not accessible to scruples of any
kind. The whole narrative is therefore rejected as an
"idle story," unworthy of notice.
THE ASMONEANS. 43
Now wliile we admit that treasures laid up by David
and by Solomon were not likely to have remained un-
touched till the days of the Maccabees, still we do not
think that the narrative of Hyrcanus, and after him Herod,
having drawn, or attempted to draw, supplies from the
tombs of the kings, ought to be ridiculed in the manner it
has been. It doubtless preserves a popular tradition not
altogether destitute of foundation. We have already stated
that the temples in those days served as banks of deposit,
in which merchants and capitalists, and likewise widows
and orphans, placed their movable wealth, as being there
more safe than in any other place. When, however, An-
tiochus Epiphanes plundered the temple of Jerusalem and
robbed its treasury of all that it contained, and during the
years of war and vicissitude that intervened between his
days and those of Hyrcanus, people no longer deemed it
safe to deposit money in a place which had lost its prestige
of security, and was in fact more exposed than even their
own private dwellings.
This feeling of insecurity remained with the temple,
even during the prosperous but precarioiis administrations
of Jonathan and of Simon. But as the national wealth
was increasing, and some public bank or place of deposit
became indispensable, we agree with the authors of the
Universal History (vol. 10 p. 337, note /.) in assuming
that it is probable the tombs of the old kings of Judah
were chosen for that purpose ; this choice, however, being
kept as secret as possible, and known only to a few trusty
men at the head of affairs ; and that when Hyrcanus
found himself hard pressed for money, and anxious to get
rid of his Syrian invaders, he had recourse to a loan from
this secret bank till better times should enable him to re-
place what he had borrowed.
The security of this place of deposit had probably con-
sisted in the exposed and defenceless position of the tombs,
44 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
which prevented any one from supposing it possible that
such places could be chosen as strong rooms in which to
store gold and silver. But when, from the fact of Hyrcanus
having obtained money out of these tombs, a fact which
could not remain hidden from the people in Jerusalem,
and probably not from the Syrian army, they were no
longer safe as places of deposit, and as, moreover, by the
peace with Syria the temple was placed beyond danger,
its treasury once more became the public bank of deposit.
Such it remained till Crassus, the Roman, a second time
destroyed the pi^estige of its security by robbing it of two
thousand talents. And as the Jews were a people of pre-
cedents, the tombs of the kings of Judah Avere again se-
cretly chosen as places of deposit, until Herod obtained a
knowledge of the secret, and finally attempted to rob them
of their contents without any intention of repayment.
After this digression — which appears to us to have vin-
dicated, at least in this instance, the truth of Josephus, by
explaining whatever in his narrative appears marvellous
and incredible — we resume the thread of the history. As
soon as the peace was concluded, and its stipulations sworn
to by Hyrcanus, the siege was raised, abundant supplies
of provisions were from all parts of Judea carried to Je-
rusalem, and a friendly intercourse commenced between
the city and the Syrian camp. Antiochus and his principal
officers were invited to Jerusalem, and sumptuously enter-
tained by the high-priest.
The personal acquaintance thus formed between Sidetes
and Hyrcanus, both young, brave, and fond of glory, soon
ripened into friendship. The king communicated his in-
tention of invading Parthia to the prince higli-jiriest, who
not only approved of the design, but promised in person
to assist his friend at the head of a considerable body of
Jewish auxiliaries. A treaty of alliance, on terms of per-
fect equality, was concluded between the two, and faith-
THE ASMONEANS. 45
fully observed by both until the death of Sidetes. Thus
pleased with each other, and under mutual assurances of
friendship and assistance, they separated ; the king re-
turning to Syria to commence his preparations against the
Parthians on a scale commensurate with the magnitude of
the enterprise, while Hyrcanus availed himself of his
friendly understanding with the king to repair the breaches
in the walls of Jerusalem, and what other damage the city
and its environs had suffered during the siege.
But not satisfied with having merely restored the forti-
fications of Jerusalem, Hyrcanus went a step farther in
providing means of defence. He had seen with grief how
weary the Jewish people had become of war, and how little
alacrity they had displayed in coming forward to repel the
late Syrian invasion. Hyrcanus had engaged to join Si-
detes in his war against the Parthians. But he could
easily foresee that since the Jews were thus reluctant to
fight in defence of their own independence, they would be
still more averse to join in an attack upon others. There-
fore, and in order to fulfil his promise to Sidetes of as-
sisting him with a body of auxiliaries, Hyrcanus took into
his pay and introduced into Judea a body of foreign
mercenaries.
This was a measure which before him no ruler of Judea
had ever ventured to adopt, and which subsequently was
found fraught with evil consequences to the Jewish people
not less than to the family of Hyrcanus. We shall soon
see how the circumstance of having at their sole and abso-
lute disposal a standing army, independent of the national
will, unscrupulous, and having no feeling in common with
the people, tempted the successors of Hyrcanus to adopt
the despotic mode of government so general throughout
the East, but which, among the free-born and liberty-loving
Jews, could not be carried out except at the price of much
bloodshed, and of civil wars so fierce as to destroy alike
46 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
the welfare of the Jewish people and the existence of the
Asmonean dynasty.
Antiochus Sidetes employed four years in preparations
for his Parthian war before he summoned his ally, Hyrca-
nuSj to redeem his promise and to join him with a body of
Jewish auxiliaries. The Syrian army was the most nume-
rous and the most splendidly equipped which that country
had sent into the field since the brilliant days of Antiochus
III., surnamed the Great. The fighting men of all arms
numbered eighty thousand ; and their followers of all de-
scriptions exceeded three times that number. Historians
with one accord expatiate on the bulky retinue of vice and
folly by which the Syrian camp was encumbered — musi-
cians, dancers, bufibons, and all those beautiful outcasts
or alluring Avarblers of the female sex, to whom the
general corruption of morals and of manners afi'orded so
lucrative a harvest.
Gold and silver, resplendent tissues and costly luxuries,
many of them brought from the extremities of the East
and the South, enriched the tents and tables of the Syrians.
The pages of Justin, (lib. xxxviii. cap. 10,) of Orosius, (lib.
V. cap. 10,) of Valerius Maximus, (lib. ix. cap. 1,) and of
Athengeus, (Deipin. lib. v. p. 210, et alib. passim,) exhaust
their powers of language in glowing descriptions of the
force, the pomp, and the folly of this the last expiring ef-
fort of Syro-Grecian greatness ; and they prove to us that,
notwithstanding the incessant but petty wars, rebellions, and
usurpations under which that empire so long had sufiered,
and which had rather molested than interrupted the ex-
tensive commerce carried on through Upper Asia, the
house of Seleucus was still in a condition to emulate the
wonderful exertions made by Greek kingdoms and republics
on other occasions, and which displayed the multiplied re-
sources that labour, commerce, and ingenuity created and
long maintained in those countries of antiquity, which at
THE ASMONEANS. ' 47
present are among the most desolate, uncivilized, and
hopelessly ruined regions on earth.
Amidst this picture of general corruption and the license
of a camp, in which every vice could find unrestrained and
shameless indulgence, the mind can dwell with pleasure on
the purity of conduct and strictness of discipline observed
by the Jewish auxiliaries. For though the Greek histo-
rians are too fully occupied by the splendid vices of their
countrymen to afford time or space to a handful of Jews,
and though even Josephus, the national historian, gives us
but scanty particulars of this campaign, yet one circum-
stance that he has preserved to us, affords a convincing
proof that the Jews continued rigidly to obey their law,
and to carry out its precepts ; and that, therefore, the
vice and folly which surrounded them, and the contagion
of bad example to which they were exposed, proved equally
powerless against their religious principles.
In proceeding to Mesopotamia (131 b.c.e.) Sidetes pur-
sued the northern route, and being joined by many Babylo-
nian malecontents, he crossed the river Tigris into that dis-
trict of Atyria which is watered by the Lycos and Capros,
(that is, the Wolf and the Boar.) On the former of these
rivers the Parthians had assembled in great force under
Indates, the commander intrusted with the defence of that
frontier of the Parthian empire. After two partial en-
counters, in both of which the Syrians had the advantage,
a decisive battle was fought, in which the Parthians were
routed with great loss, and a Greek trophy adorned the
banks of the Lycos, on nearly the same ground on which
Alexander the Great had, for the third time, defeated the
Persians. Here Sidetes, at the request of Hyrcanus, the
prince and high-priest of Judea, halted two days to give
the Jews time to celebrate their Feast of Weeks, or Pen-
tecost, during which they would not continue their march or
join in any warlike operations. (Jos. Antiq. lib. xiii. cap. 16.)
48 rOST-EIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
This circumstance proves to us, not only that the Jews,
as we have already observed, strictly adhered to the pre-
cepts and i^ractice of their religion, but also that they must
have conspicuously signalized their prowess in the battle,
and perhaps mainly contributed to the gaining of the
king's decisive victory ; for unless their claims to his con-
sideration had been recent and of the most important kind,
it is not likely that King Sidetes would have interrupted
the advance of his victorious army in order to comply
with their religious scruples. Nor is it probable that the
leaders of the Greek mercenaries and of the Syrian na-
tional troops would otherwise have consented to a delay,
at a moment when time was of the utmost value.
After this homage to Jewish principle and valour, An-
tiochus Sidetes resumed his march, and hastened into the
great central province of Media to receive the willing
submission of the people, and to enjoy the terror and flight
of the foe. As the king of Syria approached the Caspian
Sea, Phrahates and his Parthians fled before his victorious
arms. The prince of the Jews, with his auxiliary corps,
was detached into the province of Hyrcania, of which he
made so rapid a conquest, that some historians will have it
that his surname " Hyrcanus" was derived from his
achievements in that country. Certain it is, that he and
his troops were not with the main army of Sidetes during
the catastrophe that befell the Syrians in their winter-
quarters ; and with this single exception every other event
connected with the fortunes of Sidetes is enveloped in ob-
scurity, and as uncertain as the divergence of historians
can make it.
We can, however, discern that his forces were divided
into numerous small parties, and were sent into canton-
ments throughout the vast countries which he had overrun.
In their winter quarters, the commanders, and particularly
a ffonornl boarina; the Greek name Athenceus, indulged
THE ASMONEANS. 49
themselves and their men in the utmost license of rapine
and cruelty. The people of Babylonia and Media, who
had welcomed the Syro-Greeks as friends and deliverers,
but were now driven to exasperation, everywhere rose
against the invaders, so that they were attacked on all
sides at once, and with as well-timed a co-operation as if
a regular combination and conspiracy had been formed
against them, which indeed some historians aver to have
been the case. (Diodor. Excerp. p. 603.)
Phrahates, with such troops as had accompanied his flight,
no sooner heard of this revulsion in the public feeling of
the Medians and Babylonians, than he returned to avail
himself of the emergency. He encountered Sidetes has-
tening to remedy the disorders caused by the misconduct
of his generals, and the Syrian king was either slain in
battle, (Joseph, ubi supra,) or taken and put to death
after his defeat, (Athen. lib. x. p. 439,) or died in despair
by his own sword, (Appian. de Reb. Syr. cap. 68) or threw
himself headlong down a precipice, (^lian. Hist. Anim.
lib. x. cap. 34.) These, and a still greater variety of con-
tradictory reports, discredit each other, while more circum-
stantial history, concurring with the evidence of Syrian
coins, (Froeclich in Prolegom. cap. 4,) attests that Sidetes
outlived his defeat by Phrahates, and was slain two years
afterward in an attempt to rob the temple of Nausea.
This obscure goddess held her seat among the defiles of
Mount Zagros, and in one of those marts or stations where
the portable wealth of commercial nations was deposited,
and where distant caravans from both sides of the moun-
tain met, and, under the protection of Nangea's temple,
safely and peacefully traded with each other. Sidetes, on
pretence that he came to betroth her, entered the temple
with a small retinue, to receive her accumulated treasures
by way of dower. But the priests of Nausea, having shut
the outward gates of their consecrated enclosure, opened
Vol. it. 5
50 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
concealed apertures or doors In the roof of the temple, and
overAvhelmed the king and his attendants as with thunder-
bolts from on high; then casting the lifeless and mutilated
remains without the walls, thus awfully announced to the
Syrians who waited his return, the disaster of the king
and the terrific majesty of the goddess. Antiochus Si-
detes was the third Syrian monarch who, in the space of
little more than fifty years, had perished ignominiously
and miserably in their attempts to rob the rich depositories
of general commerce in Upper Asia.
It seemed that the circumstance which had enabled Si-
detes to rally after the massacre of the greater portion of
his army by the people, and his own defeat by Phrahates,
Kingof Parthia, was a sudden inroad of Tartars or Scythian
nomades. A horde of those Scythians had been invited
into the service and pay of Phrahates, to aid in repelling
the Syrian invasion. They came, however, too late ; the
invaders were already vanquished, and the Parthian mo-
narch, in the pride of victory, refused to pay his now use-
less auxiliaries the price or subsidy he had promised them.
Enraged at his want of faith, they at once turned their
arms against him, and assisted by other hordes of their
countrymen, who hastened to their support, carried ruin
and devastation through a great part of the Parthian
empire. During the four years their savage warfare con-
tinued, both Phrahates and his successor, Artabanus II.,
were defeated and slain by them. But plunder, not con-
quest, was the object of these Scythian robbers ; and when
the hurricane had spent its force, Mithridates II. — a name
propitious to Parthia — on succeeding to his father Arta-
banus, collected the strength of his nation, and again con-
solidated the Parthian empire, rivalling the first Mithri-
dates in the length and splendour of his reign. (Justin, lib.
xiii. cap. 2.)
The sudden and unexpected attack which compelled
THE ASMONEANS. 51
Phrahates to divert his attention from his enemies the
Syrians, to his quondam auxiliaries the Scythians, and
which obtained for Sidetes a short respite from destruction,
proved of greater advantage to Hyrcanus. He had, with
his auxiliary corps of Jews and mercenaries, taken up his
winter quarters in Hyrcania. The general rising of the
aggrieved populations of Upper Asia, and the consequent
destruction of the Syrian invaders, had cut Hyrcanus off
from all communication with Sidetes. But as the Jewish
chief and his troops had maintained strict discipline, and
abstained from injuring the people, the Hyrcanians had
not joined in the general outbreak. And when Hyrcanus
ascertained the fact of Sidetes's defeat, and that he could
afford him no support, while his longer occupation of
Hyrcania with his small force must end in ruin by draw-
ing upon him a Parthian army too strong to be resisted,
he consulted his own safety and that of his people, and
determined on returning to Judea. His retreat met with
no molestation from the Hyrcanians ; and the Parthians
were too fully occupied by the fierce Scythian hordes who
struck at the very heart of their empire, to think of throw-
ing obstacles in the way of a small detachment of civilized
invaders, who voluntarily withdrew from the occupation
of a remote province.
On his return to Jerusalem, which he and his troops
reached in safety, Hyrcanus found the opportunity (130
B.c.E.) of acting in behalf of his ally Sidetes in a manner
that augmented his own power and possessions, for he was
not the only chief who had returned from the Parthian
campaign. After the battle on the Lycos, King Phra-
hates had set free his brother-in-law and prisoner at large,
Demetrius II. Nicator, who, after a captivity of ten years
or more, was sent back into S^aia to reclaim his crown
and wife, and by that means to create such a diversion
there as might compel his brother Sidetes to retrace his
52 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
steps and to abandon his enterprise against Parthia, wliich
had ostensibl}'' been undertaken to restore Nicator's liberty.
When, however, the invading army had been destroyed
and Sidetes defeated, Phrahates gave orders that Deme-
trius should immediately be brought back. But he was
already beyond the reach of his pursuers, had entered
Syria, and been recognised as king by a portion of the
empire. Among the cities which wavered in their alle-
giance between the two Syrian brothers, Aleppo was one
of the more considerable. Of this city Hyrcanus took
possession in the name of his friend Sidetes. Subsequently,
he in the same manner took Medeba, (which, however, cost
him a six months' siege,) Samega, and several other places,
both in Phoenicia and Arabia. And though the tidings
of Sidetes's death replaced Demetrius in undisputed pos-
session of his empire, his wife, and his children, Hyrcanus
maintained possession of his new acquisitions. (Antiq.
lib. xiii. cap. 17.)
While the Jews of Judea thus enjoyed independence and
prosperity, their brethren in Egypt had to suffer all the
ill-usage and persecution that the long pent up rancour of a
ruthless despot could devise. We have seen how Ptolemy
VI. Philometor died of the wounds received in his victory
over the usurper of Syria, Alexander Balas. During his
lifetime he had to sustain frequent wars against his brother
Physcon, the "Big-belly," whom he often vanquished
and as often pardoned. At the time of his death, Philo-
metor left behind him an infant son, by his wife and sister
Cleopatra, and this son, his natural heir, ought to have suc-
ceeded to his crown. But Philometor had unfortunately
carried with him into Syria the flower of the Egyptian
army, whose presence in the neighbourhood of Alexandria
could alone have defended the rights of that ill-fated boy
against his uncle Physcon. This prince who, after disput-
ing a great empire with his brother, had unceasingly chafed
THE ASMONEANS. 53
under his defeat, determined to renew liis pretensions, and
to repudiate the award which had assigned to him the so-
vereignty over Cyren^ and a part of the Isle of Cyprus.
At the head of a numerous band of Cretans and other mer-
cenaries he entered Egypt, routed the few troops that op-
posed his progress, made his way to Alexandria, and gained
admittance into that capital. There he forcibly espoused
the widow of his deceased brother, and on the very day of
those abominable nuptials stabbed the only son of Philo-
metor in the arms of his unhappy mother.
This enormity was the first of a succession of cruelties
perpetrated by Physcon during a reign of twenty-nine years,
the length of which appeared to his contemporaries to re-
proach the cowardice of his subjects. In arbitrary go-
vernments, and under the yoke of a tyrant who permits no
principle of reason or of custom to interfere with his pas-
sions or caprices, the people can find their defence only in
secret conspiracy or open rebellion. And tame as the
Egyptians in that age are described to have been, (Polyb.
lib. xl. cap. 12,) the oppression they suffered must have
recoiled on their tyrant, had he not been fortunate enough
to obtain, as we have already related, the assistance of an
able minister in the person of Hierax, formerly the col-
league of Diodotus Tryphon.
This Syro-Grecian favourite of the impostor Alexander
Balas, had served his apprenticeship in the art of oppressing
the people at Antioch, under the guidance of the infamous
Ammonius ; and Physcon, who knew the services Hierax
had rendered to the usurper Balas, thought him the fittest
person to support his own throne. To Hierax, therefore,
he confided the chief direction of his affairs ; and while the
king indulged in every enormity that can disgrace human
nature, his government was upheld by the vigilance and
energy of an unscrupulous vizier, whose great talents were
exerted to defend his master and to enrich himself.
6*
64 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
When Phjscon ascended the throne, the fixed purpose
of his mind was to take ample revenge on all who, during
his long conflict against Philometor, had taken part with
his brother. Foremost among those stood the Jews. Their
great chiefs, Onias and Dositheus, had been the pillars of
Philometor's throne, and many Jews had fought for his
rights. Their fidelity to their late master was the worst
of crimes in the estimation of their present ruler. His
whole reign, especially that portion of it which preceded
his expulsion from Alexandria, was to them one of suflfer-
ing. It is not known whether Onias fell a victim to his
hatred ; but Dositheus and some thousands of Jews in the
district of Ileliopolis perished under the signal vengeance
he took on the adherents of his late brother.
The Jews were not the only sufferers from his rancour.
Within his palace, and among the members of his own
family, his cruelty and lust knew no restraint. We have
already related his blood-stained marriage with his brother's
widow, Cleopatra. After a lapse of y^ars, this princess
was repudiated to make room for her own daughter by her
first marriage, also named Cleopatra, whose chastity
Physcon corrupted, and then proclaimed her his wife and
queen of Egypt. So long, however, as his abominations
were confined within the walls of his royal residence, his
subjects remained unconcerned. The sufferings he inflicted
on the Jews were rather pleasing than otherwise to the
Greeks and Egyptians. Even his open violations of those
laws which protect personal security were endured with-
out resistance by the multitude ; while the higher classes
in Alexandria, among whom the philosophers and men of
letters are particularly specified, betook themselves to
voluntary banishment, and sought a livelihood in those
countries of Europe and Asia where their proficiency in
literature and science were likely to be best appreciated.
Yet Physcon's brutality and cruelties had not obliterated
THE ASMONEANS. 55
the remembrance that the patronage of learning formed
the hereditary distinction of his family. His own attain-
ments were considerable, and his liberality to those scien-
tific and learned men that pleased him was boundless. He
is even said to have regretted the irksome solitude to which
his tyranny had reduced him, and which deprived him of
the pleasure that, amid pursuits of the most contrary
nature, he could derive from the acquisition of literary ac-
complishments. Accordingly, he spared no pains to in-
duce the self-exiled savans to return to Alexandria, or to
attract to that metropolis new inhabitants of a similar de-
scription.
While Physcon was thus employed in repeopling his
capital, he was visited by a Roman commission of in-
spection, consisting of the younger Scipio, Mummius, and
Metellus; all three persons of the highest dignity, and
Scipio, in public estimation, the first man in his country.
The king of Egypt received them Avith the highest respect,
and entertained tbem with the utmost magnificence. Not-
withstanding his unwieldly corpulency, he accompanied the
commissioners on foot, that they might view the public
buildings and ornaments of the city; a circumstance which
drew from Scipio the bitter sneer — " The Egyptians have
to thank us for giving their king this salutary exercise."
The contrast between that king, with his bloated and ugly
countenance, his short stature, his hoglike obesity, and
disgusting appearance, and the stately appearance of all
the Roman commissioners, and the modest dignity of Scipio
in particular, did not fail to attract the notice of the Alex-
andrians, and even so far impressed Ptolemy himself,
that, yielding to the remonstrances of the illustrious Ro-
man, he contrived for a brief space of time to control his
vile nature.
But shortly after his Roman visitors had loft him he
renewed his barbarities. The Alexandrians murmured,
66 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
and even threatened resistance. To disable and terrify
them, Physcon caused a sudden massacre of their young
men in the place of public exercise. The people, furi^
ous, now flew to arms, overpowered his mercenaries, set
fire to his palace, and were in high glee at the thought
of having destroyed their tyrant in the conflagration,
when they learned that Physcon himself, together with
his queen, the younger Cleopatra, and his son Mem-
phites by the elder, had succeeded in escaping, and had
embarked for the Isle of Cyprus, the most considerable
dependency of the Egyptian empire. (130 b. c. e.)
By the voice of the Alexandrians, which was not op-
posed in any part of Egypt, the elder Cleopatra, the widow
of Philometor, was seated on the throne of the runaway
tyrant, Physcon. This was an event altogether unex-
pected by him, as he had calculated on one of his sons by
that queen being appointed his successor; and in anti-
cipation of such an occurrence he had carried his younger
son Memphites with him on his flight to Cyprus ; and
the elder, whose name is unknown to history, and who,
at the time of the rebellion in Alexandria, was viceroy
at Cyrene, was hastily summoned to join his father. But
no sooner had the ill-fated youth landed at Cyprus, than,
by the order of his unnatural father, he was assassinated.
(Justin, lib. xxxviii. cap. 8.)
The tidings of this horrid crime greatly exasperated the
Alexandrians; and as they could not satisfy their rage
on the person of the execrable Physcon, they gave vent
to the detestation in which they held him by destroying
his statues — an act of impotent revenge which he ascribed
to the resentment of the queen-regent for the murder of
her son. Assuming that the mother's heart might be
most easily and painfully wrung in the person of her chil-
dren, the monster-father cut oft* the head of his and her
younger son, Memphites, a" boy in his fourteenth year.
THE ASMONEANS. 67
and enclosing it in a casket, had it presented to the mo-
ther on the anniversary of her birthday. (Diodor. Excerp.
p. 603.) At the same time Physcon — who in his flight
had succeeded in carrying off a considerable portion of
his treasures — collected a great number of mercenaries,
daring and ruthless like himself, and prepared to invade
Egypt.
The tidings of his projected attack reached Alexandria
simultaneously with his disgusting and horrid birthday
present. And while the latter changed a day of public
rejoicing into one of general mourning, it also decided
the people with one accord to oppose his return to the ut-
most of their power. The Alexandrians took up arms
under Marsyas, whom the queen had appointed her gene-
ral. The Jews, so numerous and so ill-used by Physcon,
were among the foremost, and a large but ill-disciplined and
tumultuous army marched against the invaders. The
forces of Physcon landed in Egypt under Hegelochus, an
experienced commander, who, having provoked Marsyas
to battle, routed the Alexandrians and took prisoner their
general.
In this extremity the queen-regent shiTt herself up in
Alexandria, and applied to Demetrius II. Nicator, King
of Syria, who had married her eldest daughter. Him she
informed of the murder of her two sons and invited to
come to her relief, assuring him that the Alexandrians
would receive him, and that he would easily make himself
master of the whole kingdom, provided he could bring any
considerable body of troops with him to Egypt.
With this proposal Dgmetrius very unseasonably com-
plied ; for his bad government had made him odious to
the Syrians, and his marriage with Rhodoguna, in Parthia,
had mortally oflfended his queen. Confident, however, in
the strength of his mercenaries, and especially of some
Greeks lately returned from his brother Sidetes's last cam-
68 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
paign, he neglected the rising sedition at home, and
marched to the Egyptian frontier, taking his road through
Judea, which, as if it yet were a province of his own, he
traversed without consulting the government of Jerusalem ;
while his mercenaries lived at free quarters, and treated
the inhabitants as though they had been in an enemy's
country.
Arrived before Pelusium, he found that strong fortress,
the key to Egypt, garrisoned by Physcon's troops and
prepared for a stout defence. While he was carrying on
the siege, tidings reached him that Antioch, the citizens
of which had never forgotten nor forgiven his massacres,
and Apamea, still infected with the leaven of Tryphon's
party, had risen in open rebellion against him. Fearful
lest their example might be followed throughout the whole
kingdom, Demetrius raised the siege of Pelusium, and
abandoned his enterprise against Physcon even with greater
haste than he had entered upon it. His return to Syria
led to a repetition of his outrage on Judea, and as a re-
treat generally causes a discipline less strict than an ad-
vance, his mercenaries committed excesses much worse
than those of which they had before been guilty.
The queen-regent, abandoned by her son-in-law, and
fearful that Alexandria would soon become starved into a
surrender, embarked with all her treasures and sailed for
Ptolemais in Syria, where her daughter, the wife of Deme-
trius, had long held her residence. Shortly after her de-
parture from the metropolis of Egypt, Physcon forced the
citizens into an unconditional surrender; and as if he had
wished to obliterate the memory of his past cruelties by an
act of singular clemency, he pardoned the captive Marsyas,
a rebellious general taken at the head of his enemies.
(128 B.C.E.)
The passage and return of the Syrian armies through
Judea, which Hyrcanus was" not in a condition to oppose,
THE ASMONEANS. 59
inflicted on the Jews great suffering. But far more serious
than these short-lived evils was the prospect which it un-
folded of the future. The unhesitating manner in which
Demetrius had marched and countermarched through
Judea, fully proved that the king of Syria looked upon
the independence of Judea as a nonentity, or at least as a
mere formality which he him-self had conceded under pe-
culiar circumstances, and which under more favourable
circumstances he might at his pleasure recall and annul.
But Hyrcanus was not of a disposition to submit to so un-
certain a tenure of his sovereignty ; nor could the Jews
reconcile themselves to give up the sweets of independence
and its concomitant freedom from exactions and tributes.
They and Hyrcanus resolved to resist any future encroach-
ments on their rights, and to secure the powerful alliance
of Rome in the renewed struggle against Syria, for which
they prepared.
For this purpose an embassy was, shortly after the re-
treat of the Syrians from before Pelusium, despatched by
Hyrcanus to Rome, to solicit a renewal of the treaties into
which the senate had entered with his predecessors, and
to complain of the little attention to its mandates that
had been shown either by the deceased Antiochus or his
surviving brother Demetrius. The ambassadors were re-
ceived by the senate with the usual favour and with un-
usual honours. The fourth Maccabees, which has an ac-
count of this embassy more full and circumstantial than
Josephus, mentions the presents sent by Hyrcanus, among
which a large gold dish and a shield valued at fifty thou-
sand gold pieces are the most considerable. It also relates
that during the audience the Jewish ambassadors had
seats assigned to them in the senate next to the presiding
consul; that during their stay in Rome they were allowed
the free and open exercise of their religion ; and that the
letter which they carried back from the senate to Hyr-
60 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
canus was addressed to liim by the style and title of
"King of the Jews," which thenceforth that pontiff as-
sumed and bore; a circumstance altogether at variance
with Josephus, according to whom the royal title was first
assumed by Aristobulus, the son and immediate successor
of Hyrcanus.
But both Josephus and the fourth Maccabees agree in re-
lating that in the main object of their mission the ambas-
sadors were completely successful. The senate recognised
the independence of Judea to the fullest extent. The dis-
advantageous treaty which Sidetes had forced upon Hyr-
canus was abrogated, and the Jews were declared entitled
to hold Joppa, Gazara, and any other towns and districts
beyond the limits of Judea which they occupied, without
the payment of any tribute to the kings of Syria, who
were strictly admonished not to violate the independence
of Judea, by presuming to march their armies through that
country without permission. This clause of the treaty
served the double purpose of checking the attempts of the
kings of Syria against Egypt, which were viewed with an
evil eye at Rome, and to provide for the security of Hyr-
canus and his government, which Rome desired to
strengthen.
The senate lastly directed that the Syrians should repay
to the Jews all the losses sustained by them ; and at the
same time appointed commissioners who were to proceed
to Syria and fully enforce this last and all the other clauses
of the treaty. And in order publicly to evince the friend-
ship and esteem in which the senate held the Jewish na-
tion, a sum of money was granted from the state treasury
to defray the expenses of the ambassadors' return home,
while the governors of the provinces through which they
passed were charged to treat them with every honour due
to their character. So successful, indeed, had this embassy
proved, and so sensible waS Hyrcanus of the importance
THE ASMONEANS. 61
of the favours extended to his government by Rome, that ho
deemed it right, the year following, to despatch a second
embassy, which Avas charged with his thanks and valuable
presents to the senate. Both were graciously accepted,
and another decree passed confirming all the former ones
in favour of the Jews.
While Hyrcanus was thus strengthening his government
by the moral support of Rome, and securing the independ-
ence of Judea and his own against the king of Syria,
that monarch was involved in domestic difficulties which
he possessed not the talents to overcome ; and Avas more-
over sufi'ering under the attacks of a foreign enemy, whose
hostility he had inconsiderately provoked. Demetrius II.
was one of those men whom even adversity could not im-
prove. After his restoration he fell into the same miscon-
duct which had before caused him to lose the greater por-
tion of his kingdom ; and though there was now no Try-
phon to set up another Antiochus against him, he had in-
vited retaliation from Physcon, who with his minister
Ilierax and his general Hegelochus, proved more than a
match for the inconsiderate and debauched king of Syria.
On his return from Pelusium he marched against the rebels
of Antioch and Apamea, but as the native Syrian soldiery,
offended by his partiality for his Greek mercenaries, de-
serted his standard and joined the insurgents, he could
make but little progress against them. His cruelty and
pride indeed caused the rebellion continually to spread,
and while the Syrians generally agreed in hurling him
from the throne, the only question of debate among them
was whom they should raise in his stead.
This difficulty Physcon undertook to remove. Egyptian
emissaries induced the insurgents to declare in favour of a
young pretender whom Physcon put forward and supported
with a strong detachment of the same victorious troops
that had recently triumphed over his own rebellious sub-
VoL. II. 6
62 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
jects. This youth, who assumed the name of Alexander,
was the son of a broker in Alexandria, but was instructed
to claim his descent, through Alexander Balas, from An-
tiochus IV. Epiphanes, to which branch of the Seleucidse
a great number of Syrians still adhered with the warmth
of compassion or the obstinacy of prejudice. This second
impostor, who subsequently was nicknamed Zebina, " the
bought one," was as successful against Demetrius II. as
his pretended father Balas had been against Demetrius I.
The Syrian malecontents recognised Alexander as their
king. Near Damascus a decisive battle was fought be-
tween the competitors, in which the mercenaries of De-
metrius were routed by the greatly superior numbers ar-
rayed against them. He himself fled to Ptolemais, the
residence of the two Cleopatras, — his wife and mother-in-
law ; but by their order he found the gates of the city
closed against him. He had therefore to continue his
flight to Tyre, where the citizens at first received him as
their sovereign. But his ofi"ended and revengeful wife
pursued him with unrelenting rancour. She spared no
pains to exasperate the Tyrians against him. His own
heartless levity and debauchery seconded and gave suc-
cess to her machinations. The Tyrians rose against him ;
he sought refuge in the temple of Hercules, an asylum
venerated by the citizens, but which in their rage they did
not permit to save his life, justly forfeited to his injured
subjects, but most wickedly destroyed by his wife's malice
and profligate ambition. (Justin, lib. xxxix. cap. 1.)
THE ASMONEANS. 63
CHAPTER X.
Wars between Zebinas and the Seleiicidfe — Prosperity of Judea — The
Dispersion — Connection between Jerusalem, the metropolis, and the va-
rious Jewish colonies — Upper Asia ; Armenia ; the Bagradites ; Baby-
lon— Egypt ; Cyrene ; Berenicia — Central Africa ; Abyssinia ; the Fa-
lashas — Arabia; Yemen; Medina; Benai Chaibar — Greece — Italy —
Spain — Seleucus V. — Antiochus VIII. Grypus — Death of Zebinas — An-
tiochus IX. Cyzicenus — The rival sisters — Hyrcanus destroys the Sa-
maritan temple — Conquers Samaria and Idumea — His feast — Dispute
with the Pharisees — The three crowns — His death. — (From 126 to 107
B. c. E.)
With Demetrius died the last idea of Jewish dependence
upon Syria. The aflFairs of that empire continued during
several years in a state of awful confusion, owing to the
violent civil war between Alexander II. and Cleopatra,
who, after her hateful and universally detested husband
had perished, found many adherents ready and able to
support the cause of her sons, as whose guardian she claimed
the regency, against the impostor whom Physcon endea-
voured to set over them. With this impostor Hyrcanus
entered into a close alliance. (Joseph. Antiq. lib. xiii. cap.
9.) For though the Jewish ruler was not for an instant
imposed upon by the pretensions of "the bought one,"
policy and interest dictated an alliance which would pro-
long the distraction and weakness of Syria, and enable
Hyrcanus to extend his dominions. While he is thus aug-
menting the power of his dynasty, we will direct our at-
tention to the extent to which the dispersion of the Jews
had spread, at the time when the parent stem in Palestine
was about to resume a place among the independent king-
doms of the earth.
64 POST-BIBLICAL HISTOEY OF THE JEWS.
This dispersion, then, divides itself into two grco,t
branches — the Asiatic and the African. It is well known
that when Zerubbabel, and subsequently Ezra, led colonies
back from Babylon to Palestine, the number of Jews who
returned bore but a- small proportion to those who re-
' mained in the land of their captivity and exile. Accord-
ingly, we have already spoken of the multitudes of Jews in
the countries on the Euphrates, and beyond that river to
the east and north-east, in Babylonia and Media — countries
incorporated by Seleucus Nicator into his Syro-Grecian
empire ; and also of the numbers he located in his eastern
and in his western metropolis, Seleucia and Antioch, and
to whom he granted the same privileges and immunities
that were enjoyed by his own nation, the Macedonians.
His example was followed by his successor Antiochus
III. the Great, who when he acquired Palestine, caused
numerous Jewish colonies to be planted in various parts
of Asia Minor ; and it appears certain that until the days
of his son Epiphanes, the Jews of Western and Upper
Asia were loyal and attached to the house of Seleucus. The
cruel attempt of Antiochus IV. Epiphanes to destroy the
religion and nationality of the Jews, became a cause of
great suflfering to that people through the various provinces
of his empire. History is so fully occupied with the won-
drous resistance and triumph of Palestine, that no Jewish
writer has preserved any account of what took place be-
yond the immediate vicinity of the scene of the great
struggle. But from a Gentile writer we learn that the
Jews of Upper Asia suffered as much, but were as little
disposed to submit tamely to the persecutor as their
brethren in the Holy Land.
About the time that Antiochus commenced to persecute
the Jews, the great king of the Parthians, Mithridates I.,
began to extend his sway over Media and Babylonia. He
conquered Armenia, and appointed his brother Valarsacea
THE ASMONEANS. G5
to be king of that country. Moses of Chorene, in his His-
tory of Armenia, (lib. ii. cap. 2, edit. Whiston,) relates
that this King Valarsaces bestowed unlimited confidence
and favour on a Jew named Sambat Bagrat, on Avhom he
conferred the hereditary office of placing the crown on the
brows of the king. He also granted him other dignities,
and enacted that the descendants of this Sambat should
thenceforth be designated and distinguished as the family
of the Bagradites — a name and house still said to exist in
Armenia, though in the course of time they were compelled
to change their faith.
As to their first ancestor in Armenia, a legend of an elder
Sambat is preserved, who was carried away captive by
Nebuchadnezzar at the first destruction of Jerusalem. This
distinguished captive the king of Babylon gave to Rhasia,
King of Armenia, at his special request ; and in the service
of this Armenian king the elder Sambat rose to high rank
and distinction. This legend, however, is looked upon by
competent critics as fabulous, and invented in later times
in order to glorify the powerful family of the Bagradites,
by tracing their lineage back to the scriptural times of
Judea and the first temple. But their real history, free
from the admixture of legend and embellishment, begins
with the second or genuine Sambat Bagrat,^ who at the
* Dr. Frankel, in liis Monatschrift for December, 1853, (page 454,) from
■which we extract this notice of the Bagradites, quotes the opinion of Cas-
sel — one of the latest and best Jewish historians of Germany — that the name
Sambat derives from the Hebrew Shapat, with the interpolation of an m.
But in opposition to this, Frankel states, after Moses of Chorene, that the
name was originally Shambai, and became changed into Sambat when the
family abjured the Jewish faith ; and he therefore assumes that this name
was a corruption of the scriptural Simeon, or the Shamai of later times.
The meaning of the word Bagrat is very obscure. According to some
passages in Moses of Chorene, it would seem as if this designation expressed
a quality or title rather than a noun proper; but on this subject he gives
no clear information. He remarks, however, (lib. ii. cap. 50,) that he
6*
QQ POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF T^E JEWS.
head of a number of Jews came from the Armenian pro-
vince of Atropatia, and rendered Valarsaces important as-
sistance in his wars against Antiochus and the Syro-
Greeks.
It appears that a great number of Jews from various
parts of Syria had sought refuge from the persecution of
Epiphanes in the remote province of Atropatene, or Atro-
patia, on the shores of the Caspian Sea. In that province,
already held by the Parthians, the cruelty of Antiochus
could not reach the fugitives. But as they were exaspe-
rated at the indignities he had practised against their re-
ligion and its chief seat, the temple of Jerusalem, and also
at the cruelties he had inflicted upon the Jews of Palestine
and attempted against themselves, they no sooner heard
of the war against Syria than they hastened from the
place of refuge they had found, and not only joined the
Parthians, but even placed themselves in the front of bat-
tle to combat the enemy of their religion. Thus the in-
fatuation of Epiphanes turned into implacable enemies
many thousands of Jews, whom his father had justly con-
sidered as among the most faithful and attached defenders
of his throne.
The Jewish colonies in Armenia, the origin of which is
thus traced to the last days of Antiochus IV, Epiphanes,
gradually became numerous throughout the whole kingdom,
extending into the mountain ridge of the Caucasus. Some
sixty years later than the period at which we have arrived
believes the name Bagrat was originally Bagadia. This name, as Frankel
assumes, is identical with the Hebi'cw Fakadiah, though no such name
appears in Scripture. But as Mos. Chor. relates (lib. ii. cap. 7) that it was
a designation bestowed on Sambat by the Jews, the ineaning would pro-
bably be Pakad yah, " the Lord has visited" his people through the means
of Sambat, who had obtained for them revenge on Antiochus and favour
from Valarsaces. We think it more likely to bo I'akid yah, " The officer
of the Lord," as a title to designate the command which Sambat held over
those who were true to the cause of the Lord against Epiphanes.
THE ASMONEANS. 67
in Jewish history, when Tigranes, King of Armenia, be-
came master of Syria, he carried many Jews from that
country into his hereditary dominions, where the Jewish
population by that means was greatly increased. Its chief
seat was at Nisibis, the capital — a city where, as we have
already related, Frankel locates those Spartans or Lace-
demonians who in the days of the high-priest Onias had
claimed affinity with the Jews, and whose claim had been
recognised by Jonathan the Maccabee. They lived in
great harmony with their Jewish fellow-citizens, whose
conditition throughout Armenia appears to have been very
prosperous.
In the days of Trajan they received a still further ac-
cession of numbers, by Jews whom that emperor's hatred
forced to flee beyond his reach out of Persia, and who
were hospitably received and had locations granted to
them by the Armenian king Artases. By these means the
Jews in that country augmented to such a degree, that
Hitter, in his Erdkunde, "Geography," (vol. xi. p. 558,)
quotes a notice of the fourth century in which several
cities are named, where 8,000, 10,000, and even 30,000
Jewish families resided ; figures which, though evidently
exaggerated, nevertheless prove that the Jews must at that
time have been very numerous in Armenia.
All these Jewish settlements and congregations north
and north-east of Palestine, throughout the wide extent of
Upper Asia, remained intimately connected with and de-
pendent upon the mother-country by means of the temple
at Jerusalem, the fixing of the Neominee, and the annual
contribution of the half shekel.
The temple of Jerusalem was the central station for all
Jews, however distant their settlements, however compli-
cated their wanderings and changes of residence. This
metropolitan rank was inseparable from that hallowed spot
on which a visible sign of the divine presence had been
68 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
manifested; and even when the pride of Onias had erected
a rival structure in Egypt, every Jew throughout the world
still repeated with the Psalmist — " If I forget thee, 0 Je-
rusalem, may my right hand forget ."^
The fixing of the Neomime was the exclusive preroga-
tive of the Great Assembly or Sanhedrin, which had its
seat in Jerusalem — a prerogative the more important as
the appointment and days of celebration of all the Jewish
festivals throughout the year was by that means vested in
the Sanhedrin; for each of these festivals was, in the
Law of Moses, directed to be kept holy on the so manyeth
day of the month. But the first day of each month was
not to be determined by computation only, but by parol
evidence of at least two Avitnesses, who had seen the new
moon and made a declaration to that effect before the San-
hedrin. It was the duty of this great council rigidly to
cross-question these Avitnesses, and when their declaration
was recognised as true, to publish the new moon to the
people, first at Jerusalem, and then, by means of lighted
beacons from the hill-tops, to the rest of Judea and to the
whole (ro?«, " dispersion;" a word by which the Jews of
Babylonia, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and Upper Asia
were designated.
The extreme limit of these beacon-signals the Mishna
(tr. Rosh. Hashnah, ii. 3) fixes at Bet-Biltin, one of the
highest peaks of the Defazayat or Brelimmah chain, near
the Euphrates. Bitter (Geography, vol. xi. 736) assumes
5 The English authorized version of the Bible completes the sentence by
adding the words her cunning. (Ps. exxxvii. 5.) Whereas in the original
Hebrew the sentence is left incomplete and terminates abruptly, as if the
poet, in the fei-vour of his agitation, had been carried along without ever
perceiving that he had left something iinsaid. But this very abruptness,
especially wliere the invocation is so solemn, gives to the Hebrew a force
and impressiveness of which the English rendering preserves but a faint
idea.
THE ASMONEANS. G9
the mountain Abul-us to have been the Bet-Biltin of the
Mishna. Whichever of these mountain-peaks may have
been that extreme limit, it is certain that it was situated
not far from the Euphrates, and in a region where great
numbers of Jews resided, and from whence the news were
rapidly conveyed to the remotest Jewish congregations
north and north-east of Judea, who thus were enabled to
celebrate the festivals, as nearly as possible, simultaneously
with Jerusalem, which otherwise they could not have done.
It is from this arrangement that the i/om toh sheni sJiel
goliyoth, "the second holiday of the dispersions," dates its
origin.
The tribute or tax of half a shekel, toward defraying
the expense of the daily and other sacrifices and public
services in the temple, had been annually paid by every
Jew before the Babylonish captivity. According to tradi-
tion, it was originally levied by the Law of Moses, (Ex.
XXX. 12, 13,) not only as a temporary contribution, but as
a permanent tax ; and as such we find it recognised by the
kings and people of Judah, (2 Chron. xxiv. 6.) On the
return from the Babylonish captivity, and the rebuilding
of the temple, the contribution, which had been in abeyance
while the temple laid in ruins, again became obligatory.
But as the Jewish shekel or currency had been superseded
by the Babylonian, which was as heavy again as the Jew-
ish, and as moreover the people were very poor and could
ill afford the doubling of their annual payment to the tem-
ple— which must have been the case if the contribution of
half a shekel of actual currency had been insisted on — Ezra
and Nehemiah decreed that the annual payment should be
reduced to one-third of a shekel currency; and as the
Jewish colonists who remained in Babylonia and other
provinces of the vast Persian empire were desirous of prov-
ing their veneration for the temple of Jerusalem, they
voluntarily took upon themselves to contribute annually
70 rOST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
tow.ard the support of the offerings and services the same
amount that was paid for the same purpose by the resi-
dents of Judea.
The Jews are not only a law-abiding people, but also
strict observers of precedent. Once introduced, these an-
nual payments became the rule with every Jewish colony
and congregation, however remote from the mother-coun-
try. It appears that in process of time, when the people
could better afford it, and the influence of the Sopherim^
(scribes or teachers) everywhere enforced the literal obser-
vance of the Law of Moses, the contribution of the half
shekel was, notwithstanding the increased value of the
coin, everywhere adopted; and when subsequently the
Greek currency, which was even heavier than the Babylo-
nian, became general throughout Judea, and its standard
was adopted by Simon the Maccabee, the half shekel still
continued to be paid ; though this amount, similar in name
only, was in fact more than three times as large as the tax
levied by Moses.*^
Thus their veneration for the holy temple, their depend-
ence on the great national council at Jerusalem, and the
share or portion every one of them had in the public sa-
crifices and services of the sacred metropolis, connected
all the Jews throughout the vast diaspora all over Asia
with the mother-country. When we come to speak of the
cultivation of learning among the Jews, we shall find that
though the first rank is conceded to Judea, the schools on
the Euphrates gradually acquired the greatest influence.
And though, at the period in Jewish history which we have
now reached, no schools are specially named throughout
6 The learned Dr. Herzfeld, Chief Rabbi of Brunswick, in bis " History
of the Jewish people from the rebuilding of the second temple till the
election of Simon the Maccabee," has collected much valuable information
connected with monetary matters and the revenues of the temple, of which
wc thankfully, though briefly, avail oilrselves.
THE ASMONEANS. 71
Upper Asia, it nevertheless is evident from the uncommon
abilities of some Jewish teachers who removed from Baby-
lon to Jerusalem — Hillel the elder and Nahum the Median
— that the science and study of the Jewish religion must
have been cultivated with great success among the Jews
of the Gola, "dispersion." Their connection with the
Judeans was still further facilitated by the similarity of
language — the Aramaic, of which the western dialect was
spoken in Palestine, and the eastern beyond the Euphrates.
To the south-west and south of Judea the Jews were
spread almost as widely and as numerously as they were
in Upper Asia. We have already related how, under
Alexander the Great and Ptolemy I. Soter, Jews were
brought into the Egypto-Grecian empire ; how they in-
creased and multiplied until their chief seat and metropo-
lis, Alexandria, with its immense Jewish population, mag-
nificent synagogue, and great wealth, became the admira-
tion of their Eastern brethren. Under the Ptolemies the
Jews in Egypt rose to high honours and great power.
We have already spoken of Onias and Dositheus, who
held the first offices in the state during the reign of Philo-
metor; and at a subsequent period we find the two sons
of Onias at the head of the entire administration, civil
and military, of Egypt. The language spoken by the
Jews in that country was a dialect of the Greek; and
we have already mentioned the fragments of their litera-
ture which have reached us, and which prove how success-
fully these Hellenists, or Egypto-Grecian Jews, in their time
cultivated science and letters.
The Jews of Alexandria had their own Sanhedrin, or
seventy elders ; and at their head stood an ofiicer recog-
nised by the government. The etymology of his title or
designation, Alaharcft, is one of great difiiculty to philolo-
gists ; but his functions appear to have been similar to those
subsequently exercised by the Beishi G-alvafJta, "-chiefs of
(2 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
the dispersion," in Upper Asia. The decision of the chief
tribunals in Alexandria are spoken of Avith respect bj the
Talmud, (tr. Ketuhoth, 25 B ;) and there is reason to
believe that the fixing of the Neominaj for the Egypto-
Grecian Jews was a prerogative exercised by the Sanhe-
drin at Alexandria. 'It is certain that the communication
by means of beacon-signals was not kept up with Egypt ;
although this may perhaps have been owing to the want
of localities proper for the raising of beacons. In other
respects the Jews of Alexandria kept up their connection
with Judea ; for, notwithstanding the temple which Onias
erected and Philometor patronized, it was the time-ho-
noured house of God at Jerusalem that held the first
rank in the estimation of the Hellenists ; and to its sup-
port the vast majority of them contributed the annual
half-shekel, like all their brethren throughout Asia.
From Egypt proper various branches of the Jewish dis-
persion extended over the eastern isles and the southern
shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The island of Cyprus,
so long a dependence on the empire of the Ptolemies,
contained a very great number of Jews, and so did the
island of Kos. The Jewish population in the city and
territory of Gyrene, on the north coast of Africa, was
both numerous and powerful. Another large Jewish con-
gregation resided at Berenicia, the site of the present city
of Tripolis in Barbary, where a column of Parian marble
has lately been dug up, bearing an inscription in honour
of Marcus Tertius ^milius, Roman proconsul, (about 44
B. c. E.,) by the Archonfs, " elders," and community of Jews
at Berenicia.
The attachment of all these Jewish settlements to the
metropolis of Jerusalem and its temple is frequently
noticed by Josephus, (Antiq. lib. xiv. passim.) A strik-
ing proof of the deep interest they took in the fortunes
of Judea we still possess in the (so-called) second book
THE ASMONEANS. 73
of Maccabees. This is the epitome of a history in five
books by Jason, a Jew of Cyrene, who wrote for the sole
purpose of perpetuating the deliverance of Judea and the
glory of the Maccabean brothers. This history has pe-
rished, but the epitome has found room among the Apo-
crypha, and by that means been preserved to us.
Another branch of the diaspora of Egyptian Jews spread
over the interior of Eastern Africa, where we find its re-
mains in the Falashas, a people of Jews at one time so
powerful as to have acquired dominion over the great
kingdom of Abyssinia ; and who, though subsequently
much reduced, are still in existence. There is reason to
believe that the first Jewish settlers in these remote re-
gions were refugees who had fled from persecution by
Physcon in Egypt, but that these Abyssinian Jews did
not keep up any intercourse or connection either with Alex-
andria or with Jerusalem.
Within the last couple of years much interesting in-
telligence respecting the Falashas and their religion has
been obtained by means of Monsieur A. d'Abbatie. This
gentleman, a French traveller, visited Abyssinia in 1845,
and returned to that country in 1848. He had, on the oc-
casion of his second journey, been furnished with a list of
questions by the youthful but highly-gifted Philoxene
Luzzato, of the Collegia Rahhiniea in Padua, who, however,
did not live to receive the full and satisfactory answers
M. d'Abbatie brought back from the Falashas, and which
were published at Paris in the Univers Israelite, April to
July, 1851.
These answers place it beyond a doubt that the Fala-
shas or Abyssinian Jews originated from Alexandria or
Egypt, but that they never had, or very early renounced,
connection with that country and with Judea. Among their
fast-days, totally difi'erent from, and far more numerous
than those observed by the Jewish nation in every part
Vol. II. 7
74 POST-EIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEAVS.
of the world, they have none to commemorate the destruc-
tion of Jerusalem and its temple, nor yet that of Heliopo-
lis in Egypt — a fact which proves that the severance of
their intercourse with Jerusalem and Alexandria must
have been anterior to these two events, so greatly affecting
the public services of the Jewish religion, but of which the
Falashas remained ignorant.
It seems, however, that these Abyssinian Jews carried
their religion across the Red Sea and established it in
Yemen, the south-western portion of the great Arabian
peninsula known to the ancient geographers as Arabia
Felix. The fact that a Jewish kingdom existed in those
rich and fruitful regions, and that it maintained itself
during several centuries, is indisputable, and confirmed by
several independent historical authorities, though the
time when the Jewish religion was first introduced into
Yemen, and the circumstances under which it became
dominant, are very uncertain, and only known by means
of legends equally vague and marvellous.
In the Kitah Aldjumcn (a Mohammedan chronicle trans-
lated from the Arabic into French by Silvestre de Saci,
and published in the Memoires de V Academie des Inscrip-
tions, tom. 48) it is related that a prince of Yemen,
named Assad, of the dynasty Tohha, collected a large army
for the purpose of making conquests, not only within the
Arabian peninsula, but also beyond its boundaries. He
was an idolater, as was indeed the entire population of
Arabia in those days, with the exception of a few Jews
who had fled from Jerusalem at the time of the conquest
by BokJit-nasar, (Nebuchadnezzar,) and had settled in the
vicinity of Medina. In the course of his campaigns, Assad
Tobba took the city of Medina, where he installed one of his
sons as ruler. But after his departure with his army, the
citizens rose against the young prince and slew him. The
tidings of this crime soon reached the father, and so ex-
THE ASMONEANS. 75
asperated him, that he sat down before rebellious Medina
with the avowed determination to exterminate the inhabit-
ants and utterly to destroy the city.
The siege proved a long one, when two Jewish sages
came to Assad, and said to him, " If it be thy determina-
tion, 0 king, to destroy this city, thou wilt not succeed ;
for a prophet will arise, Mohammed by name, who, when
expelled from Mecca, is to take up his abode at Medina;
and this we find in our Torah — therefore it must be true."
Assad inquired, "Who or what is this Torah?" to which
they replied, " The book of the Law which God hath given
unto Moses," and they then proceeded to acquaint him
with the precepts of the book. Assad Tobba was so
pleased with the doctrine he heard, that he, and with him his
whole army, became converted, and embraced the religion
of these sages. He then raised the siege, having granted
a pardon to the guilty citizens because of the future merits
of their descendants ; and returned to Yemen, accompanied
by his two teachers, who worked many wonders, and con-
verted the entire population of the country to their own
religion, which was that of Abraham, the Sannefit, ortho-
dox faith of true believers. Assad Tobba subsequently
undertook an expedition into India ; and after his depart-
ure the people of Yemen renounced the religion of Abra-
ham and embraced Judaism.
Thus far the legend : that, however, fails to tell us which
of the many princes of the Tobba named Assad is the
hero of the tale. Accordingly much difference of opinion
prevails respecting the date of this conversion. The Kitah
Aldjumen itself seems to place it some centuries before
the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, while others
assume the third century of the Christian era as the pro-
bable date. It is not easy to understand what the Kitah
Aldjumen means by the "religion of Abraham," and what
is the difference between that and Judaism ; nor yet to dis-
76 POST-BIBLICAL niSTORY OF THE JEWS.
cover the motive that induced the people of Yemen to re-
nounce this "religion of Abraham" in favour of Judaism.
The learned Dr. Frankel, in his Monatschrift for
December, 1853, to whom Ave are greatlj indebted on
this subject of the Jewish dispersion, seeks to reconcile
the diiference between the two systems of faith, by assum-
ing that the two sages who joined Assad before Medina
were Sopherim — teachers of the traditional Judaism of
Palestine; whereas the great bulk of the people of Yemen
adhered to the non-traditional Judaism of the Abyssinian
Jews, whose influence on their neighbours across the sea,
the Arabs of Yemen, with whom they kept up a constant
intercourse, must have been far greater than that of remote
Palestine.
After the Jewish kingdom in Southern Arabia had been
subverted by the Christians of Abyssinia in the fifth cen-
tury of the Christian era, and the Jewish religion had
almost disappeared from that portion of the peninsula,
the fact that a system of Judaism different from that
which prevailed in his own days had at one time been
general throughout Yemen, enabled Mohammed to charge
the Jews, as he does in his Koran, with having perverted
the doctrines of the law, and falsified the Scriptures in
which his advent and mission were announced.
In the Hedjaz, the north-western part of the Arabian
peninsula, a considerable number of Jews were located.
Like the other native tribes, they were free and independent,
and had at the time of Mohammed been so many centu-
ries in the land, that one legend assigns the building of the
city of 3Iedma to the Jew Chaibar, the progenitor of the
powerful tribe Benai Chaibar. So important were these
tribes, that when Mohammed first announced his prophetic
mission, he addressed himself especially to them, and sought
to obtain their support. And it was only when they re-
jected his advances and derided his pretensions, that he
TEE ASMOXEANS. 77
became their bitter enemy and persecutor. Long before
his times, the teachers of the Mislma had made rules for
the observance of the Sabbath by the Arab Jewesses, who
dressed and adorned their persons according to the fashion
of their country, {Mishna, tr. Sabbath, vi. 6;) a proof
that their numbers must have been sufficiently great to
entitle them to special consideration.
Such was also the case with Cappadocia, Bythinia, and
Pontus, kingdoms on the Caspian Sea, where the Jewish
immigrants probably came from Armenia, Philo tells us
that Jews had long been located in the isles of Greece, and
also in Attica, Corinth, and the Peleponnesus. There like-
wise is reason to believe that both in Italy and Spain there
were Jewish inhabitants in the time of Hyrcanus; and even
if we exclude remote China and Hindostan, respecting which
the accounts are doubtful, we arrive at the conclusion that,
long before the destruction of Jerusalem, Jews were widely
scattered throughout the whole of the then known civilized
world.
Another fact which strikes us is the bitter feeling be-
tween Jews and Greeks that existed wherever the two
nations were located together, especially in the Syrian
empire and in Egypt. In these two monarchies the kings
were, by descent, language, education, manners and reli-
gion, Greeks ; so was likewise the principal aristocracy.
Both countries were inhabited by large numbers of Greeks,
the ruling nation, who not only in point of intellectual pro-
gress, but also in active enterprise, were greatly in ad-
vance of the aboriginal Syrians and Egyptians, and who,
moreover, by their superior skill as artists and commercial
men, contrived to amass in their own hands the greater
portion of the movable wealth of the country. But in
these advantages, which the men of Syrian or Egyptian
origin never presumed to dispute Avith the Greek, he was
rivalled by the Jew. To the science of the Greek, the Jew
7*
78 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
opposed his knowledge of the One God and his biblical
learning ; and in the strength of his self-consciousness
the Jew not only maintained a perfect equality with the
Greek, but even looked down with disdain upon the nar-
row-minded polytheist who could not raise himself above
the worship of images.
In commercial enterprise and manufacturing industry,
likewise, the Jew kept abreast of the Greek ; and thus mate-
rially, as well as intellectually, the two races were every-
where opposed in unceasing conflict, heightened by the
difference of belief, which led the Greek to hate the Jew,
and the Jew to despise the Greek. And as both Syrians
and Egyptians were occasionally roused out of their lethar-
gy to take sides with the one or the other of these more
highly-gifted races, it frequently happened that the simi-
larity of religion united Egyptians or Syrians and Greeks —
who, however they might disagree in other respects, were
polytheists — in fearful outbreaks against the Jews, which,
when not put down by the strong hand of power, were de-
structive alike to person and property; so that long be-
fore the rise of Christianity or the destruction of Jerusalem,
we find the fanaticism and cruelty of the Middle Ages
forestalled in Antioch or Alexandria.
After this somewhat long but not unnecessary digres-
sion, we return to Judea, where, as we have already stated,
Hyrcanus, the prince and high-priest, was taking advan^
tage of the fierce struggle between the queen-regent Cleo-
patra and the usurper Alexander II. Zebina, which con-
tinued full five years, (126-122, b. c. e.,) and in which,
though the ability displayed by the two chiefs was nearly
equal, the better feeling seemed to be altogether with the
usurper and impostor.
Cleopatra had proclaimed her eldest son, Selcucus V.,
as king ; but he, a youth in his twentieth year, had scarcely
borne his title twelve months, when he was assassinated
THE ASMONEANS. 79
by tlie hand of his mother, to whom his independence of
spirit had given oiFence. (App. de Reb. Syr. cap. 48.) He
was succeeded by his younger brother, Antiochus VIII.,
"who assumed the epithets oi Philometor, "mother-loving,"
and Epiphanes, "illustrious,"' but is known in history by
his nickname, Grypus, "hook-nose." During the first
three years of his nominal reign, Grypus maintained the
show of unbounded deference for the will of his mother, and
co-operated with her, by intrigues rather than arms,
against the common enemy. By bribes and promises
Alexander's garrisons were corrupted ; his officers de-
serted, and several cities rebelled against him, particularly
the important stronghold Laodicea, at the foot of Mount
Libanus.
To counteract all these machinations, Zebina, who as a
ruler was both equitable and popular, evinced not only
great energy and prudence, but also, and even in a higher
degree, signalized his clemency in pardoning such traitors
as the chance of arms at any time . put into his hands.
Thus, on regaining possession of Laodicea, he even spared
the hostile commanders who had formerly been among his
confidential friends, but had conspired to betray him. This
mildness and forgiving disposition, whether natural or as-
sumed, proved highly conducive to his interests ; since
many who knew him to be an impostor were nevertheless
zealous in supporting his government, because they pre-
ferred the personal character of the usurper, benignant
and affable, to that of the legitimate queen-regent, so
haughty and cruel.
Unfortunately for Zebina, tool and usurper as he was,
he was too honest for his great accomplice and abettor,
Physcon. He was required to alienate those portions of
the Syrian empire which in former times had belonged to
Egypt, and also to do homage to Physcon for the crown
of Syria. Both propositions he indignantly rejected ; and
80 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
it was not long before Physcon let him feel the weight of
his wrath. The king of Egypt addressed himself to his
niece, the queen-regent, offering his alliance and support
against the impostor Zcbinas, while Tryphocna, the eldest
of his three daughters, became the pledge of their league
as the wife of Antioclius Grypus.
Both offers were readily accepted, and the nuptials were
celebrated with due pomp. As her dower, the young
queen of Syria brought with her a strong body of her
father's mercenaries. Zebinas was driven to the extremity
of fighting a battle in which he was entirely abandoned by
his good fortune. He fled with a slender train from one
city to another, and endeavoured hastily to collect such
supplies of money as might insure him a comfortable re-
treat in Greece. In that country, which under the supre-
macy of Rome enjoyed undisturbed tranquillity, he pur-
posed to lead a life of philosophy and happiness, bidding
forever adieu to the treacherous pursuits of ambition.
But to carry out this design, he was tempted to lay
hands on the rich treasures deposited in the temple of
Jupiter at Antioch. The priests resisted, and raised the
cry of sacrilege. A tumult ensued. Alexander Zebinas,
alarmed at the fury of the populace, fled precipitately
from the city, and to escape his pursuers betook himself
to unfrequented paths, among which he was taken by a
band of robbers. By them he was recognised, and as he
feared they might sell him to Cleopatra, he took poison,
after having for nearly six years filled the throne of the
Seleucidse with credit to himself and advantage to the
people.
The destruction of this rival infused new boldness into
Grypus, and he determined to burst the leading-strings in
which his mother so long had kept him. But the queen-
regent had given more than one proof that she loved power,
and would scruple at no crime to preserve it. This wife
THE ASMONEANS. 81
of many husbands had four sons. The eldest, by Alexander
Balas, had been murdered by Tryphon. By her second
husband, Demetrius II. Nicator, she had two sons, of whom
the first-born, Seleucus, had already perished a victim to
her lust of power ; and as the second, Antiochus, seemed
determined to be king in fact as well as in name, she re-
solved to remove him likewise ; for she had yet a fourth
son, the fruit of her marriage with Antiochus VII. Si-
detes ; and who having been educated in the republic of
OyzicuSy in the Propontis, is distinguished in history by
the epithet Cyzicenus, joined to the hereditary name of
Antiochus.
As he was several years younger than his half-brother
Grypus, the queen-regent was certain to find in him
greater submission to her will than Grypus seemed willing
any longer to evince. To place this, her youngest son,
on the throne, became the great object of her ambition ;
and as she did not hesitate with respect to the means, she
tendered Grypus a poisoned cup as he returned warm
from exercise. But apprized of her treachery, her son
begged leave to pledge her ; and when she refused to drink,
produced the evidences of her guilt and forced her to
swallow the mortal draught, (121 b. c. e.) Thus perished
Cleopatra, wife to three kings ; the mother, also, of three
kings who reigned in her lifetime, and of a fom-th, who
mounted the throne of Antioch eight years after her death.
(Appian. de Reb. Syriac. cap. 68.)
Although Hyrcanus had been closely allied with Alex-
ander Zebinas, had profited greatly by that alliance, and
had a great interest in the continuance of the intestine
wars of Syria, he had not been able to afford his ally any
assistance against the unexpected attack made upon him
by Physcon's mercenaries. And though on the other
hand, Grypus professed to be very indignant at the alli-
ance between Hyrcanus and Zebinas, and loudly threat-
82 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
ened to punish the high-priest for his insidious policy, his
wrath was satisfied with finding vent in words. The mili-
tary organization of Judea was too perfect, the vicinity of
the Romans too threatening, to leave any reasonable hopes
of success to the king of Syria, contracted as the limits of
that monarchy now were by the conquests of the Parthians
and the defection of many tribes and provinces, the chiefs
of which declared and maintained their independence. The
two rivals, Hyrcanus and Grypus, therefore kept watching
each other, neither of them Avilling to be the first to com-
mence hostilities ; for which, indeed, after the last arrange-
ment of the afiairs of Judea and the treaty with Rome, no
plausible pretext existed.
This state of things continued eight years, during which
Grypus reigned without a rival, and both Judea and Syria
enjoyed profound peace. While Hyrcanus employed him-
self in augmenting the welfare and resources of Judea,
Grypus devoted this cessation of foreign wars and domestic
sedition to the enjoyment of pleasure, and only distin-
guished himself by the luxury of his entertainments and
the splendour of his festivals. The games which he cele-
brated at Daphne, the Olympia of Syria, rivalled those
exhibited half a century before his time by the great per-
secutor of the Jews, Antiochus IV., whose boastful sur-
name, Epiphanes, "the illustrious," was also adopted by
Grypus. But while he thus dissipated in riotous luxury
the wealth and strength of his kingdom, his dream of
peace and pleasure was suddenly disturbed by a vicissitude
of his fortunes as unexpected as it was complete.
Cyzicenus, the half-brother of Grypus, advanced into
manhood, and became an object of jealousy and of perse-
cution to the king of Syria. The dangers that continually
beset the person of the young prince seemed to leave him
no alternative between a crown and a grave. We know
not what resources he might derive from his father, A.
THE ASMONEANS. 83
Sidetes. But that unfortunate prince, the last of the
Seleucidse who evinced any love for glory, had left many
partisans in Syria; and the posture of affairs in Egypt at
this particular juncture tended greatly to strengthen their
number.
Ptolemy Physcon had reigned twenty-nine years in
Egypt without exhausting the patience of his subjects
either by his cruelty or by his profligacy. He died un-
molested in his bed, bequeathing the kingdom of Cyrene
to his natural son, Ptolemy Ajnon, " the slender," a nick-
name directly the reverse of that imposed on his bloated
father. To his queen, the younger Cleopatra, Physcon
left the kingdom of Egypt, directing, however, that she
should choose one of her two sons, Lathyrus and Alex-
ander, as her associate in the government. The queen
had as little maternal feelings as her ruthless sister, the
late murdering and murdered queen-regent of Syria. Am-
bition caused her to prefer the younger of her sons as her
partner in power; and to prevent any opposition on the
part of Lathyrus, she had contrived to send this prince,
shortly before his father's death, as viceroy to Cyprus, an
employment which he considered only as an honourable
banishment.
But the Egyptians, and particularly the citizens of Alex-
andria, espoused the interests of Lathyrus, and loudly de-
manded that notwithstanding the capricious directions of
Physcon, and the unjust preference of Cleopatra, the le-
gitimate heir to their monarchy should be called to govern
them. Cleopatra yielded reluctantly to the voice of the
people ; but before consenting to the coronation of La-
thyrus, she insisted on his repudiating his present wife and
marrying her younger sister. Of these successive wives
of Lathyrus, both daughters of his mother Cleopatra, the
elder is only known by that appellation so general among
the females of the blood-royal in Egypt ; the younger was
84 POST-EIELICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
named Selene, a princess of singular address and spirit,
and probably on that account selected by the queen-mo-
ther, to whom she was totally devoted, as the fittest in-
strument for governing the mind of her husband.
With this queen-mother the Jews established in Egypt
had long been peculiar favourites. She, the daughter of
the wise and generally admired king Philometor, had from
her infancy been accustomed to see Jews holding the
highest offices at the court of her father. She also knew
that the rancorous spirit with which her husband treated
his Jewish subjects had been called forth and fed by the
fidelity with which they had served her father. And as she
was equally well acquainted with the character of her father
and of her husband, she did not hesitate as to the policy
she meant to follow. No sooner had she by the death of
Physcon been raised to the supreme direction of afi'airs, than
she summoned to her court Chelkias and Ananias, the
sons of her father's faithful friend and devoted servant,
Onias, the high-priest, who even after Philometor's death
had fought for his son.
These two brothers, the heirs of their father's bravery
and abilities, became her principal favourites and council-
lors. She placed them at the head of her armies, and in-
trusted to them the entire government of Egypt, in its
foreign as well as internal afi'airs. They immediately
turned their attention to the East and to the relations sub-
sisting between Judea and Syria, which though for the
moment peaceable, were any thing but satisfactory ; since
Grypus took no pains to conceal his intention, some time
or other, to punish Hyrcanus for his alliance with Zebinas.
Chelkias and Ananias represented to the queen-mother
that the Judeans, so often oppressed by the kings of Syria,
were in danger of a dcav invasion on the part of Antiochus
Grypus ; that it was not consistent with the interests of
Egypt or the will of Rome that the king of Syria should
THE ASMONEANS. 85
regain possession of Judea ; tliat, to prevent his disturbing
his neighbours, it would be wisest to find him employment
at home ; and that therefore it was necessary to abet the
cause of Cyzicenus. The queen-mother entered into their
views. The more strongly to cement the alliance with her
new protege, the divorced Cleopatra was offered to him in
marriage ; and that unhappy princess, the victim of her
mother's selfish policy, was sent into Syria to become the
bride of the young aspirant for the crown, with a body of
troops from Cyprus for her dowry.
Among the first incidents in the warfare between the
two brothers which followed her arrival, and which is very
imperfectly related, Cyzicenus obtained possession of the
city of Antioch. Here, however, hQ could not long main-
tain himself. Being defeated in battle, he left his newly-
married wife Cleopatra in that city as a place of safety,
while he himself kept the open country in order to rally
and recruit his broken forces.
During his absence, Grypus assaulted and recovered
Antioch. Tryphoena, his queen, attended her husband in
this expedition. The eldest daughter of Physcon, and the
heiress of his ferocious temper and ruthless disposition,
Tryphoena had now at her mercy an aspiring sister, who
in marrying a pretender to her husband's throne had pre-
sumed to become her rival. In the rage of wounded pride,
she thirsted for Cleopatra's blood ; and when Grypus
strongly opposed her cruel design, she taunted him with
the remark that his expressions were much too warm and
ardent to be dictated by cold compassion only ; and she now
imperiously demanded, and obtained, that her rival in love,
as well as in power, should be surrendered to her vengeance.
Her inhuman orders were inhumanly executed. Cleo-
patra had fled into the most venerated sanctuary of An-
tioch. Thither she was pursued by the emissaries of her
brutal sister ; and as she clasped the divinity of the place,
Vol. II. 8
86 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
and clung to the image "vvitli all the tenacity of a death-
grasp, her arms were hacked in pieces by the executioners.
The mangled princess expired in imprecations for ven-
geance against profaned religion and parricidal murder.
Her prayer was heard, for shortly afterward Cyzicenus
gained a decisive victory. Tryphocna was taken in the
rout, and sacrificed to the manes of Cleopatra. Grypus
retreated to Aspendus in Pamphylia; while his victori-
ous rival, under the title of Antiochus IX. Philopator,
established his authority over the greater part of Syria.
But his success only served to make manifest the utter
Avorthlessness of his character. Equally careless of the
affairs of war and government, the new king indulged in
the lowest debaucheries and delighted in the basest society.
(Diodorus, Excerpt, p. 606.) The people disgusted, again
turned to Grypus, whose luxuries and extravagance ap-
peared right royal, when contrasted with the equally costly
and far more disgraceful propensities of his victor.
Advised of this revulsion in his favour of the popular
feeling, Grypus in less than twelve months returned from
Pamphylia at the head of an army, which the proper ap-
plication of the treasures carried with him rendered both
numerous and formidable. Such, at least, it appeared to
Cyzicenus, who, conscious of the general aversion in which
he was held, attempted no resistance, but at once aban-
doned to his rival the metropolis Antioch and the principal
portion of the kingdom, while he himself retreated into
Cocle-Syria. Thither his rival hesitated to follow him.
Alive to the difficulty of penetrating into this intricate
mountain region, and fearful that even a slight reverse
might ruin his affairs with a people so fickle as the An-
tiochians, Grypus preferred listening to a compromise which
Cyzicenus proposed, and which resulted in a treaty of
partition between the rival brothers. Grypus retained the
greater or Upper Syria, with the metropolis Antioch,
THE ASMONEANS. 87
"while Cyzicenus remained in possession of Coele-Syria,
and chose for his seat of government the city of Damascus,
two hundred miles from the residence of his brother.
The vast empire of Seleucus Nicator had thus gradu-
ally dwindled down into a single kingdom, divided between
two ill-reconciled brothers ; and even their respective
shares had to suffer great defalcations. In the northern
part of the country a small independent kingdom sprung
up in Commagene, the district contiguous to the Euphra-
tes. On the sea-coast, the cities of Tyre and Sidon re-
sumed their ancient liberty; and in the south, the Jews,
under the able and experienced Hyrcanus, proved formi-
dable enemies to the new kingdom of Damascus.
As a fruit of his alliance with Zebinas, Hyrcanus had
been able to take Shechera, where the Samaritans, so long
the bitter enemies and rivals of the Jews, had taken up
their residence after they had been expelled from Samaria
by Alexander the Great, as we have already related.
Along with Shechem, Mount Gerizim and its temple fell
into the power of Hyrcanus, who caused it to be razed
to the ground, two hundred years after it had been built
by Sanballat. According to the fourth of Maccabees,
Hyrcanus put several of the Samaritan priests to death,
and destroyed the edifices, altars, and monuments that
had been built on the mountain in days of old by Jezebel,
the queen of Ahab, King of Israel. These two last-named
circumstances, however, Josephus does not relate, nor do
they appear very credible. The Samaritans, notwith-
standing the destruction of their temple, continued to pre-
fer Mount Gerizim as more holy than Jerusalem. They
erected an altar on the mount, where their descendants
continue to this day to offer sacrifices, and to cherish the
implacable hatred against the Jews which had character-
ized the Samaritan people in its day of prosperity.
From Shechem Hyrcanus had turned his arms south-
88 POST-BIBLICAL UISTOEY OF THE JEWS.
■ward, and conquered Idumea. And as that was a portion
of tlie ancient heritage of Israel promised by the Lord to
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and which Ilyrcanus deemed
it his sacred duty to reunite with Judea, he left the Idu-
means the choice either to become circumcised and to em-
brace the religion of the Jews, or to quit the country.
But the mixture of various Arab and other tribes that
inhabited Idumea, preferred their country to their old
idolatry. They therefore embraced Judaism, and their
descendants having gradually become entitled to enter
the congregation of Israel, they became completely incor-
porated with the Jewish people. These easy but import-
ant conquests achieved, Hyrcanus returned to Jerusalem.
During the remainder of the long struggle between the
sons of Demetrius and the impostor Zebinas, and subse-
quently between Grypus and Cyzicenus, the prince-high-
priest of Jerusalem took no active part in the affairs of
Syria. Directing his eminent abilities to the internal
administration of his country, he had succeeded in ren-
dering Judea more powerful, more wealthy, more populous,
and more generally prosperous than it had been at any
time since the days of King Solomon. Jerusalem was by
his care not only embellished, but strongly fortified ; and
in immediate connection with the temple he built the
strong and splendid castle of Baris, in which his succes-
sors took up their residence, and where the valuable gar-
ments of the high-priest were preserved.
He kept a considerable number of foreign mercenaries;
but the strict discipline he enforced, and the unfeigned
respect for the precepts of the Law and the rights of the
people which on all occasions he evinced, rendered this
foreign soldiery harmless and inoffensive to the people.
At length an opportunity offered for again rendering the
services of these mercenaries useful, and to extend the
boundaries of Judea.
THE ASMONEANS. 89
The Greek colony in Samaria, instigated probably by
tbe discontented inhabitants of Shechem, commenced hos-
tilities against the people of Maressa, between whom and
the Jews a league existed for mutual defence. Ilyrcanus
embraced the cause of his allies, turned his arms against
Samaria, and laid siege to the city. Attended by his two
eldest sons, Aristobulus and Antigonus, at the head of a
powerful army and amply provided with engines of siege,
Hyrcanus sat doAvn before the doomed city, which he en-
compassed with a wall and deep ditch or trench, eighty
furlongs, or four thousand paces, in circuit. By these
means he cut off the possibility of the city receiving far-
ther supplies, and reduced the inhabitants to such extre-
mities, that they were compelled to feed on cats, dogs, and
any kind of carrion they could obtain.
As, in the partition between the brothers, Samaria and
Galilee had fallen to the share of A.Cyzicenus, the Sama-
ritans in their extreme distress found means to make their
condition known to that monarch, and to call upon him for
speedy succour. This he was the more ready to grant, as
he looked upon this Greek colony of Samaria as the firm-
est bulwark of the possessions still remaining to his house
in Palestine. Accordingly he raised a considerable army,
and with hasty march advanced to the relief of the be-
sieged city.
Hyrcanus had been obliged to return to Jerusalem,
where, as high-priest, he had to be present and in person
to conduct the expiatory services on the great Day of
Atonement, (Lev xvi. passim.) But he had left his two
sons with the army before Samaria ; and when the tidings
reached them that King Antiochus and his array were
marching against them, the two young Maccabeans deter-
mined that they would not raise the siege, as that would
enable the besieged to receive fresh supplies ; that there-
fore Antigonus, the younger of the two brothers, was to
90 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
remain with one portion of the Jewish army before Sa-
maria, while the elder, Aristobulus, with the other and
larger portion of the troops under his command, went
forth to meet the king.
This plan proved -eminently successful. Aristobulus
encountered and defeated the Syrians with great slaughter,
pursuing them as far as Scythopolis, while Cyzicenus him-
self escaped with great difficulty. After this brilliant vic-
tory, Aristobulus rejoined his brother before Samaria, and
the two young heroes pressed the siege with such renewed
vigour, that the Samaritans were compelled once more to
apply for help to Cyzicenus. But his forces had been
broken by his defeat ; and as he did not venture to call in
his brother Grypus, his only remaining resource was to
solicit assistance from his ally and brother-in-law Lathyrus,
then reigning in Egypt conjointly with his mother. With-
out consulting with that princess, or even letting her know
of his intention, the young king of Egypt sent a reinforce-
ment of six thousand men to join Cyzicenus. But as this
force was too small to produce any impression on the Jews,
the king of Damascus did not risk a second battle; nor
did he indeed like once more to endanger his own person
by exposing it to the horrors of a Jewish attack. Cyzice-
nus retired to Tripolis in Syria, leaving his Egyptian aux-
iliaries under the command of Callimander and Epicrates,
with orders to attempt a diversion, so as to relieve Samaria
by such an inroad into Judea, as should induce the Jews
to raise the siege of that city in order to defend and pro-
tect their own homes.
But the undertaking proved abortive. Of the two lieu-
tenants, Callimander was defeated and slain, and Epicrates
went over to the winning side. Through the treachery of
this mercenary, Scythopolis and several other strong-
holds fell into the hands of Ilyrcanus. At length the city
of Samaria likewise, after a year's siege, was compelled
THE ASMONEANS. 91
to surrender at discretion, and was totally demolislied.
Hyrcanus thus obtained possession of the territories of
Samaria and Galilee, so that his dominion now extended
over the greater portion of the promised land west of the
river Jordan; and he bequeathed it as a maxim of state
policy to his sons and descendants to endeavour, by all means,
to recover the cities and districts which had formed the in-
heritance of the twelve tribes, and to extend the boundaries
of Judea until they should comprise all the ancient land
of Israel, including the two-and-a-half tribes East of the
river Jordan. West of that river, and along the shores of
the Mediterranean, several trading cities, chiefly inhabited
by Syro-Greeks, had erected themselves into independent
republics, among which the city of Ptolemais deserves par-
ticular mention.
Few sovereigns had been more uniformly successful and
prosperous than Hyrcanus. During his long and active
administration he had not only extended his dominions by
important acquisitions, but had also consolidated them
into one firm body politic. The advantages he gained in
war he knew how to augment and render productive in
peace. His foreign alliances had been wisely contracted,
and added to the security of his country and to his per-
sonal glory. Commerce, agriculture, and the handicrafts
that are carried on in cities were cultivated under his
auspices with great success, while the sums of money he
accumulated in his treasuries, without burdening the
people, are described as immense. His administration
was not less remarkable for its piety than for its Avisdom ;
for his attention to his spiritual duties than for his pru-
dence in his temporal affairs.
At no time since the return of the Jews from the Baby-
lonish captivity had the JcAvish religion or commonwealth
commanded so high a degree of universal regard as under
Hyrcanus. But that which raised his glory above all his
92 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
predecessors and all his successors was — at least if we be-
lieve Josephus (Bell. Jud. lib. ii. cap. 3) and the fourth Mac-
cabees (cap. vii.) — that he enjoyed three dignities that
never before, or after him, have met in one person : roy-
alty, the high-priesthood, and the gift of prophecy. Of
the last, Josephus and the fourth Maccabees relate several
instances, of which we will only repeat two. On the day
the battle was fought between his son Aristobulus and King
Cyzicenus, liyrcanus was offering incense in the most holy
place, when he suddenly heard a voice which told him that
his son had gained a great victory ; tidings which he com-
municated to the people directly the service was finished,
and which messengers despatched by Aristobulus, and who
reached Jerusalem two or three days after the battle, fully
confirmed. He also, shortly before his death, foretold that
the reign of his two elder sons would be but short, and
that his third son, Alexander, was destined to be his suc-
cessor.
But though, during so many years, his administration
had been successful and his private life prosperous, he was
fated in the last year of his reign to experience the truth
of Solon's axiom, "That no one can be called happy until
after he is dead." The sects which had risen among the
Jews, and of which we shall presently have to speak more
fully, imbittered his last days, and drove him shortly be-
fore his death to discard those who, till then, had been
his most faithful friends and advisers; and to close his
eyes in the midst of others, whose opinions had long been
hateful to him, and who, in the last agony of the parting
spirit, robbed him of the hopes of a blissful future state.
liyrcanus, like his father and all his uncles of the house
of Asmoneus, had. been zealous for the law and 'for the
traditions, according to the views of the Hassidim, or
"tlie pious." And when these views became triumphant
after the long contiict with Grecianizing apostasy ; and
TUE ASMONEANS. 93
when the tenets they emhodied were embraced by the
great mass of the people, under the teachings of the Pha-
risees, Hyrcanus, from conviction, had proved one of their
firmest adherents and supporters. Pharisees held the first
rank in his sacerdotal synod as in his cabinet council;
they stood highest in his favour ; and as they likewise stood
highest in the estimation of the people, they made Hyr-
canus an ample return for his favours in the degree of
popularity which his intimacy with them gained for him.
One would have thought that Hyrcanus and his fast
friends, the Pharisees, united as they were by identity of
feelings, opinions, and interests, could not by any possi-
bility fall out or become enemies. Yet they did; and all
the more bitterly because they had been such devoted
friends. The occasion was the following :
After the capture and destruction of Samaria, and the
return of his two victorious sons, Hyrcanus gave a ban-
quet to which he invited all the "Sages of Israel," as the
chiefs of the Pharisee party were styled. When the mirth
and rejoicing had reached its height, Hyrcanus — probably
to indulge an innocent vanity, but which, like all vanity,
showed more of folly than of wisdom — rose, and, appealing
to his guests, inquired. Whether they had ever seen or known
him do any thing improper or unlawful ? And he invited
them to acquaint him with any failure of his duty toward
God or man, that might have come to their knowledge.
As might be expected, he got from his guests all the praise
for which he so obviously laid himself open. All replied
that they had never known or seen him transgress the
Law in any one respect. The room rung with testimonials
of his blameless conduct; and his many virtues were
praised in so earnest and emphatic a manner that he be-
came highly delighted.
When this had ceased, one of the guests, named Eleazar,
an austere man, but much respected by the people, and
9i POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
who had not joined in the general acclamation, turned to
Iljrcanus and ventured to say that he ought to resign the
higli-pricsthood, and content himself with the civil admi-
nistration and government of the nation. This called forth
Hyrcanus' indignation in a degree commensurate with the
delight he had received from hearing his own praise ; and
Eleazar was pressed for the reason of his assertion in
such a manner, that he began to feel alarmed at the pos-
sible consequences of his own temerity. He therefore
determined to place his objection on grounds which could
not be sustained. Accordingly he alleged that Hyrcanus'
mother had at one time, during the late persecution, been
a captive among the Syrians; that consequently it was
uncertain whether he Avas a descendant of Aaron or of a
pagan.
This allegation, as Josephus positively declares, was
palpably untrue; and Hyrcanus felt inclined to take no
further notice of the insult, looking upon it merely as the
ill-saying of a spiteful individual. But the jSadducees, a
rival sect, were too expert politicians not to take advan-
tage of this circumstance to raise a deadly feud between
the whole family of the high-priest and the entire sect of
Pharisees. Jonathan the Sadducee, an intimate friend of
Hyrcanus, began by calling his attention to the fact that
of all the assembled "Sages of Israel" who had partaken
of the high-priest's hospitality, and witnessed the gross
insult he had received, not one had risen to rebuke the
calumniator or to vindicate the purity of Hyrcanus' birth.
When Jonathan found that this fact, which at the mo-
ment had escaped Hyrcanus' notice, now greatly exaspe-
rated him, the Sadducee went on to explain that the chiefs
of the Pharisees had remained silent because they shared
the opinion of Eleazar, and therefore were afraid or unable
to rebuke him ; and that to convince himself of this, Hyr-
canus had only to demand of the Pharisees what punish-
THE ASMONEANS. 95
ment should be inflicted on this free-spoken Eleazar, who
had reviled God's high-priest. Hyrcanus did so; and
when, in reply, he was informed that scourging and im-
prisonment formed the utmost punishment that the law
awarded to Eleazar — whereas Hyrcanus deemed that the
defamation of his mother, and, by implication, of himself,
deserved to be punished with death,' he became con-
vinced that, in the insult offered to him, Eleazar had been
spokesman for the entire Pharisee party. Thenceforth,
the prince high-priest renounced all connection with that
sect ; and, with his sons and all his family, publicly em-
braced the unpopular tenets of the Sadducees.
Now, there is no proof that the charge of "complicity
in the insult," which Jonathan brought against the Phari-
sees, was true ; yet there is every reason to suppose that
these Pharisees, the guardians of tradition, agreed with
Eleazar in thinking that the union of spiritual and tem-
poral power in the hands of Hyrcanus, was contrary to
law.
Tradition teaches that there were three distinct crowns
or powers in Israel : Kether kehunnah, " the crown of
priesthood;" Kether malhhuth, "the crown of royalty;"
and Kether torah, "the crown of the law." The first, or
priesthood, was the birthright of the house of Aaron of the
tribe of Levi; the second, or royalty, was the birthright
'of the house of David of the tribe of Judah ; the third and
chiefest crown, that of the law, was not limited to any
family or tribe, but was the birthright of every freeborn
Israelite.
Each of these three crowns or powers had its pecu-
■^ As late as the year 1737, the Canon Giacomini and Count Trivelli
were sentenced to death at Rome for having reviled and libelled the then
reigning Pope. As the Canon was descended from the family of St; Jacob
de la Marche, his sentence was commuted into imprisonment for life ; but
Count Trivelli was actually beheaded in February, 1737.
96 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OP THE JEWS.
liar functions, and also its visible head or representative.
The house of Aaron, whose head and representative was
the high-priest, was alone intrusted with the ministry in
the temple, and its public worship ; with the offerings and
external rites of religion. The head and representative
of the house of David was the king, to whom the executive
power in all its branches was intrusted. The crown of the
law had its visible chief and representative in the Sanhe-
DRIN, or supreme council, intrusted with the dispensation,
in conformity with the Law of Moses, of justice in all mat-
ters spiritual, civil, and criminal.
Thus there was a division of powers, religious, executive,
and judicial, duly balanced ; and from a long experience
of its advantages, the people had arrived at the well-
founded conviction that this division and balance of pow-
ers was indispensable to the general freedom and happi-
ness. As early as the reign of Uzziah, king of Judah,
royalty had attempted to interfere with and seize upon the
functions of priesthood. But the attempt had been boldly
and successfully resisted ; and until the conquest of Je-
rusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, the powers of royalty and of
priesthood remained distinct. The destruction of the
kingdom and of the temple, naturally deprived both the
house of David and that of Aaron of their respective func-
tions ; but on their return from Babylon, the fortunes of
these two distinguished families became very different.
When Cyrus gave the Jews permission to return to Ju-
dea, his intention was that they should reconstruct their
temple with its religious rites ; but he gave them no per-
mission to restore their political institutions and royal dy-
nasty. And though Zerubbabel, the leader of the first
colony of Jews that returned to Jerusalem, was a member
of the royal family of David, yet the office of chief which
he held was personal, not hereditary ; he was not suc-
ceeded in his office by his sons, though as the descendants
THE ASMONEANS. \)i
of David, they were held in high esteem by the people.
But as in after ages we find most of the few branches of
the family of David that survived located on the river Eu-
phrates, while those who inhabited Judea took no promi-
nent part in passing events, and are not noticed in history,
it is probable that the jealousy of the Persian government
did not permit the ancient royal family of Judea to emerge
from its compulsory obscurity, or to rise above the level
of the people ; so that gradually this family became
estranged from the affairs and the confidence of the
Judeans.
Not so the house of Aaron. Without the sacerdotal
family, no service could be performed in the temple. As
soon as an altar was erected on which to offer sacrifices,
the Cohanim, or descendants of Aaron, naturally resumed
duties which no one but they could lawfully perform ; and
their chief, no longer overshadowed by the superior gran-
deur of royalty, as naturally assumed the first rank among
his people. As the Persians, despots ingrained, were
averse to popular or municipal government, and it never-
theless was necessary that there should be some functionary
to represent the local interests of the Judeans with the
Persian Satraps, the high-priest, a dignitary whose rank
and office were recognised by the kings of Persia, was na-
turally preferred by that king's officers. And as the Jews
were permitted, subject only to the payment of a tribute,
to live according to their own laws, with which the Persian
jurists were not conversant, the high-priest as the first in
rank among his own people, and the highest official recog-
nised by the Persians, naturally came to be the chief ma-
gistrate ; and the more completely the Jews were left to
themselves and to the blessings of self-government, the
more was his secular power and influence extended. But
still he only held his own office, or crown of high-priest,
and did not usurp that of royalty ; for as the functions of
Vol. II. 9
98 POST-BIBLICAL niSTORY OF TUE JEWS.
judge and magistrate were open to every Israelite, the
high-priest, as such, was likewise not excluded from per-
forming them.
Such was the position of the high-priest during the
whole time of Persian, Macedonian, Egyptian, and Syro-
Grecian supremacy, until the pious Onias was deposed hy
Antiochus IV. Epiphanes, and murdered. The vile apos-
tates, Jason, Menelaus, and Alcimus, usurped the high-
priesthood, and eventually assisted in the suppression of
the Jewish public worship ; while the temple and altar were
transferred from the worship of God to that of idols — a
state of things which continued until Judah, the son of
Mattathias the Maccabee, following in the footsteps of his
pious father, cleansed the temple of its defilement, and re-
stored the pure service of the One True God.
Though Judah, and after him his brother Jonathan,
were at the head of the armed force and of the civil ad-
ministration of Judea, yet the people, who felt that but for
the exertions of these heroic descendants of Aaron, there
would have been neither temple nor worship, nor in fact a
Jewish nation, by acclamation hailed Judah, and after him
Jonathan as high-priest and civil rulers. The whole was
looked upon as a temporary arrangement imperiously
called for by the necessities of the times. When Simon,
after the sad fate of his brother Jonathan, was called upon
to assume the chief direction in peace and war, the condi-
tion of Judea was so precarious, that any division of power
or collision of authority must have become fatal. The
people therefore not only appointed Simon to be their
spiritual and temporal chief, but they even went a step
farther, and joined his sons in the appointment as his suc-
cessors ; for experience had proved how entirely the safety
of the country depended upon the firm and continuous di-
rection of public affairs, without that necessary but perni-
cious interruption which had followed the death of Judah
THE ASMONEANS. 99
and of Jonathan, and wliicli would be c«rtain again to ensue
if the hist of the Maccabean brothers should depart this
life without a successor having been appointed.
Yet, while they thus yielded to the necessities of the
times, the elders and priests, as well as the people, had a
misgiving that the uniting two crowns on one brow, or
placing the government of church and state in one hand,
was not only unlawful in itself, but might lead to the in-
troduction of arbitrary power and to the crushing of the
liberties of the people. They therefore annexed to the
appointment of Simon and his sons the important stipula-
tion, that this appointment was to continue only until
" there should arise a faithful prophet to show them what
they should do," and that thus the whole arrangement
was only to be temporary, and should cease with the ne-
cessity that had called it forth.
That necessity — after the assassination of Simon and
his two sons — continued so imperative, that Hyrcanus was
readily confirmed in all the appointments held by his father
Simon. During nearly thirty years he governed with
great success, as ethnarch or temporal ruler, and as high-
priest or spiritual chief. But during these many years of
peace and security, the people began to feel that this de-
parture from the law of God and the usage of Israel was
no longer necessary. The Sopherim, scribes, or teachers
of the Law, Avhose influence over the minds of the people
daily became more powerful — a reaction natural after the
long and fierce struggles against apostasy and innovation
— laboured hard, in every instance, to restore and enforce
the letter of the Law and of the ancient traditions. And
when the chiefs of these Sopherim remained silent under
the rebuke which Eleazar administered to Hyrcanus in
their presence, and when they subsequently refused to
decree capital punishment against the offender, it was be-
cause they felt that Eleazar was right ; a feeling probably
100 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
not lessened by the-prospect before them of the hauglity
Aristobulus, at the head of his foreign mercenaries, suc-
ceeding his father Ilyrcanus in almost dictatorial power.
Although Hyrcanus had renounced his connection with
the Sopherim, or Pharisee party, he could not but feel —
indeed, the murmurs of the people admonished him — that
though no prophet had arisen, yet the voice of the people,
which in Israel had always been considered as the vox
Dei^ the voice of God, had decided for the separation of
the two crowns that had been intrusted to himself; and
he determined to submit to the popular will. As his own
end was approaching, he settled the succession by his will
in such a manner, that while the different powers he pos-
sessed should still be preserved to his house, they should,
nevertheless, be confided to different hands. For this
purpose, he willed that his wife should, during her life-
time, be regent of Judea, while the functions of high-
priest would naturally have to be performed by his son
Aristobulus. Having thus endeavoured to satisfy the peo-
ple, Hyrcanus died (107 b. c. e.) twenty-nine years after
his father Simon, and left Judea secure and independent
in her foreign relations, but threatened with civil dissen-
sions and party rage in her own bosom.
THE ASMONEANS. 101
CHAPTER XL
Aristobulus I., King of Judea — Death of his mother ; of his brother Anti-
gonus — Conquest of Iturea — Death of Aristobulus ; state of parties
at his death — The Sanhedrin — Sects: theEssenes; the Sadducees ; the
Pharisees — Alexander Jannai, King of Judea ; his character ; besieges
Ptolemais ; defeated by P. Lathyrus ; succoiired by Cleopatra, Queen
of Egypt ; her intrigues in Syria ; her death — Civil war between the
princes of Syria — Jannai's campaigns east of Jordan ; his victories and
defeats ; siege and capture of Gaza ; his ci'uelty — Riots in Jerusalem —
The king insulted in the temple — Civil war of six years in Judea — Exas-
peration of the Pharisees — Jannai victorious — Inhuman revenge on the
vanquished — Jannai obtains the nickname of Thracidas. — (From 107 to
85b. c. e.)
Hyrcanus was the last of the Maccabean worthies who
hold so glorious a place in Jewish history; for though
there was more of selfishness in his character than in that
of his father or of his uncles : though ambition was to
the full as predominant a feeling within him as patriotism
or love of religion, while the desire to see Judea independ-
ent and the temple-worship upheld in its purity was in
his mind inseparable from the supremacy of his house in
the state and at the altar, — nevertheless, during the earlier
years of his administration, and while the great struggle
was far from decided, he made the welfare of the people
his chief law. And his last will provided for a division
of powers, which, if properly followed up, might have
averted the ills that threatened the nation.
His will was not, however, carried out. His eldest son,
Aristobulus, beloved by the populace on account of his
great victory over Cyzicenus, and a favourite with his
father's mercenaries because of his soldierly carriage and
great liberality, did not wait for the publication of his
9*
102 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
father's testament, nor yet for the formula of popular
election ; but at once, and as if it were a private inherit-
ance, his right to which could not be disputed, took pos-
session of his father's vast treasures; and having secured
the assistance of the foreign mercenaries, whose com-
mander he was, he seized upon the supreme power in
church and state as it had been held by his father. His
mother in vain urged her right to the regency, by virtue
of Hyrcanus' will ; and when she persisted in protesting
against his usurpation, Aristobulus threw her and her
three younger sons into prison. And having thus se-
cured himself in the principality and as high-priest, he
ventured on the questionable step of proclaiming himself
kinsj of Judea.
His second and favourite brother, Antigonus, who had
been joined in command with him before Samaria, he ap-
pointed his lieutenant, both in the government and in the
priesthood. And thus this first Asmonean king of Judea
did, at Jerusalem, what Julius Caesar did a century later
at Rome. Leaders of an armed force, the command of
which had originally' been bestowed by popular election,
they not only used that force to seize upon supreme au-
thority in the state, but, in order to secure that authority,
they determined also to be the chiefs of religion, even as
in the oldest times the kings of Egypt had united in their
own person the offices of king and high-priest. In Rome,
the plan succeeded, because idolatry and its maxims were
pliant. In Judea, it failed, because the religious convic-
tions of the people were inflexible.
Crime and misfortune beset the cradle of this new Ju-
dean royalty, and did not quit it till its grave. The widow
of Hyrcanus, a high-spirited woman, who, with her three
younger sons, had been thrown in prison by Aristobulus,
resented the cruel indignity thus put upon her by her first-
born so strongly, that refusing to take any food, she soon
THE ASMONEANS. 103
died in prison; and the report spread abroad that the
king had caused his aged mother to be starved to death.
Flushed with success and swayed by ambition, Aristo-
bulus did not at first feel any remorse at the cruel and
untimely death of his mother. But in order to divert
public attention from this fatal event, and also to prove
himself worthy of the crown he had assumed, he deter-
mined to carry out the plan of conquest which his father
had commenced, and in which he was certain of being
warmly supported by the patriotism and national passions
of the Jews. This plan consisted in regaining and in-
corporating with Judea all those towns and territories
which had originally formed part of the land of Israel, or
had been held by Israelites, but which at or after the As-
syrian or Babylonish captivities had been seized upon
and were still held by the neighbouring tribes and nations.
At the head of a numerous and well-appointed army, and
attended by his brother Antigonus, the king shortly
after his accession to power marched forth against the
Itureans, a tribe of Ishmaelites or Arabs who had ob-
tained possession of a district east of the Jordan and
south of Damascus, that had formerly been occupied by
the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Menasseh, (1 Chron. v. 19.)
The open country was soon conquered, and the king laid
siege to the principal town of Iturea, when he was seized
with a dangerous malady which compelled him to quit the
army, leaving the command and the final subjugation of
the country to his brother Antigonus.
Soon after the king's return to Jerusalem his malady
assumed a character that left no hopes of his recovery.
As he had no children, his qxieen, Salome or Alexandra,
would, in accordance with the Law of Moses, have been
bound immediately after his death to become the wife of
his brother Antigonus. But though this young prince is
described as handsome, brave, and accomplished, Salome
104 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
had conceived against him an insurmountable aversion.
And so deadly was her hatred, that she determined to de-
stroy Antigonus before the death of the king ; and, by the
assistance of corrupt courtiers, an intrigue to effect her
object was soon planned, and in due time successfully car-
ried out.
Antigonus had at length forced Iturea to submit to the
terms which before his departure from the army Aristo-
bulus had offered to the inhabitants, and which were simi-
lar to those his father Ilyrcanus had granted to the
Idumeans — viz., to embrace the Jewish religion, or to quit
the country. They perferred the former; and accordingly
were admitted into the covenant of Abraham and incorpo-
rated in the Jewish nation. Having thus successfully
closed the campaign with the capture of the strongly-for-
tified city of Iturea, and the subjection of the whole
district, Antigonus at the head of his victorious army re-
turned to Jerusalem, where he arrived during the festival
of tabernacles. High service was being performed at
the temple; and in his eager haste to return thanks to
God for his success, Antigonus, all clothed in armour as
he was, and before he had waited on the king, hurried to
the temple to join in the public worship.
This was too good an opportunity for his enemies, who
seized upon and used it to the utmost. The queen and
her clique had all along been trying to excite suspicions
in the king's mind against his brother, to whose disad-
vantage they were continually insinuating hints and reports,
as if he meant to supplant his elder brother. And though
the king knew and loved his brother too well to yield
credence to all these malicious reports, yet it appears that
his mind, naturally stern, and now acted upon by disease,
was gradually moved to suspicion by the unceasing calum-
nies which his own wife and his immediate attendants
were continually pouring into his ears. And when they
THE ASMONEANS. 105
now assured him that his brother, all armed, had hurried
to the temple with no other intention than to harangue the •
multitude and at once to usurp the crown ; and when, in
support of this assertion, thej dwelt on the fact that An-
tigonus had shown himself to the people before he had
appeared in the king's presence, that he had thus been
guilty of disrespect to the king's person and dignity, and
that Antigonus had done this because he did not wish to
see a brother whom he meant presently to deprive of his
life and crown, — when all this was forced upon the king's
conviction by the tears of his wife and the plausible argu-
ments of Ms confidants, but her creatures, the king was
greatly moved ; and though still unwilling implicitly to
believe the calumny, he despatched a messenger to summon
his brother immediately to appear before him. But, with
that mistrust which is the curse of despots and inseparable
from Eastern royalty, he ordered his brother to come
without armour or arms of any kind.
Having extorted this first order, the queen recommended
as a measure of precaution — and which the king was weak
enough to adopt — that a troop of the king's foreign guards
should be posted in the dark gallery that led from the
temple to the royal palace and castle of Baris. The officer
in command of these guards received strict order from the
king himself that if Antigonus entered the gallery in
armour, he was at once, and without further parley, to be
cut down; but if unarmed, he was to pass without moles-
tation. The chamberlain who conveyed the king's message
to Antigonus was a creature of the queen, and suborned
by her. The message he delivered to the unfortunate
prince was that he should directly and without delay
attend upon the king ; and that he should come completely
armed, as the queen wished to see his new suit of armour.
The unsuspecting Antigonus hastened to obey ; but no
sooner did the guards see him approach in armour than,
106 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
in obedience to the king's order, they fell upon him and
slew him on the spot.^
This foul murder had scarcely been committed before
Aristobulas repented it most grievously. As he lay on
his sick bed, his fevered imagination depicted to his mind's
eye his beloved brother perishing under the swords of
ferocious hirelings ; and his conscience once aroused, the
groans of his dying mother also rung upon his ears, and
occasioned such perturbation that it brought on a vomiting
of blood. The servant in attendance, in carrying out the
basin, stumbled and spilled it on the very sjjot where An-
tigonus had been slain. When the king was informed of
this accident, it affected him so greatly that he could no
longer restrain his feelings, but loudly and bitterly accused
^ On this occasion Josephus for the first time makes mention of the sect
of the Essenes, and that under circumstances so singular, that we are
tempted to repeat them : "Before Antigonus' return to Jerusalem from his
campaign in Iturea, an Essene named Judah predicted that the young
prince was to die on a certain day during the festival of tabernacles, and
at a place called the tower of Straton. On the day fixed by Judah, An-
tigonus arrived at Jerusalem, and, as has been related in the text,
hastened to the temple. When Judah saw him, he began to weep, and,
on being questioned, replied, ' I weep because of the fate of this beaute-
ous young hero, or at my own. For either he must lose his life this very
day at the tower of Straton, or I am a false prophet.' Those who heard
him laughed at his prophetic pretensions, and said, ' Assuredly thou art
a false prophet, and the fulfilment of thy prediction is absolutely impossi-
ble. The place known as the tower of Straton (a fortified castle on the
plains of Esdraelon) is six hundred stadia (nearly one hundred miles) from
Jerusalem ; and how can Antigonus get there to-day ?' On hearing this,
Judah began to weep still more bitterly, lamented his own fate, and
wished he might have died rather than have proved a false prophet. But
his iircdiction was fulfilled, and to the letter. Close to the spot in the
gallery where the unfortunate Antigonus was murdered, there rose a
tower, which the builders, from some cause not known, had named
" Straton's Tower." This, though the first, is not the only instance in which
Josephus describes Essenes as possessed of the gift of prophecy, or the
power of foretelling future events.
THE ASMONEANS. 107
himself of both of these unnatural murders. So great
was the agony of his remorse that, in conjunction
with his disease, it soon brought him to a miserable and
premature death, after his having reigned no more than
one year.
The brief administration of Aristobulus formed the pre-
lude of calm that preceded the storm of party and sectarian
strife which burst forth in the reign of his successor. The
questions at issue were — 1st. Between the two crowns or
powers held by the Asmoneans, royalty and priesthood, on
the one side, and the third crown, that of the Law or the
senate, on the other. And 2d. Between the sect of the
Sadducees, supporters of the Asmoneans, and that of the
Pharisees, who identified themselves with the senate or
Sanhedrin. And as these questions involved matters of
political supremacy and material advantage, as well as of
faith and religious observance, they soon called forth the
most bitter feelings of personal rancour and of public ani-
mosity. We have already spoken of the union of church
and state in the hands of the reigning family ; we now have
to offer some remarks respecting the third crown, that
of the Law, represented by the Sanhedrin.
Few institutions in ancient or modern, sacred or pro-
fane history, possess such celebrity as this high national
council or senate of the Jews. But yet, though all agree
as to the importance of its attributes and functions, great
difference of opinion prevails respecting its origin and an-
tiquity. Orthodox Jews quote the authority of sacred
Scripture in support of ascribing the origin of the Sanhe-
drin to Moses, who, as related in the 11th chapter of
Numbers, was commanded by God to form a tribunal of
seventy elders ; and the authority of tradition is adduced
to prove that this tribunal remained in existence, and its
chiefs succeeded each other uninterruptedly, from the days
of Moses until the close of the patriarchate of Tiberias, or
108 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OP THE JEWS.
even until the close of tlie Babylon Talmud, (about the
year 500 a. c. e.)
In opposition to this view, other biblical critics have
endeavoured to prove that the institution of the Sanhe-
drin is of comparatively modern date. In support of their
opinion, these critics, chiefly non-Israelites, assert that
Josephus the historian makes no mention of the Sanhe-
drin until the days of Antipater and Herod ; and that, at
farthest, the first mention of the existence of such a na-
tional council can only be carried back to the book of Mac-
cabees, where it is designated as Grerousia, or council of
elders.
Another objection urged against the antiquity of the
Sanhedrin is deduced from its very designation ; because
Sanhedrin or Synediuon is a word not of Hebrew, but of
Greek origin ; and that consequently the institution it de-
signates can not have originated before the time when the
Greeks exercised complete and active supremacy in Judea;
which again brings us to the period immediately preceding
the Maccabees. These critics, however, make a point of
rejecting all Jewish sources of history, Talmud and 3Ie-
drasMm, while they pin their faith on the sleeve of Jose-
phus ; thus bestowing on him a degree of confidence of
which, when closely examined, he is by no means found
to be deserving ; and at the same time withholding all be-
lief from other writers, whose trustworthiness rises in our
estimation the more they are subject to the test of rigid
criticism.
If we examine the later books of the Old Testament,
we shall find frequent mention made of the Zekemnif
"elders." Indeed on one occasion before the destruction
of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, we find the prophet
Ezekiel (viii. 11, 12) speaks of the Zilcnay-Israel, " elders
of Israel," as a constituted body; and even mentions the
number of its assessors as seventy, the very number origin-
TnE ASMONEANS. 109
ally appointed by Moses, and ■wliicli afterward consti-
tuted the Sanhedrin.
Here, then, we have positive scriptural proof that such
a council existed previous to the Babylonish captivity —
proof against which any doubt deduced from the silence
of Josephus is of no value whatever. On the return from
the Babylonish captivity, we no sooner find the Jews again
established in Judea than we meet with the " council of
elders." But as the Hebrew language had ceased to be
the vernacular tongue of the Judeans, their council is no
longer styled Ziknay- Israel, but Sahay-Jehudai, "the
elders of the Jews," and as such they are designated and
recognised as a constituted body by Darius, King of Persia,
in his decree for rebuilding the temple, (Ezra vi. 8.) On
many other occasions we find mention made of these
Sabay-Jehudai ; (lb. v. 8 ; vi. 15;) and that they are iden-
tical with the ancient institution of "elders" is proved
by the fact that when they are spoken of in Hebrew they
are styled, as of old, ITa-ZeJcenim, " the elders," (lb. x. 8,)
with the definite article to indicate that the well-known
public council is spoken of.
When the Greeks under Alexander the Great, and the
Egypto- Grecians under Ptolemy I. Soter, obtained do-
minion in Judea, their language predominated in all public
transactions. It therefore became necessary to adopt a
Greek name for the Jewish council. The usual title of
the municipal councils of the Greeks was what first pre-
sented itself to the Jews, and they styled their council of
elders Grerousia, all the more readily as that word is only
the Greek translation of the Hebrew Zekenini, as the
Aramaic Sahim had also been. But when in process of
time, the Jews became better acquainted with the nature
of Greek institutions, they felt unwilling that their great
national council — and which after the recovery of their
independence became their supreme council — should be
Vol. II. 10
110 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OE THE JEWS.
confounded witli the petty municipal councils of Greece.
They therefore renounced the designation Gerousia, and
adopted the style and title of Synedrion or Sanhedrin,
to distinguish their council from the municipalities of
Greece, and as best corresponding to the Hebrew term
Keneseth Hagdola, "great assembly," which was the title
given to their constituent council in the days of Ezra. As
the duration of Jewish independence was but brief, and
the Romans in their government of the East made use of
the Greek language, the term Sanhedrin came to be
continued and perpetuated.
We have thus traced the existence of a council of ZeTce-
nim founded by Moses, existing in the days of Ezekiel,
restored by the name of Sahay-Jehudai under the Persian
dominion, known as Gerousia during the supremacy of
the Greeks, and as Sanhedrin under the Asmonean kings
and under the Romans. We have also shown that the
Greek name of this Jewish council affords no proof against
the antiquity of the institution ; since, however often the
name was altered, the council itself never ceased to exist.
Against this array of positive proof, chiefly derived from
Scripture, the critics who object to the antiquity of the
Sanhedrin have nothing stronger to oppose than the ne-
gative proof derived from the silence of Josephus !
The Mishna, in treatise AbotJi, takes up the subject of
the "council of elders" where sacred Scriptures left it;
and from the days of " Simon the Just," the last survivor
of the "men of the great assembly" — of whom we have
already spoken very fully — it gives us the names, in unin-
terrupted sequence, of his successors in the presidential
ofiice. AVe have already spoken of Antigonus of Socho,
who laboured to stem the torrent of Epicurean philosophy ;
we have also related how, after him, the pressure of the
times caused the office to be divided between two func-
tionaries ; and that his immediate successor, Jos6, the son
THE ASMONEANS. Ill
of Joezer of Zereda, suifered martyrdom at the hands of
the apostate Alcimus. He was chief of the Hassidim,
"pious ones," who stood by the Maccabees during the
long and fierce struggle for Jewish faith and nationality
against Greek fanaticism and corruption.
To uphold Jewish nationality, the utmost importance
■was attached to Jewish customs in opposition to Grecian
manners ; and in order to strengthen the adherence to
Jewish customs, the aid of tradition was invoked. Ever
since the days of Moses, tradition had formed a leading
authority in the observances of Israel, as can be abun-
dantly proved by numerous texts of Scripture. When,
after the return from Babylonish captivity, foreign con-
nections and intermarriages threatened to become danger-
ous to Jewish nationality, and were countenanced by the
priests, we find that Ezra, Nehemiah, and the " men of
the great assembly," deemed it their duty to "erect a
fence round the Law," (Aboth, i. 1.) This fence derived
its strength from tradition ; of which the disciples of Ezra
and of the "great assembly" — called after him (Ez. vii.
6, et passim) Sopherim, "scribes," or "expounders"
were constituted the guardians and teachers. These So-
pherim naturally identified themselves with the Hassidim,
whose cause was their own. And as the members of the
Sanhedrin were chiefly chosen from among the Sopherim,
it gave to the principles of the Hassidim the greatest pre-
ponderance in the national council, and to the Sopherim
thie greatest authority among the people.
But though the victories of the Maccabees had decided
the triumph of Judaism and of Jewish nationality, a
fondness for Grecian manners, refinements, and elegancies
still survived in many Judeans, especially of the wealthier
and more influential classes. Hence arose the attempt to
reconcile the Law of Moses with Grecian civilization. A
belief in one God is the perfection of reason, and can only
112 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
be obtained by means of revelation. The moral code of
Moses, so infinitely superior to any other system of mo-
rality the world had ever known, commanded that univer-
sal respect which was due to its divine origin and authority.
The religious rites of Moses, and his system of public wor-
ship, so splendid and yet so pure, addressed themselves at
once to the reason and the feelings ; while his dietary and
social laws were so salutary and wise, that the more strict
the obedience they received, the greater the happiness they
would confer.
But in all these particulars the Law of Moses was not
at war with the elegancies of Greek civilization. The
most refined and philosophical of Athenians would lose
nothing, but gain much, by accepting and obeying the Law
of Moses ; while, on the other hand, the most rigid adhe-
rent of that law might derive knowledge from Aristotle,
experience from Thucydides, and elegance from Plato,
without ceasing to be a good Jew. What stood in the way
was not law, but custom and practice; these, therefore,
must be set aside ; and as they derived their chief weight
from tradition, the authority of tradition must be got rid
of. The shortest way for doing this was altogether to
deny its truth, and to set up the strict letter of the Law,
and that alone, to the utter exclusion and rejection of
every interpretation or exposition. Accordingly, these
Pldl-hellenes — a designation considered so glorious, that
King Aristobulus adopted it as his surname — took their
stand on the strict letter of the Law, and rejected every
dogma or article of faith not expressly and distinctly set
forth in the Law.
Among the dogmas thus rejected were two most import-
ant ones — the immortality of the soul, with its corollary,
the rewards and punishments of a future state, and the
resurrection of the dead. Both these doctrines, though
indicated by various texts of the Law, are nowhere stated
THE ASMONEANS. 113
in plain terms. And this circumstance, together witli the
misconstruing — either intentional or inadvertent — by An-
tigonus of Socho's doctrine : " Be ye not like servants who
■wait on the master under the stipulation to receive a
reward," had led his two disciples, Zadock and Baithos,
to found a school, which denied the immortality of the
soul, as we have already fully related.
The admirers of Grecian manners and elegance, with their
strong leaning toward the philosophy of Epicurus, readily
joined the school of Zadock, as the nearest approach to
Hellenism or Greek feelings reconcilable with the Law of
Moses and Jewish nationality; and thus what had been a
school became a sect. And as the champions for tradition
and custom founded on interpretation had obtained the
name ITassidim, "the pious," their opponents, who stood
up for the letter of the Law, assumed that of Zadikim, " the
righteous." The body of the people, however, who were
strongly averse to their principles, would not allow them
so honourable a designation. But, by a slight modification
of the name they claimed, called them Zadookim, or, as
the Greeks have it, Sadducees, in allusion to ZadoeJc, the
founder of their sect, a party name which they did not
altogether decline, and by which they became best known.
Their antagonists, the upholders of tradition, deeming the
name Hassidim, "the pious," too assuming, especially
when applied to the greater part of an entire nation,
adopted a name expressive of their opinions, and were
called Perooshim, "Expounders," or, as the Greeks have
it, Pharisees — a name of unenviable notoriety in after
years.
In addition to these two sects, a third, less numerous and
influential, had sprung up — that of the Essenes. Respect-
ing the etymology of this word opinions are much divided.
Some derive it from the Aramaic word Asia, "physician,"
either because the Essenes chiefly occupied themselves with
10*
114 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
medical studies, or because they professed to heal souls
diseased. Others derive the name from the Hebrew
ffassah, <'hush," or "be silent," because it was a rule of
this sect to speak but little. The Greek Asios, "holy,"
and the Hebrew Hassid, "pious," have been offered as
explanatory of Essene ; while the most probable opinion
derives it from one Hosseus or Esseus, otherwise little
known, but who is assumed to have been the founder of
the sect. Its origin is likewise a matter of dispute. The
"school of the prophets," (1 Sam. ix. 18, 23,) the Re-
chabites," (Jer. xxxv.,) and the descendants of " Keni,"
the father-in-law or brother-in-law of Moses, (Judges i. 16,)
have been named as the origin of the Essenes. P. Beer,
in his " History, Doctrines, and Opinions of all Religious
Sects among the Jews," (vol i. p. 68, et. seq.,) will have it
that this sect "emanates from the Hellenists or Jews, who,
after a long sojourn in Egypt, (whither they had fled on
the destruction of the first temple,) had become acquainted
with the philosophy of Pythagoras and of Plato, which
they amalgamated with the fundamental doctrines of the
Law of Moses that they professed to obey, and on which
amalgamation they founded their religious principles."
"The first mention of the Essenes is made in the days
of Jonathan the Maccabee, when, however, they are spoken
of as an already well-known sect." " They were distin-
guished by the purity of their morals, propriety of conduct,
which frequently became ascetic in the highest degree, and
the spiritual elevation of their dogmas." " Their charac-
teristic principle was, God can only be worshipped in
truth and in the spirit through inward virtue, and not
through sacrifices or outward ceremonies ; and that true
virtue consists in pure and uninterested love of God and
of our brethren, the human race." " Sensual indulgences
they shun as the first of all sins, but consider abstemious-
ness, and the command over our passions and desires, as the
THE ASMONEANS. 115
root of all virtue." "They do not greatly value matri-
mony, but adopt the children of other men while yet of
tender age and capable of receiving jfirst impressions.
These children they regard as relatives, and educate in
their own principles." " The belief that the soul survives
its earthly tenement, and is indeed immortal, is one of
their fundamental principles of faith." " They affirm that
the certainty of reward in a future state is the greatest
stimulus a good man can have to persevere, and even pro-
gress, in piety and righteousness ; while the unruly
passions and violent excesses of the wicked must be re-
strained by the greatest terror that can work upon the
mind — namely, the dread of punishment unavoidable, un-
ceasing, and unmitigated."
We have given these extracts from the English transla-
tion of Beer's work in the Hebrew Review, (vol. iii. p.
123, 138, 156,) in order to point out to our readers the
great resemblance between these doctrines and those
which somewhat later were taught by the founder of the
Christian faith. Beer derives his knowledge of the Es-
senes from Josephus and Philo the younger. Josephus,
indeed, in his autobiography declares that he had examined
the doctrines of every Jewish sect ; but it must be borne
in mind that the Essenes formed a secret society, in wdiicli
there were several successive degrees. Every aspirant
for membership had to undergo a rigid probation ; and at
the time of his initiation had to pledge himself by oath
never to divulge to any the esoteric or secret doctrines of
the sect — with which indeed he himself only became gra-
dually acquainted as he rose to higher degrees — and also
to keep their religious books concealed. But Josephus
was not initiated into the mysteries of the Essenes, and
could therefore be acquainted with their dogmas only as
far as these were generally known. To us of the present
age, secret initiation, concealment of doctrine, degrees, and
116 rOST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
oaths must always cause a degree of suspicion, whicli in
the case of the Essenes is still further heightened by their
pretensions to prophetic powers, of which we have related
an instance on the occasion of the tragic death of Anti-
gonus.^
But as these Essenes never obtained any leading influ-
ence in public affairs, history has chiefly to do with the
two sects of the Sadducees and Pharisees. The first
named, as we have already stated, never became popular,
though as Josephus remarks, most of its professors at-
tained to the highest oflices of the state. Nor must we
feel surprised at this ; for men whose entire existence, as
they believe, is limited to earth, will naturally seek to en-
joy as much of wealth, of power, and of pleasure as by
any possible means they can achieve ; and though others
may be as greedy of the good things of this life, yet in
the struggle those have a great advantage whose ambition
is never checked by any fear of the long hereafter. The
Sadducees, who maintained the freedom of human will to
the utmost latitude, while they rejected all future responsi-
bility, were in the highest degree selfish, proud, and merci-
less. As they held that the power to do good or evil is
altogether in the will of man, they never pardoned of-
fenders, but administered the law in the harshest manner ;
but on the other hand, as they identified their own welfare
with that of their country, they were in the highest degree
patriotic, and anxious to maintain the independence and to
extend the power of Judea.
The Pharisees ranked much higher in the estimation of
^ The learned Dr. Frankel, in his Monatschrift for January and Febru-
ary, 1853, has collected from the Talmud a number of interesting notices
concerning the Essenes, which go far to prove that this sect likewise re-
ceived the traditions: and that both Philo and Josephus have given loose
to their poetic imagination in their account of its tenets and practices.
THE ASMONEANS. 117
the people, and justly so. Equally patriotic with the
Sadducees, they not only sought, like them, to maintain the
independence and power of their country, hut also to pro-
tect the liberties of the people, and to -preserve those cus-
toms which, as they conceived, constituted its nationality.
Believing in the immortality of the soul, as did the Es-
senes, and in the divine origin and consequent obligation
of the sacrifices, rites, and observances of the Law of Mo-
ses, as did the Sadducees, the Pharisees combined within
themselves what was most precious in the principles of
these two rival sects ; while the limited view they took of
the freedom of the human will, and ^hich fell far short
of that held by the Sadducees, inclined them to a more
charitable feeling toward offenders, and a more merciful
administration of the law.
Unfortunately, the numerous external observances they
inculcated gave too large a scope for hypocrisy. Selfish
men soon discovered that the rigid practice of ritual acts
and outward sanctity, especially when combined with
learning, imposed on the minds of the multitude, and im-
parted a degree of influence which neither rank nor
wealth could bestow ; and there were but too many will-
ling and able to avail themselves of the discovery.
The heavy charges which the Founder of the Christian
faith brings against Pharisees are fully confirmed by the
Talmud, (tr. Sotah, fo. 22, B,) Avhere seven different
classes of Pharisees are enumerated, of whom five are
described as equally contemptible and detestable. King
Alexander Jannaeus, the successor of Aristobulus, justly
characterized these men as Zebooim, "dyed" or "var-
nished."
But in speaking of the great national party or sect that
received the traditions and the teachings of the Pharisees,
we must take care to distinguish these varnished hypo-
crites, and by no means to identify with them the pious and
118 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORy OF THE JEW6.
God-fearing men whose firm and zealous adherence to the
Law, the faith, and the customs of their fathers, has, under
Providence, been the means of preserving Judaism and the
Jews even to this day. And it is a remarkable fact that,
at the verj time the Founder of the Christian faith most
strongly rebukes the personal vices and failings of Phari-
sees, and most pointedly reproaches their hypocrisy and
abuse of power, he yet recognises the authority and the
laAvfulness of their teachings, when he says, "The Scribes
and Pharisees sit in Moses's seat ; all, therefore, whatsoever
they bid you observe, that observe and do ; but do not
ye after their works, for they say and do not." (Matt,
xxiii. 2, 3.)
Such were the three sects which swayed the public mind
in Judea, when the rupture broke out between Hyrcanus
and the sect which formed the preponderating majority in
the Sanhedrin. Till then, the Maccabees or Asmoneans
had been Pharisees of the purest kind, and as such their
popularity had been boundless. But the Sanhedrin were
the conservators of the Law ; and the Pharisees, or in
other words, the great mass of the people, were the natural
adherents of this great national council ; whereas Hyrcanus
and his family, as a consequence of the rupture, threw
themselves into the arms of the Sadducees, an unpopular
minority, till then powerless, but now, united with the
executive, for a time at least powerful and influential.
Thus were formed two political parties, each identified with
a religious sect: the royalists, or party of the priesthood
and army, professing the principles of the Sadducees ; and
the senatorial party, or that of the people, identified with
the Pharisees.
One cannot help being struck with the close resemblance
this struggle of parties bears to the civil wars of England
under Charles I., when the king was supported by the
cavaliers, the bishops, and the clergy of the high church,
THEASMONEANS. 119
while the cause of the parliament was upheld by the Puri-
tans and the people.
Hyrcanus did not live long enough after the rupture to
witness the consequences of his connection with an un-
popular sect. His successor, Aristobulus, was too much
of a personal favourite with the populace, and his reign was
too brief to permit the opposition — if we may apply this
term of comparatively modern date to the anti-royalists of
Judea — to organize means of active hostility. It was re-
served for his brother and successor, Alexander Jannseus,
to encounter the full tide of popular resistance and of
Pharisee indignation.
Jannseus, Jonathan, or as he is called in the Talmud,
Jannai, stepped from the prison — into which he had been
thrown with his mother and younger brothers — to the
throne vacant by the death of Aristobulus. His first mea-
sure was to marry the childless widow of his brother, the
late king. This he did in conformity to the Law of Moses,
(Deut. XXV. 5-10.) When, however, we remember her suc-
cessful though most nefarious conspiracy to destroy the
heir-presumptive to the throne and to her hand, Anti-
gonus, we may, without calumny, assume that this mar-
riage with Jannai was uppermost in her mind from the
moment her husband's hopeless malady left no doubt of his
speedy demise ; and that the same unscrupulous energy
which removed an obnoxious claimant to her marriage-
troth, had also been exerted to smooth the path to the
throne for a more favoured suitor. Certain it is, that a
younger brother, whose name has not reached us, but who
attempted to dispute the right of Jannai to the succession,
was put to death by the queen's mercenaries. The young-
est of the five sons of Hyrcanus, named Absalon, a man
of timid disposition and very limited capabilities, was per-
mitted to live unmolested, and in such privacy that he is
not heard of again until forty-two years later, when, hav-
120 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
ing taken part in the defence of Jerusalem against the
Romans, he was made j^risoner by Pompey and sent to
Rome.
Thus the first steps of Jannai to the throne had been
marked by blood ; and thenceforth his crown was guard-
ed and defended, not by the love of his people, but by the
swords of his hired janizaries. And as he felt that his
safety depended on his foreign mercenaries, he increased
their number by many thousands, which the vast treasures
he inherited enabled him to do with facility and without
burdening the people. Finding, however, that his great
military force was likely to become ungovernable and dan-
gerous unless actively employed, and as he was actuated,
moreover, by the maxims of state policy bequeathed to him
by his predecessors, he determined to recover as much of
the ancient land of Israel as yet remained in the posses-
sion of aliens.
At the time he ascended the throne Jannai was twenty-
two years old. His personal appearance was highly pre-
possessing, his energy and perseverance indomitable, his
talents considerable; but his disposition ruthless and rest-
less in the extreme ; and his natural indifference to human
suffering, still farther heightened by the stern principles
of the Sadducees, to which, during the whole of his turbu-
lent reign, he faithfully adhered. It was his misfortune
that he thus became identified with an unpopular sect, and
provoked the rancorous hatred of a powerful party which
he nearly reduced to ruin. But a greater misfortune still —
at least for his reputation with posterity — was, that the
party which he so cruelly persecuted, and which so fully
reciprocated his detestation, outlived him, recovered its
power, and revenged itself upon his memory by writing
his history ; for, all that we know of his life and actions
has reached us through the records of his bitter enemies,;
and even they unfold traits- in his charracter that lead us
THE ASMONEANS. 121
to hesitate before we give implicit credence to every tale
of horror of which they represent him as the perpetrator.
His restless disposition, joined to the necessity of find-
ing employment for his numerous mercenaries, did not per-
mit him long to enjoy the luxuries of his splendid palace
at Jerusalem. But in the first year of his reign (105
B. C, E.) he led his army against Ptolemais, now called
St. John d'Acre, a city important from its position, and,
celebrated for the numerous sieges which in ancient as in
modern times it has sustained. When Jannai appeared
before her walls, Ptolemais had for several years main-
tained her independence against the rival brothers of Syria,
and carried on an extensive and lucrative commerce. The
inhabitants, numerous and wealthy, were of Egypto-Gre-
cian descent, and, though long incorporated in the Syrian
empire, had not forgotten their origin. Threatened, as
they now were, and notwithstanding the strength of their
fortifications, by an enemy obstinate, powerful, and abun-
dantly furnished with engines and implements of siege, the
citizens looked around for foreign assistance ; and as the
brothers Grypus and Cyzicenus — the sovereigns from whose
family they had revolted, and who, moreover were weak-
ened by their renewed hostilities — could not be expected
to befriend Ptolemais, Egypt was the power most likely
to afford help.
But the queen-regent, Cleopatra, looked upon the cause
of the Jews as her own. The assistance which her son
and partner in the kingdom, Lathyrus, had without her
consent or knowledge afforded to the king of Damascus
in his invasion of Judea, had provoked her utmost resent-
ment. She determined to drive him from the throne, and
to advance in his stead her younger son, Alexander, then
viceroy in Cyprus. To accomplish her design, she had
recourse to a stratagem as cruel as it Avas perfidious. Her
eunuchs sallied forth from the palace of Alexandria stream-
Vol. II. 11
122 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
ing with blood, and imploring the aid of the citizens
against Lathyrus, "■whom at the price of their wounds
they had hardly been able to restrain from the crime of
matricide." The excitable mob of Alexandria was soon
inflamed ; a violent insurrection broke out, and the palace
was assaulted. Lxithyrus, taken by surprise, would have
been murdered by the enraged multitude, had not some
devoted friends first sheltered him, and then enabled him
to escape by sea ; while his brother, as had previously
been concerted, arrived from Cyprus and ascended the
throne.
But this sudden revolution had been effected by the de-
luded passions of the capital, and was not generally
abetted either by the state or the army. Lathyrus, who
sought refuge in Cyprus, was acknowledged as the sove-
reign of the island; and the forces his mother sent to
reduce him immediately went over to his party. Master
of Cyprus, and at the head of thirty thousand men, chiefly
Greek veterans, he prepared shipping, and watched an
opportunity to return to Egypt and by force to recover
his crown. To this prince the citizens of Ptolemais ap-
plied for aid, the more readily as his preparations were in
a sufficient state of forwardness to afi'ord them immediate
relief. He granted their application, and with a power-
ful armament sailed to the assistance of the besieged
city.
At the approach of this formidable reinforcement, Jan-
nai raised the siege, and immediately applied to the queen
of Egypt for assistance against the common enemy. But
while the citizens of Ptolemais rejoiced at the retreat of
their Jewish foes, they began to suspect and to fear the
designs of their deliverer. Demajnetus, a favourite de-
magogue and chief of the people, did not hesitate to as-
sure his fellow-citizens that the vast armament of Lathyrus
was not merely intended to. defend Ptolemais against the
THE ASMONEANS. 123
Jews, but rather, and principally, to secure possession of
the city for himself. The consequence of this free-spoken
declaration, which was in fact the expression of the gene-
ral public opinion, was that Ptolemais refused to receive
her deliverer, and closed her gates against him.
Stung with this affront, Lathyrus adopted the hostile
resolution which had so unwarrantably been imputed to
him. One portion of his army he left to besiege Ptole-
mais ; and that hapless city, scarcely freed from her Jew-
ish assailants, was besieged by an enemy even more to be
dreaded, since friends, insulted and exasperated by ingra-
titude, prove the most relentless and dangerous of foes.
With the remainder of his army, which he headed in
person, Lathyrus, assisted by the counsels of Philostepha-
nas, a Greek general of great experience, marched against
Jannai.
The king of the Jews, who saw his designs against
Ptolemais frustrated, and who felt that his own subjects
were lukewarm in his defence, had no great desire to fight
Lathyrus. The commencement of hostilities had been
unfavourable to him, as the invaders had taken the city
of Azochis in Galilee, whence they carried off ten thousand
prisoners without his being able to prevent them. He
therefore made overtures of peace to Lathyrus ; but while
negotiations were pending, the Egyptian prince was in-
formed by his partisans in Alexandria that Jannai had
applied for assistance against him to Queen Cleopatra, and
that she was about despatching a strong body of veteran
troops into Judea.
The receipt of this intelligence exasperated Lathyrus
in the highest degree, and he looked upon Jannai's pro-
posals of peace as a mere trap to keep him inactive and
secure until, by the arrival of his mother's forces, he should
be placed between and crushed by two hostile armies.
The son of Physcon had inherited his father's hatred of
124 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
the Jews ; lie had moreover to revenge the destruction of
the auxiliary corps with which a couple of years hefore he
had assisted King A. Cyzicenus. He therefore broke oflF
all further negotiations, and loudly accusing Jannai of
treachery, marched against him, fully determined to de-
stroy his army before the arrival of his Egyptian allies.
Timagenes, a Greek historian quoted by Josephus, who
relates the war between Lathyrus and Jannai with a strong
bias against the latter, dwells at some length on the trea-
chery of the Jewish monarch ; and such is the influence
of party feeling, that Josephus does not think it worth
while to defend the character of the obnoxious Jannai, or
to refute the accusation, as he might easily have done by
a simple reference to the fact that Jannai's application for
help to Cleopatra preceded his ojQfers of peace by some
months, and that he had received no answer or assurance
of aid from her when he entered into negotiations with
Lathyrus.
As the invaders advanced, Jannai retreated across the
Jordan. His plan was to allow his enemies to cross, and
then by a sudden and irresistible attack to drive them
into the river. He had upward of forty thousand men,
while the army of Lathyrus exceeded thirty thousand ;
but the quality of Jannai's troops was greatly inferior to
that of his adversaries ; for the number of native Jews
in his army was not great, nor were they zealous in the
cause of their Sadducee king. His principal reliance was
therefore on his Gallic and Syrian mercenaries, who were
by no means equal to the Greek veterans in Lathyrus's
army, any more than the generalship of Jannai himself —
who, though brave as steel, was altogether destitute of ex-
perience— could equal the military talents of Philoste-
phanas. Still the battle was long and doubtful ; victory
seemed even on the point of declaring for Jannai, when
the unexpected arrival of a large reserve, led on by the
THE ASMONEANS. 125
Greek general in person, changed the fortune of the day
and led to the total destruction of Jannai's army. (104
B. c. E.)
This was the first signal defeat which in the long wars
of the Maccabees the Jews had ever suffered. Timagenes
who swells Jannai's numbers to 80,000 fighting men, as-
serts that 50,000 Jewish warriors were slain in this battle
0^ AsopJi. Josephus reduces that number to 30,000; and,
to use the words of the historian, " the blunted weapons
of the victors dropped from their hands before they would
listen to the cries for quarter." Even the harmless vil-
lages on the Jordan, filled with women and children, did
not escape the merciless havoc. The son of Physcon or-
dered them to be destroyed with circumstances of cruelty
worthy of his monster-father. (Jos. Antiq. lib. xiii. cap.
12.) The whole of Judea now laid open to the invaders.
Jannai, who had fought bravely and been among the last
that quitted the destructive battle-field, was in no condition
to defend his country ; and though he exerted incredible
activity in raising and arming the people, it is not likely
that he could have offered a successful resistance, if
Lathyrus's progress had not been prevented by a more
powerful adversary.
Cleopatra had assembled a large army under her two
generals, Chelkias and Ananias, Jews and kinsmen of Jan-
nai being like him, Cohanim, descended from the sacerdo-
tal race of Aaron. They were proceeding to Judea by
forced marches, when the tidings of Jannai's defeat gave
additional rapidity to their advance. At the same time,
Queen Cleopatra, who hated her son, and who dreaded lest
his conquering Judea might enable him to recover the
crown of Egypt, embarked in person, and with a powerful
army sailed for Ptolemais, still besieged by part of the
forces of Lathyrus. Her arrival caused the siege to be
raised; but the Ptolemeans, as suspicious of the queen
11*
126 rOST-BIBLICAL HISTOllY OF THE JEWS.
of Egypt as under like circumstances they had recently
been of her son, refused to open their gates to their new
and self-invited deliverer. Cleopatra determined to van-
quish their obstinacy. Her forces, under the command of
Ananias, blockaded Ptolemais by sea and invested it by
land ; so that in less than three years the same city was
successively besieged by three mutually hostile armies.
Another division of Cleopatra's forces, under the com-
mand of Chelkias, marched against Lathyrus. But as the
queen's general died during this expedition, her son and
enemy availed himself of the confusion the suspension of
the chief command caused in her army, to advance hastily
toward Egypt. He hoped that in consequence of the
large force sent into Judea, he might find the Egyptian
frontier garrisons drained of defenders and unable to re-
sist his advance. In this expectation, however, he was
disappointed ; he therefore prudently, and before his mo-
ther's troops could assume a position to intercept him, re-
treated toward Gaza, and placed his troops in winter-
quarters in that friendly stronghold.
In the mean time Ptolemais surrendered to Cleopatra.
Her hostile son had not ventured to keep the field before
her forces. King Jannai, whose exertions to raise a new
army had been much thwarted by the Pharisees, felt how
entirely dependent he was upon the favour of her whom
the fortune of war had rendered absolute mistress of his
kingdom. He therefore came to Ptolemais with magnifi-
cent presents to thank her for the deliverance she had
wrought for him, and to solicit the continuance of her pro-
tection. He was received with every outward mark of re-
spect and kindness. But the queen's Greek courtiers
strongly urged her not to neglect this favourable opportu-
nity of securing the possession of Judea, by seizing on the
person of Jannai, or putting him to death.
Ambitious and unscrupulous as she was, this odious and
THE ASMONEANS. 127
infamous suggestion did not shock or even displease her ;
and she wouki doubtless have caused it to be carried into
effect, had she not been prevented by the interposition of
Ananias, who exerted all the weight of his high character
and recent services to prevent her yielding to so flagitious
a counsel. He prevailed, not so much by an appeal to
justice and a regard for her reputation, as by pointing out
to her fears how detested such an act of treachery would
make her to all Jews, many thousands of which people
were even then serving in her army and near her person.
These reasons, and the one great merit in her estimation
which Jannai possessed of being the irreconcilable enemy
of her son Lathyrus, induced her not only to forego her
purpose, but also to enter into a treaty of alliance with the
king of Judea, which not only secured him against his
foreign enemies, but enabled him with renewed vigour to
resume his sway over his discontented subjects.
The queen of Egypt remained at Ptolejnais until her
son Lathyrus, finding it impossible to maintain his ground
against the overwhelming force that on all sides threatened
him, sailed back to Cyprus. On her return to Alexandria
she treated her younger son and co-sovereign, Alexander,
with such indignity that he fled secretly from her presence,
determined thenceforth to lead a private life in exile,
rather than bear the empty name of king in his native
country. About the same time Cleopatra learned that a
common enmity to the Jews had occasioned a close friend-
ship between her son Lathyrus and her son-in-law Cyzice-
nus. A treaty of alliance concluded between the two
princes at Damascus had for its object — 1st. To secure to
Lathyrus every assistance that the whole disposable force
of Cyzicenus could afford, to enable Lathyrus to recover
the crown of which he had been deprived by the cruel ar-
tifices of his mother. 2d. In the event of Lathyrus's suc-
cess, the two princes were to unite their forces to invade
128 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
and conquer Palestine, wliich was to be divided between
them, the king of Egypt receiving the southern portion,
Judea and Idumea, with Jerusalem, and the king of Da-
mascus taking for his share the northern parts, Samaria,
Galilee, and Iturea, (Justin, lib. xxxix. cap. 4.)
To ward off these blows, Cleopatra sent into Syria her
favourite daughter Selene, the wife whom she had first
forced on Lathyrus, and of whom she is said afterward as
forcibly to have deprived him. She was now given in
marriage to A. Grypus, the perpetual rival of Cyzicenus ;
and the first fruit of her union with the king of Antioch
was a furious war, which broke out between him and his
brother of Damascus, and which proved equally destructive
to both rivals. Grypus was assassinated by Heracleon,
one of his courtiers, who aspired to ascend his throne, but
was prevented by Cyzicenus. He, after obtaining mo-
mentary possession of Antioch, was defeated and slain by
Seleucus YI., the eldest of the five sons of Grypus.
Thenceforth, and for nearly twenty years, the two branches
of the Seleucidoe of Antioch and Damascus were involved
in unceasing conflicts and assassinations, until their sub-
jects deprived them of royalty and chose foreign rulers.
Cleopatra herself, though successful in frustrating the
alliance between her son and son-in-law, did not escape the
punishment due to her many crimes. She had been com-
pelled by the turbulent Alexandrians to invite the return
of her son Alexander, and to restore to him his seat on
the throne, though still as unwilling as ever to resign to
him any portion of her power. But this youngest son of
Physcon, resembling his father both in person and disposi-
tion, grew tired of being held in perpetual leading-strings.
His mother, who perceived his impatience and dreaded his
designs, determined to remove him either by poison or the
dagger ; but her crime was anticipated by that of her un-
natural son, who stabbed her to the heart.
THE ASMONEANS. 129
Her murder was no sooner known, than the Alexandri-
ans flew to arms, and invited Lathyrus to return and as-
cend the throne. He came, and after a struggle punished
the foul matricide, who was captured and put to death by
his orders. After that Lathyrus, or, as he was now called,
Ptolemy VIII. Soter, reigned peaceably eight years, and
at his death bequeathed his kingdom to his only daughter ;
but did not after his restoration in any way interfere in
the affairs of Judea.
The retreat of Lathyrus and the return of Cleopatra
to Egypt left Jannai in possession of all his dominions,
strengthened, moreover, by her alliance and by a consider-
able body of her veteran mercenaries, whom she permit-
ted to take service with him. As he thus felt himself as
powerful as ever, he did not hesitate to give vent to his
indignation against the Pharisees, who in the hour of his
distress had withheld their assistance, and even sought to
thwart his measures of defence. He therefore not only
renewed the edicts of his father Hyrcanus against the
observance of traditions, and which he had permitted to
fall into desuetude, but issued other and more stringent
prohibitions, which still further exasperated that sect.
At the same time he persisted in the policy of Hyrca-
nus, and exerted himself to the utmost to reconquer the
ancient territories of Israel. As Ptolemais had become
a possession of his powerful ally, the queen of Egypt, and
was thus placed beyond his reach, he crossed the Jordan
and directed his arms first against Gadara, which he took
after a siege of ten months. He next attacked and in
much less time took Amathus, another strongly-fortified
city east of Jordan, and in which Theodotus, tyrant or
prince of Rahhath-Ammon or Philadelphia, had deposited
an immense treasure. But on his return he was waylaid
by Theodotus, who, having got together a numerous army,
unexpectedly fell upon Jannai, routed his forces, inflicted
130 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
on him a loss of ten thousand men, and recovered not
only all the treasm'c whicli Jannai had taken at Amathus,
but also captured the whole of Jannai's baggage, beside
considerable booty from the Jewish army. On his return
to Jerusalem, the king of Judea found the Pharisees pub-
licly exulting in his miscarriage, and taking every occa-
sion to vilify him to the people, and to make his crown sit
uneasy on his head.
But Jannai was not the man to be overcome by adver-
sity, or to be daunted by the intrigues of his enemies.
Having recruited his forces, he again marched forth from
Jerusalem; and as if he were determined to obliterate
the stigma of previous miscarriages by the greatness and
splendour of future success, he directed his operations
against Craza, one of the most wealthy and populous com-
mercial towns near the eastern shores of the Mediter-
ranean Sea.
This city had provoked the extreme rancour of Jannai
for many reasons. The citizens of Gaza had been among
the foremost to join those of Ptolemais to invite Lathy-
rus ; and when that invader had been hard pressed by the
united forces of Egypt and Judea, Gaza had received and
sheltered him within her strong walls. His retreat left
the devoted city exposed to the vengeance of the implaca-
ble Jannai, who no sooner had acquired the certainty that
he had nothing to fear from the alliance between Lathy-
rus and A. Cyzicenus, than he prepared to gratify at once
his hatred and his ambition by the conquest of Goza. He
began by besieging and taking Raplda and Antedon, two
places situated near and dependent on Gaza, (97 B. C. E.;)
and as he now was in a condition to invest that city from
the land side, he sat down before it in the spring of the
next year with a powerful army.
The citizens had placed themselves under the command
of Apollodotus, a man of .great bravery and experience ;
THE ASMONEANS. 131
and as they knew liow exasperated the king of Judea was
against them, their courage and perseverance were ex-
erted to the utmost to give due effect to the skill of their
enterprising commander. On one occasion he led them
on to a sally so successful that the besieging army was
nearly routed ; and it was only by the utmost exertions of
prowess that Jannai could force the besieged to retreat
into the city, after having inflicted great loss on his army.
The defence was successfully maintained during one full
year; and as Jannai could not, from want of shipping,
blockade their port or prevent their receiving supplies by
sea, and their walls were still unbreached, the men of
Gaza might have held out much longer had not the brave
governor been treacherously murdered by his own brother,
Lysimachus, who then, to escape the rage of the citizens,
betrayed the city to the king of Judea.
Jannai's conduct on the occasion is described as most de-
testable. At first he pretended to feel great commiseration
for the vanquished, and even led them to hope that his cle-
mency would be extended to them, as had been that of his
grandfather Simon on a similar occasion. But they soon
were undeceived; for, either to gratify his own rancour,
or to reward the perils to which his mercenaries had been
exposed during the siege, he gave up to them the city and
its inhabitants. These ruffian hirelings at once and most
furiously began to slaughter young and old, men and
women. The GazDeans, however, had not yet been com-
pletely disarmed ; and seeing that they had to expect no
mercy for their wives and children any more than for
themselves, they seized upon such weapons as yet re-
mained within their reach, and stood on their defence so
desperately, that the number of the assailants slain was
almost equal to that of the citizens they cut down. When
at length the horrid butchery ceased, Jannai ordered Gaza
to be razed to the ground, (96 b. c. e.;) and in that condi-
132 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
tion this ancient and celebrated city remained until re-
built by the Roman proconsul Gabinius, some forty years
later.
On Jannai's return to Jerusalem, he found that his
enemies, the Pharisees, had availed themselves of his ab-
sence still further lo exasperate the Jewish people against
the Sadducee king; and. that the report of his cruelty at
Gaza had by no means raised him in the love or estimation
of his subjects. At length their long-stifled animosity
broke out into open insult, and approached to the very
verge of rebellion. It was at the Feast of Tabernacles, (95
B. c. E.,) one of the three great annual festivals, on which
almost the whole male population of Judea assembled at
Jerusalem to join in public worship.
On the last day of the festival, King Jannai in person,
as high-priest, and clad in the sumptuous robes of his
office, was officiating at the altar of burnt-offering, sur-
rounded by a numerous retinue of cohanim, (priests,)
while an immense multitude of people thronged the courts
of the temple and all the avenues leading to the temple-
mount, every man carrying in his hand a loolab, palm-
branch, and an ethrog, citron.
Now, respecting the manner in which one portion of the
service of the day was to be performed, a violent dispute
subsisted between the sect of the Pharisees and that of
the Sadducees. According to the former, the libation
poured on the altar on that day was, in addition to the
usual drink-offering of wine, also to consist of a quantity
of water. It is true that the Law of Moses, or the « written
Law," nowhere commands any such libation; but it was
done on the authority of tradition, which declares it to
be "a direction of Moses from Sinai;" that is to say, an
observance verbally commanded by the Lord to Moses,
and by him verbally transmitted to the children of Israel,
and always kept up by them. This the Sadducees de-
THE ASMONEANS. 133
nied, in conformity with their principle of rejecting the
divine authority of any tradition.
King Jannai, a rigid and unyielding adherent to the
opinions of the Sadducees, performed the libation accord-
ing to their tenets, pouring the wine on the altar, and
spilling the water on the ground. This was noticed by
the people, and roused the indignation of the numerous
Pharisees present. One of them, in the rage of his zeal,
flung his citron at the king and struck him on the fore-
head.^*^ This became the signal for a general out-
break on the part of the multitude. They began to pelt
the king's retinue, and at the same time to revile him in
the most opprobrious terms, while the Pharisees shouted
that "such a slave as he was unworthy to be either king
or high-priest." Their abusing Jannai as a slave was in
allusion to the charge which Eleazar, the Pharisee, had
brought against the mother of Hyrcanus, that she had
been a captive (slave) among the heathens, and as such
was under the legal suspicion of having yielded to the lust
of her captors — a suspicion which, according to the Pha-
risee interpretation of the law, could only be removed by
positive evidence.
This second insult called forth the king's anger even in
a higher degree than the pelting, as it showed a delibe-
rate determination on the part of the Pharisees to insult
'° Rough as was this usage of the king and his retinue, it was mild
compared with that inflicted on another Sadducee priest on a similar occa-
sion. The Talmud (tr. Siiccah fo. 13 B) relates: "Once it happened that
the officiating priest was a Sadducee; therefore, instead of pouring the
water on the altar, according to the ritual established by tradition, he, in
conformity with the tenets of his sect, spilt the water on the gi'ound,
while he poured the drink-olfering of wine on the altar. This manoeuvre,
however, did not escape the notice of the pop\ilace, and caused such gene-
ral and violent exasperation, that the offending priest was actually pelted
to death with the citrons which, in observance of the festival, every man
carried in his hand."
Vol. II. 12
134 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
his grandmother and to bastardize his father in their
graves, and bj implication to deprive him and his descend-
ants forever of every right to crown or priesthood. En-
raged beyond measure, and apprehensive that this out-
break was but the signal for a preconcerted rebellion, the
king — who, according to the severe and rigid tenets of his
sect, denied pity or mercy to offenders, or to those whom
he deemed such — suspended the service, and ordered his
guards to charge the unarmed multitude. The order was
obeyed with such fury that six thousand of the people
were slain on the spot, and the survivors dispersed and
fled from Jerusalem. Thus the disturbance was for a time
quelled in blood. To prevent the like results in future,
the king caused the priests' court, which contained the
altar and sanctuary, to be enclosed by a strong wooden
partition, that prevented the approach of the people ; and
for his greater security, he took into his pay an additional
body of six thousand mercenaries out of Pisidia and Cili-
cia. Indeed, his numerous foreign soldiers soon became
his only support, as he found to his grief that his exces-
sive severity only tended more strongly to exasperate his
people against him.
Jannai's restless disposition, aggravated by the sullen
carriage which the citizens of Jerusalem maintained to-
ward him, impelled him once more to quit his capital and
palace, and at the head of his army to go forth to make
new conquests ; for he felt that the only sentiment which
his people possessed in common with him, and which might
recommend him to their better opinion, was the desire to
recover the ancient territories of Israel. He therefore
again crossed the Jordan and advanced against Amathus.
But so great was the terror of his arms become after his
conquest of Gaza, that his former opponent and victor,
Theodotus, did not attempt to defend the place. Remov-
ing his treasure and garrison, he left the king of Judca
THE ASMONEANS. 135
at liberty to occupy Amathus. After demolisliing the for-
tifications of this city, Jannai next subdued the Arab tribes
and mountaineers of Gilead, on whom, and also on the
Moabites, he imposed an annual tribute. He then turned
his arms against Obodas, chief of the Arab tribes in Gau-
lonitis. In this enterprise, however, he miscarried, and
fell into an ambush in the mountains near Gadara.
His army was driven over the precipices and utterly de-
stroyed, while he himself with difficulty escaped. (92
B.C. E.)
This was the second great army that Jannai had lost ;
and when he returned to Jerusalem, defeated and almost
alone, he found that the tidings of his discomfiture had
preceded him, and had rendered his enemies more bold and
enraged than they had ever been before. The Pharisees,
at all times so jealous of the national honor, declared aloud
that this disgrace had befallen the Jews because they per-
mitted a " base-born slave and a Sadducee unbeliever to
usurp the two crowns of royalty and of priesthood." The
people, excited almost to madness, assumed a threatening
attitude, and began to arm. A successful and glorious
Sadducee they might have borne ; but an unsuccessful
one, whose repeated defeats disgraced the national fame,
was not to be tolerated. The king's efforts to put down
the emeute only served to increase the tumult, until it
broke out into open insurrection, and a civil war com-
menced which continued full six years, and raged through
every part of Judea.
Jannai and his councillors were too experienced to be
taken by surprise, and too warlike to yield to a popular
outbreak. His still rich treasury enabled him soon again
to fill the ranks of his mercenaries ; and his emissaries
and agents were so active in procuring foreign recruits,
that his rebellious subjects — repeatedly defeated, and find-
ing that they possessed no leader competent to cope with
136 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
the warlike king, and that their military appointments
were so greatly inferior to his as to leave no reasonable
hopes of success — at length called in to their aid and
placed at their head Demetrius Eucserus, the fourth son of
Antiochus Grypus^^^ who reigned at Damascus.^^ They
likewise endeavoured to form a league with the Arabians
of Gilead and the Moabites, whom Jannai had rendered
tributary, but whose tribute he was now obliged to remit
" We have already stated that after the assassination of Antiochus Gry-
pus, his half-brother, A. Cyzicenus — having punished the murderer and
usurper Heracleon — obtained momentary possession of Antioch, but was
in his turn defeated by Seleucus VI., the son of Grypus, and was either
slain in battle, or put to death by the victor, or committed suicide ; for
historians do not agree as to the mode of his death. (93 b.c.e.) While
Seleucus was engaged in the design of bringing the tvhole of Syria
under his power, he was attacked and defeated by Antiochus Eusebes, a
son of Cyzicenus. King Seleucus, driven out of Syria, sought refuge in
the city of Mopsuestia, in Cllicia ; but attempting to extort money from
the citizens, was burnt by them in his house. Antiochus, the second son
of Grypus and brother of Seleucus, attempted to recover his inheritance
from Eusebes, but was drowned in crossing a river, and his whole army
cut to pieces. After him, his twin-brother Philip, the third son of Gry-
pus, obtained and maintained possession of a portion of Syi-ia, while
Eusebes strengthened his party by a marriage with Selene, widow of
Grypus, who held another and very considerable part of the kingdom. But
this marriage exposed him to the resentment of Lathyrus, who, as already
related, had been the husband of Seleng. This prince, to pimish Eusebes,
called Demetrius, the fourth son of Grypus, from his retreat at Cnidas,
where he had been educated, and sent him at the head of a body of Greek
mercenaries to Damascus. He was well received by the people, and there
he assumed the diadem under the title of Demetrius III. Eucceriis, an epi-
thet denoting the seasonableness of his appearance in arms. Eusebes had
taken the field against Philip ; but the alliance of the two brothers and the
valor of their Greek auxiliaries, proved too strong for him. He was de-
feated and forced to cross the Euphrates, where he solicited and obtained
the protection of the Parthians, who, under the great Mithridates II., had
extended their conquests to the eastern bank of that river. After the
retreat of Eusebes, the two brothers divided the kingdom — Philip taking
up his residence at Antioch, and Demetrius at Damascus. (92 b.c.e.)
THE ASMONEANS. 137
to prevent their hostilities, -while he collected all the forces
he could muster, and marched against the king of Da-
mascus.
This powerful auxiliary had entered Judea and joined
the rebels at the head of a considerable body of veterans,
so that the army united under his command numbered
forty thousand foot and three thousand horse. Jannai,
who had exerted to the utmost his own influence and that
of his Sadducee courtiers to induce the Jews to take up
arms in his defence, had succeeded in raising twenty thou-
sand Jews, and had also a body of six thousand Greek
auxiliaries. The two armies remained encamped some time
before coming to blows, while each of the two kings tried
to seduce and to gain over a portion of the troops opposed
to him. Demetrius sought to corrupt the Greek merce-
naries in Jannai's army by the promise of larger pay and
privileges ;. while Jannai was equally busy in trying to
open the eyes of the Jews in Demetrius' army to the
danger which threatened the independence of Judea from
their alliance with the hereditary enemy of their country.
The efforts of both were equally fruitless. Nothing, there-
fore, remained but to try the fate of battle. According to
the fourth book of Maccabees, (ch. xxix.,) the result was
greatly in Jannai's favour. But, according to the more
consistent and probable account of Josephus, (Ant. lib. xiii.
cap. 21,) Jannai's army was totally routed. It seems that
the Jews in his own army offered but little resistance to
their rebel countrymen ; and that their flight caused his
Greek mercenaries to be cut down to a man. (88 b.c.e.)
His utter ruin seemed inevitable, when, as Josephus re-
lates, those Jews in the Syrian army who had been proof
against all his arguments and promises before the battle
was fought, now, after his defeat, felt such compassion for
him in his distress, that several thousands of them aban-
doned the Syrian standard and in a body joined Jannai ;
12*
138 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
SO that Demetrius became fearful lest the defection of the
Jews would become general, and he be attacked by the en-
tire force of Judea. At the same time he was informed
that his brother Philip had taken advantage of his absence
to invade his kingdom. He therefore at once withdrew
from Judea, and marched back to Damascus to repel his
brother.
Such is the account which Josephus gives of this singu-
lar transaction, and which is anything but satisfactory.
We cannot believe that the state of distress to which his
rebellious subjects deliberately and with great difficulty
had reduced their detested king, Jannai, could of itself
have been sufficient to excite their commiseration to that
degree that of their own accord they undid their own
work and restored their great adversary to power. We
rather incline to the opinion that their pity was extended,
not so much to the king, as to the kingdom. At this dis-
tance of time, and with no better information than we
possess, it is impossible even to surmise by what act of
indiscretion King Demetrius alarmed his Jewish allies,
and aroused their suspicion to that degree that the danger
which King Jannai had before pointed out to them in vain
now suddenly became manifest to their sensitive love of
independence, and proved to them that the ruin of their
native king must inevitably lead to the subjugation of their
country by their foreign ally. Possibly they expected
that King Jannai, convinced by fatal experience how little
the aid of his hireling guards could avail him against the
hatred of a whole nation, would yield to the wishes of the
people; perhaps they thought that the leaders of the
Pharisees — seeing that a number of their own adherents
had joined the king — might be willing to consent to terras
which the king would readily grant. It is only apprehen-
sions and views like these that can explain or reconcile
us to the idea of rebels in the full tide of success hasten-
THE ASMONEANS. 139
ing to undo their own work, and to support a sovereign
till then the object of their implacable resentment.
But if such were the expectations which influenced the
Jewish warriors that quitted the standard of King Deme-
trius, they were doomed to be disappointed. Never,
throughout the manifold vicissitudes of his long and check-
ered career, had Jannai evinced so indomitable a spirit,
nor yet the large resources which he found within himself,
and which enabled him, directly after the retreat of the
king of Damascus, to rally his broken forces, and to re-
commence, with increased vigour and success, his operations
against his rebellious subjects and their detested leaders,
the Pharisees. But never, likewise, had these Pharisees
evinced such violent and determined opposition, such un-
yielding and relentless rancour, as maddened them after
the retreat of Demetrius left them unaided to encounter
the power and abilities of Jannai.
After fifty thousand of the insurgents and a number of
his own adherents, almost equally great, had perished by
the sword. King Jannai, weary of slaughter, and justly ap-
preciating the ruinous nature of a contest in which his
very victories were destructive alike to his country and
people, became anxious to bring matters to a pacification.
lie therefore spared no pains, and was prodigal of ofiers
and of promises, to induce the rebels to lay down their
arms. But so infuriate were they, that every advance on
his part served but to harden them the more. In order to
leave no means untried, he sent a deputation of his friends
to the rebel camp to declare that he was ready to make
any sacrifice for the sake of peace, and to ascertain Avhat
they required, pledging himself to grant whatever in reason
and justice the insurgents could demand. To the inquiry
of his friends, " What the king could do to satisfy the
people?" — "Die!" was the answer given with such vehe-
mence, fury, and unanimity, as showed him there was no
140 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
hope of accommodation. Some of the rebels scoffingly
added, that " the king ought to think highly of them, since
they were willing to accept his death as a sufficient com-
pensation for all the blood he had shed and the mischief
he had brought upon the nation." Josephus (Antiq. lib.
xiii. cap. 21) places" this interchange of messages before
the invasion of Demetrius. But the fourth Maccabees
(ch. xxix.) places it after the retreat of the Syrian, and
when Jannai had already gained several victories ; and we
prefer in this instance the latter authority, as most in ac-
cordance with the proud and energetic character of Jannai,
who could never have consented to solicitations so sub-
missive, unless his success and superiority had been such
as to convince the world that the large concessions he of-
fered were not wrung from him by fear, but freely granted
by his clemency.
At length (87 b. c.e.) the war between the king and
the insurgents was brought to a close by a decisive battle,
in which the royalists gained a signal victory. The
greater portion of the insurgent army was destroyed. The
remnant that escaped, and the leaders that survived, shut
themselves up in Bcthome, a stronghold near the field of
battle, to which place the king immediately laid siege.
After a long and desperate defence, it was taken the year
after, and the principal leaders of the insurrection fell into
the power of their merciless victor. King Louis XI. of
France once declared that the scent most grateful to his
nostrils was that emitted by the carcasses of slain enemies.
King Jannai, though he said nothing so inhuman, did that
which was to the full as detestable.
If we are to believe Josephus, he caused eight hundred
of the principal captives to be carried to Jerusalem, where
he crucified them all in one day and in one place. He
then put their wives and children to death before their
eyes, as they hung dying on the crosses, while he himself,
THE ASMONEANS. 141
•with his wife and concubines, sat feasting within view of
the horrid scene, to glut his eyes with the torments of his
enemies. Certainly, as Kitto justly remarks, " the exist-
ence of a man who could do this was an evil upon earth,
and seems alone sufficient to induce the suspicion that
there was good cause for the intense dislike with which he
was regarded by the people." The nickname of Thracidas,
which thenceforth and justly was given to him, was even
too good for him, though that people, the Thracians, were
proverbially infamous above all nations for their dreadful
barbarities.
142 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
CHAPTER XII.
Triumph, of the Sadducee-Royalists — The Pharisee-Senatorials reduced to
the lowest ebb — Simon Ben Shetahh ; his exile and return ; gradually
revives his party — Epuration of the Sanhedrin — The Caraites — The last
years of Jannai's reign ; his last advice to his wife ; his death — Alex-
andi'a queen-regnant of Judea — The Pharisees restored to power — The
Sadducees persecuted — Mithridates the Great ; his wars against Rome
— The sons of Jannai ; Hyi'canus II., high-priest, Pharisee — Aristobu-
lusll., warrior, Sadducee — Tigranes, King of Armenia, proposes to in-
vade Judea ; prevented by the Romans — Death of Alexandra — Hyrca-
nus II, king and high-priest — Rigid government of the Pharisees — Re-
volution— Hyrcanus abdicates — Ai'istobulus II., king — His prosperous
reign — The Sadducees in power — Antipater the Idumean ; his origin ;
liis influence over Hyrcanus — Conspires with the Pharisees to dethrone
Aristobulus — Flight of Hyrcanus ; his treaty with Aretas, King of the
Arabs — Aretas invades Judea ; defeats Aristobulus, and besieges him in
the Temple of Jerusalem, while the city declares for Hyrcanus — Inci-
dents of the siege ; death of Hhoniah Hamangol — Intervention of the
Romans — Aristobulus defeats Aretas — Conference at Damascus — The
two brothers plead their cause before Pompey — The Romans enter Ju-
dea.— (From 85 to 63 b. c. e.)
After this horrid butchery — which, however, rests on no
other or better authority than that of Jannai's implacable
enemies, and among them chiefly on that of Josephus — the
spirit of insurrection was effectually put down in Judea, so
that during the remainder of Jannai's reign and life he
was molested by no civil commotion. A body of 8000
malecontents, horror-struck at the tiding of his cruelties,
dispersed on the very night following the executions, and
sought refuge beyond the confines of Judea — some in Egypt,
and some among the independent tribes of Arabia. The
number of Jewish exiles in this country thus became very
THE ASMONEANS. 143
great, and comprised several of the ablest and most influ-
ential chiefs of the senatorial and Pharisee party, some of
whom, though nearly related to the king, were especially
obnoxious to him.
Among these the first rank is due to Simon, the son of
Shetahh, Nassi or prince of the Sanhedrin, and brother-
in-law of the king. The origin of the enmity between
these two great dignitaries is thus related in the Jerusa-
lem Talmud, (tr. Berachoth, fo. 18 :) "In the days of Jan-
nai the king, and of Simon the son of Shetahh, there hap-
pened to be at one time three hundred Nazarites, each of
whom, at the completion of his vow, had to bring three
sacrifices ; so that together they wanted 300 rams and the
same number of ewes and also of sheep. (Vide Num. vi.
14.) As all these Nazarites were poor, and did not possess
the means of purchasing the animals they wanted, Simon
the son of Shetahh proposed that if the king would fur-
nish one-half of the sacrifices, he himself (Simon) would
furnish the other half. The king consented, and at once
sent 500 sheep to the temple. But previous to the time
appointed for the ofi"ering Simon released one hundred and
fifty of the Nazarites from their vow, so that they required
no sacrifice ; and, as the king had furnished more than was
necessary for the remaining one hundred and fifty Nazar-
ites, Simon had no occasion to contribute any thing. This
subterfuge greatly ofi'ended the king ; and Simon, who
feared his wrath, fled from Jerusalem and hid himself."
Though this singular transaction is related in the Talmud
— a work by no means favourable to Jannai, but in which
the character and services of Simon are most highly spoken
of — it appears to us that the conduct of the king, in this
instance at least, appears far more praiseworthy than that
of the president of the Sanhedrin. And while the narra-
tive affords a proof of the fairness and veracity of Tal-
mudic history, even where its truthfulness is most injuri-
144 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
ous to the men whom the Tahnud most highly reveres, it
confirms in our minds the doubt we have already expressed
of the exceeding ferocity which that king's enemies have
imputed to him. We confess to us it seems inconsistent
that the king who has enough of human feeling to pity the
distress of a body of strangers, should be so utterly devoid
of humanity as to feast and banquet within sight of inno-
cent children slaughtered before the eyes of their perishing
fathers. To us it seems that such an atrocity is more
easily invented by a heated imagination than perpetrated
by any human being having the least affinity with human
nature.
The account which the Babylonian Talmud (Ibid. fo.
48) gives of Simon's recall, is another proof that Jannai
was not quite so black as he is generally painted : " King
Jannai and his wife were one day seated at table. As the
sages of Israel had all been put to death, or driven into
exile, no one was present to say grace after the meal ; on
which the king remarked, ' I wish we had a man here who
could say grace for us.' His wife replied, 'If I bring thee
such a man, wilt thou swear to me that no harm shall befall
him?' The king took the oath she required, and she sent
for her brother Simon, the son of Shetahh. When he ar-
rived the king received him kindly, and placed him in the
seat of honour between himself and the queen, at the same
time remarking, ' See how highly I honour thee.' To which
Simon bluntly replied, ' It is not thou who dost honour me,
but the Law does it; for it is written, "Exalt her (wisdom
or knowledge of the Law) and she shall promote thee ; she
shall bring thee to honour when thou dost embrace her." '
(Prov. iv. 8.) To which the king replied, ' At all events,
thou dost see that I do not harbour resentment.' Simon
then said grace."
During the continuance of the long civil war, the Phari-
see members of the Sanhedrin had either been put to
THE ASMONEANS. 145
death or driven into exile. But as it was indispensable to
the legal existence of that council that it should be com-
plete in number, and not consist of less than the president
and seventy members, and as his own friends, the Saddu-
cees, would by no means have permitted the suppression
of the national council, Jannai took care to fill up every
vacancy with creatures of his own ; and, as by this means
the Sanhedrin was altogether dependent on the king and
submissive to his will, since none of its members possessed
either learning or independence of character sufficient to
gainsay him, Jannai, in fact, united within himself every
power of the state — spiritual, executive, and legislative — and
was thus the most absolute ruler that had ever governed
the Jews.
This was a state of things to which Simon could by no
means submit. The influence of the queen, not content
with having obtained for him a free pardon and recall
from exile, was still further exerted to obtain his read-
mission into the Sanhedrin ; and once more received into
that body, he naturally resumed his office of Nasi or presi-
dent, from which indeed he had never been lawfully
deposed, but which, under then existing circumstances,
was altogether shorn of its legitimate power and authority.
It therefore became the great end and aim of Simon's
life — to which he devoted all his energies and all the
efforts of a mind naturally quick-witted and fertile in re-
sources, and fraught with learning beyond any of his
contemporaries — to restore to the Sanhedrin its pristine
independence, and to purge it of those unworthy intruders
who had no claim to office except the will and pleasure of
the king. This was an undertaking, however, which re-
quired the utmost caution and prudence. He was the
chief of a defeated and broken party, destitute of follow-
ers, and surrounded by enemies. And though the king
professed to harbour no resentment against him, it was
Vol. II. 13
146 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEAVS.
certain that the royal forbearance was extended to him
solely through the influence of his sister, and would at
once cease if the king for a moment should suspect his
design.
Simon's mode of proceeding was slow but sure, because
founded on a thorough knowledge of human nature and its
foibles. The Talmud (tr. Megillath Taanith fo. 10) re-
lates : " Once, Jannai, the king, and his queen, were
present at the sitting of the Sanhedrin, all the members
of which, with the exception of Simon the son of Shetahh,
were Sadducees. Several important questions of law
were propounded and discussed, but none of the members
present was able to support his opinion by legal authority.
Simon, as if impatient at their want of learning, exclaimed,
< Whosoever is not able to back his opinion by proofs de-
duced from Holy Writ, is unworthy of a seat in the Sanhe-
drin.' No one present presumed to contradict or answer
him, except one old man, who required a day's time to
consult the Law. But finding himself unable so to do, he
felt ashamed, and did not again attend in his place in the
Sanhedrin. When he stayed away, Simon remarked that
as the Sanhedrin cannot pronounce judgment unless all
the seventy-one members be present, it would be needful
to appoint another assessor in the room of the absentee.
He then proposed a man who was of his own disciples, and
who, accordingly, was appointed. This plan he pursued
whenever an opportunity offered. As his own adherents
began to increase, he taimted the Sadducees more and
more bitterly with their ignorance, until he caused them,
one by one, to withdraw ; and each vacancy that occurred
he filled up with an orthodox assessor, so that gradually
the Pharisees once more regained the majority in the San-
hedrin."
It will be perceived, that the first move toward this
gradual purgation was made by Simon in the presence of
THE ASMONEANS. 147
the king and queen. Thence the members of the Sanhe-
drin naturally inferred that their Pharisee president did
not act without the sanction of the king ; and as each
member who withdrew felt ashamed to confess that a sense
of his own ignorance had driven him from his seat in the
Council, no complaint was laid before the king, whose
absence from Jerusalem and subsequent long illness pre-
vented him from visiting the Sanhedrin, and being struck
by the number of new faces among its members. After
the death of Jannai, and the restoration to power of the
Pharisees, the anniversary of the day on which the ortho-
dox majority in the senate was restored by Simon, came
to be observed as one of national thanksgiving and public
rejoicing.
We have' dwelt at some length on this quiet revolution
in the bosom of the Sanhedrin, because the Caraites, a
sect of Jews that, like the Sadducees, deny the authority
of tradition and the oral Law, though, unlike them, they
admit the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of
the dead, maintain that the introduction of the oral Law
and the authority of tradition took place at this very time,
when Simon the son of Shetahh was the sole survivor of
the sages of Israel.
This sect of the Caraites, which is still in existence,
though not at all numerous, and has its chief seat at
Backtcheserai, in the Crimea, was founded about the year
640 c. E. by one Anan and his son Saul. But they claim
for themselves a much higher antiquity,^^ and assert that
•2 This claim to antiquity on the part of the Caraites receives no sup-
port from any contemporary authority, as their sect is never mentioned
in the Talmud, nor yet by Josephus or the New Testament. F. Beer,
however, in his Geschichte Lehren und Meinungen aller Religiosen Sekien der
Juden, (History, Doctrines, and Opinions of all Religious Sects among the
Jews,) vol. i. p. 125, contends that the Caraites are spoken of in the New
Testament, and that the expression ?io»u7i,o.s and nomodidascalos, "lawyers,"
148 rOST-BIBLICAL niSTORY OF THE JEWS.
they existed in the times of the second temple, but that
the malice of the Pharisees suppresses their name, and
everywhere in the Talmud confounds their sect with that
of the Sadducees, with whom, however, they profess to
have nothing in common, except their refusal to recognise
the authority of the oral Law, or the traditions of the fa-
thers. These traditions they assert were first introduced
by Simon the son of Shetahh, who, they say, had sought
refuge in Egypt from the persecution of Jannai. " Dur-
ing his sojourn in Egypt, where he remained several
years, he adopted many mystic expositions of Holy Writ
from the sects of the Essenes and from the Hellenists.
When, through the influence of his sister the queen, he
•was permitted to return to Jerusalem, and was placed at
the head of the Sanhedrin, he promulgated the expositions
and doctrines which he had adopted in Egypt, and from
which he derived various precepts and laws. And in
order to give the greater authority to his enactments, he
pretended that they were revelations made by God to Moses
on Mount Sinai, which had been verbally transmitted
from teacher to teacher, and of which, as the sole surviv-
ing recipient, he was alone the depositary." (Heb. Rev.
vol. iii. 238.)
•which there often occurs, can apply to no other sect than the Caraites, the
rigid adherents of the written Law. According to him, these lawyers are
always mentioned in contradistinction to the Pharisees and . Sadducees ;
consequently they cannot have belonged to either of these two sects ; that
probably they obtained the designation "lawyer," because their studies
were altogether limited to the wi'itten Law, whereas the Pharisees chiefly
devoted themselTCS to the study of the traditions; that their present
designation Caraites, from the Hebrew Kara, denotes " adherents of the
written text," " Textarians ;" while they call their antagonists Mekoohalim,
from the Hebrew Kabel, denoting "receivers of the traditions," "Tradi-
tionarians." So that if their present designation were again to be ren-
dered into Greek, it would still be nomilcos, the word designating them in
the New Testament.
THE ASMONEANS. 149
Now tills statement of the Caraites Is well contrived,
and appears so plausible, that in our times it has found
ready credence with many, especially among those who
cannot consult the historical data scattered through the
Talmud. The Caraites are bound to fix upon some precise
period when the novelty, as they contend it was, of tradi-
tion or an oral Law was first introduced among the Jews ;
and they cannot find an}'- period of time better suited to
their purpose than that when the sages of Israel had been
put to death by Jannai, so that Simon, as the Caraites
aver, stood alone the sole survivor of the old, and the father
of a new race of teachers ; the sage to whose guardian-
ship the Law, with all that thereunto appertained, had been
transmitted by his predecessor, Nitliai the Arbelite, second
president of the Sanhedrin.
Were the Caraites to assert that any other teacher had
claimed divine authority for his own precepts, by pretend-
ing that these were traditions received from Moses and
Sinai, and that his pretensions had been sanctioned by the
body of the people, the assertion would appear incredible,
as it cannot for one instant be assumed that all the con-
temporary sages and teachers of Israel would have ap-
proved of his pretensions, or have consented to have be-
come parties to his innovation ; and the opposition of any
number of sages, or even of one or two teachers of ac-
knowledged piety and erudition, must have proved fatal
to such a scheme. When, therefore, the Caraites fix upon
Simon the son of Shetahh, they expect to remove the ob-
stacle which the certain opposition of other contemporary
teachers presents to the credibility of their assertion ; for
after his return to the Sanhedrin there was no one in that
body of sufficient authority to gainsay him.
The period of time is therefore well chosen, and the
"whole story ay ell contrived; but it will not stand the test
of historical investigation. The two sects of Pharisees
13*
150 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OP THE JEWS.
and Sadducccs were not called into being by innovations
01- traditions first introduced by Simon the son of Shetahh,
but had existed long before him. The main point at issue
between these two great sects was, and always had been,
no other than that very authority of tradition which, as the
Caraites would have us believe, was first invented by this
Simon, but which in fact, and long before him, had been
denied by the Sadducees and upheld by the Pharisees.
Moreover, the Talmud [tr. Sotahfo. 46) tells us that, "at
the time Jannai the king put the sages of Israel to death,
the queen concealed her brother (Simon the son of She-
tahh) in a place of safety, while his teacher, Joshua the
son of Perackiah, fled to Egypt." From the shelter which
this concealment had aiforded Simon, the queen summoned
him to take his seat at the royal board, and subsequently,
when the king's wrath subsided, Simon succeeded in ob-
taining a pardon for Joshua, who was permitted to return
to Jerusalem.
Thus the Caraite statement is untrue in two important
particulars, on which, indeed, the whole weight of it rests :
Simon the son of §hetahh did not seek refuge in Egypt,
and therefore could not there have adopted Essene or Hel-
lenist doctrines. He was not the only survivor of the carnage,
as his teacher and predecessor, as- president of the Sanhe-
drin, Joshua ben Perackiah, also escaped. As he was su-
perior in age, influence, and authority to his disciple Si-
mon, it is not possible that the latter could have succeeded
in his scheme in spite of Joshua's opposition ; and that
this opposition would have been exerted to the utmost, the
Caraites cannot deny, since they claim Joshua as one of
the pillars of their sect. Consequently, even admitting
the claim of the Caraites to an antiquity coeval with that
of the other three sects, it cannot be denied that in reality
they are a surviving branch of the great Sadducee sect,
preferring the philosophy of Zeno to that of Epicurus,
THE ASMONEANS. 151
admitting the doctrines of the immortality of the soul and
of the resurrection of the dead. But that their attempt
to assign a date to the first introduction among the Jews,
of the authority of tradition, is a complete failure, since it
not only is destitute of all real support from history, but
even receives the fullest contradiction from well-established
historical facts.
While Simon, the chief of the vanquished Pharisees, was
thus slowly, imperceptibly, but industriously, working to
recover for his party some portion at least of its former
influence, King Jannai, restless as ever, and triumphant
over his rebellious subjects, prepared his forces for a cam-
paign against the Moabites and Arabians of Gilead, whom
he had already once rendered tributary, but who, during
the rebellion, had extorted from him a remission of their
tribute by the threat of joining the rebels. He was,
however, prevented from immediately taking the field by a
sudden inroad of the Syrians under Antiochus XII. Dio-
nysus.^^ As this prince, who reigned at Damascus, had
13 After liis retreat from Judea, (86 b.c.e.,) Demetrius III. Eucserus
marched against his brother Philip, who had attacked Damascus, and
whose allies, the Parthians, defeated Demetrius and carried him off to
Parthia, where, though treated with respect, he soon died. Philip was
thus left sole master of Antioch and Damascus ; but his fickle allies, the
Parthians, enabled his cousin Eusebes to make head against him, and to re-
cover a considerable portion of Syria. While these two competitors were
contending for supremacy, the youngest of the five Syi-ian brothers, Antio-
chus XII. Dionysus, asserted his right of succession to the throne of
Damascus, vacant by the captivity and death of Demetrius. The favour of
the citizens and of the people of Coele-Syria generally enabled him to make
good his claim, and to maintain himself against his two rivals, until he fell
in battle against the Arabs, as related in the text. After his death, the
Coele-Syi'ians, dreading the resentment of Philip, and despairing of pro-
tection from Eusebes, called to the throne of Damascus the very Arab
chief by whom Antiochus XII. Dionysus had been vanquished and slain.
His Arab name Haleth was Hellenized into Aretas, as Josephus called him,
(Antiq. fo. 64, lib. xiii. cap. 14,) and he is praised for his attainments in
152 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
suffered much from the rapacious attacks of the roving
hordes of Arabia Petrsea, he determined to seek them in
their own home, and to reduce them to subjection. For
this purpose he led his army along the coast of Palestine
and through a part of Judea, which indeed was the only
road he could take. At his approach Jannai became
alarmed, and suspected that, notwithstanding his profes-
sions of friendship, the king of Damascus entertained some
design against Judea.
To obstruct his advance, but without coming to open and
decided hostilities, seemed the most advisable course ; and
Jannai, with incredible speed and great labour, caused an
entrenchment to be dug from the town of Capharsaha (sub-
sequently called Antipatris) to the sea near Joppa, nearly
twenty miles in length. This entrenchment he provided
with a wall and wooden towers at convenient distances, in
which he placed strong garrisons. But the king of Da-
mascus was not to be diverted from his purpose. He set
fire to the towers, forced his way through the garrisons,
crossed the trench, and continued his march southward,
until he was encountered by the Arabs under their emir
or prince Haleth. A desperate battle ensued, in which the
king of Damascus and the greater part of his army were
cut to pieces.
elegant learning by Strabo, (lib. xvi. p. 581.) The example of Damascus
■was shortly afterward followed by Antioch and other Syrian cities.
Weary of the crimes and calamities of the Seleucidse, the people chose for
their sovereign Tigranes, King of Ai-menia. Amid the disorders immedi-
ately preceding this election, Phillip appears to have perished, since his
name thenceforth disappears from history. Eusebes saved himself by
flight, and continued to lurk in an obscure corner of Cilicia till his death.
His queen Selene, however, had sjiirit and talent sufScicnt to maintain
hei-sclf in possession of some pai-ts of Sja-ia. In her strongholds in Co-
magene, she maintained herself full twelve years, uutil muwlered at the in-
stigation of Tigranes ; and educated in splendour her two sons, the sole
BVirviving heirs of the great Seleucus Nicator.
THE ASMONEANS. 153
Jannai, thus finding himself relieved from any dread of
the Syrians, at once took the field, crossed the Jordan, and
commenced operations against the Moabites. This, how-
ever, brought against him a new enemy. The Arab emir
Haleth or Aretas, who, after his victory over Dionysus,
had been invited to, and had accepted the throne of Da-
mascus, marched into Judea. Jannai hastened to oppose
him, but was defeated with considerable loss at Adida, a
fortified city at no great distance from Jerusalem. But
Aretas was in no condition to take advantage of his suc-
cess, or even to continue the campaign in Judea. Threat-
ened by the powerful king of Armenia, Tigranes, whom
the Antiochians, imitating the example of Damascus, had
elected king of Syria, Aretas deemed it most prudent to
make peace with Jannai, sacrificing the tribes beyond Jor-
dan to his arms, and to hasten back to Damascus to defend
his own kingdom.
Jannai, who never was more formidable than after defeat
and in adversity, had no sooner got rid of his Arab invader,
than he hastened back across the Jordan. In three suc-
cessful campaigns he reconquered nearly all the lands that
the Israelites of old had possessed beyond that I'iver. The
strong city of Dion was taken by assault. In Ussa (also
called Crerasa,) around which city the king of Judea built
a treble wall, and which at last he took by storm, the
treasures of Theodotus, which he had once before gained
and again lost, now finally rewarded his perseverance.
The inhabitants of Pella, who, when vanquished, refused
to embrace Judaism, were expelled from their city, which
was demolished. Demetrius, tyrant or prince of Gf-aulana,
jSeleucia, Cf-amala, and the valley of Antioehus, who had
been guilty of many foul deeds, was stripped of his do-
minions and carried captive to Jerusalem. And when
Jannai returned in triumph to his capital, he was received
with loud acclamations by his people, while no factious
154 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
Pharisee dared by word or gesture to question the right
and glory of the conqueror.
The last three years of Jannai's reign were less glori-
ous. He is accused of having, on his return to Jerusa-
lem, abandoned himself to drinking and debauchery to
such an excess that' it speedily brought on a quartan ague,
from which he never after recovered. But neither his
pleasures nor his distempers could curb his restless spirit,
or satisfy his cravings for conquest. Exhausted as he
was by sickness and debauchery, he led his army once
more across the Jordan, and laid siege to Ragaha, a
strong fortress in the land of the Gfergesenes. But in his
camp before that stronghold he was summoned to render
an account of his stewardship. He died in the forty-
ninth year of his age, and in the twenty-seventh of his
turbulent reign, (79 b. C. e.) That reign, notwithstanding
its manifold vicissitudes, must be deemed successful in its
foreign relations and its ultimate results, enlai'ged domi-
nion, and internal prosperity. At the time of his death,
his subjects had become reconciled to his reign. While the
kingdom of Judea included Mount Carmel and all the
coast as far as Rinocolura, it embraced on the south all
Idumea; northward it extended to Mount Tabor, and be-
yond Jordan it comprehended Gaulonitis and all the terri-
tory of Gadara, including the land of the Moabites on the
south, and extending as far as Bella in the east. " What
a subject would there have been here for a lofty pane-
gyric, had the historian been a Sadducee, or the prince a
Pharisee ! And how truly is the saying verified, cedant
arma togce!" (Universal History, vol. x. p. 355, note c.)
Jannai left two sons, Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, by his
Queen Alexandra, or, as the Talmud calls her, Zion, the
sister of Simon, the president of the Sanhedrin. In his
last campaign she accompanied him and tended on his bed
of sickness and pain, her own mind agitated not less by
THE ASMONEANS. 155
grief at his impending death than by fears and apprehen-
sions, if not for herself, for her children and royalty. In
a moment of confidential conversation between husband
and wife, she poured forth her anxieties to the dying
monarch. With many tears, she reminded him how hate-
ful he and the whole house of Jochanan Hyrcanus were to
the Pharisees, who still, and notwithstanding their defeat,
swayed the minds of the multitude ; that during his life-
time all his valour and expeinence had been required to
render innoxious these implacable enemies of his family ;
but that his approaching death would relieve them from
the heavy hand that hitherto had kept them down, and
leave her and her children exposed to their utmost ran-
cour, which might even go so far as to commit outrage on
his corpse. She therefore implored him to advise her
how to act in the difficult position in which she was placed,
and in whom she was to confide.
His parting advice proves how correct was his judgment,
and how little his mind was clouded by the terrors of ap-
proaching death. "Fear not," said he, "the Sadducees,
for they are my friends ; nor yet the Pharisees, for they
are not cruel ; but beware of the Zehoongim, (dyed or
varnished ones,) who commit deeds like Zimri, and yet
crave the reward of Phinehas. (In allusion to Numbers
XXV. 6, 14.) Be thou sure to conceal my death, and keep
it secret from the army until Ragaha is taken. Then re-
turn triumphant to Jerusalem, and carry my body with
thee. As soon as thou arrivest, send for the chiefs of
that factious party, place my corpse before them, and
tell them that thou dost wholly submit it to them, either
to give it burial, or to throw it in the highway for the in-
juries I have done them. Assure them, at the same time,
that thou thyself art so devoted to their principles, that
thy design is to place them again at the head of afi"airs,
and that thou wilt do nothing without their advice and con-
150 rOST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
sent. Give tlicm immediately some proofs of thy favour
and friendship ; and then, if thou dost but do as I direct
thee, I shall be sure of a glorious funeral, and thou will
reign in peace."
Kitto (vol. i. p. 709) remarks that the advice may have
been good ; but that the motives claim no high commenda-
tion. "He wished his wife to reign after him; and to secure
that private object, he was willing that all the energies of
government should be sacrificed, and that all the powers of
the state should be thrown into the hands of men whom,
whether justly or not, he despised and hated." In oppo-
sition to these remarks, a writer in the Hebrew Review
(vol. iii. p. 260) observes, "that in advising his wife, on
his deathbed, to confide in the Pharisees, King Jannai, in
his last moments, bore testimony to the wrong he had done
them in his day of power." We are not exactly inclined
to subscribe to either of these two views, though our lean-
ing is most toward the latter.
The object uppermost in the mind of Jannai was the life
and reign of those who were dearest to him. But he must
have felt that the uprightness and forbearance of the
Pharisees were to be trusted; as otherwise nothing could
have prevented them from using the power placed in their
hands to retaliate on his wife and children the cruelties he
had practised against theirs. Moreover, Queen Alexandra,
the daughter and sister of leading Pharisees, and educated
in the principles of their sect, had a natural leaning in their
favour, to which her husband, "it may be assumed, was no
stranger. His parting advice, therefore, probably recom-
mended that line of conduct, which at all events, she would
have adopted ; but which, strengthened by his counsel and
guided by his experience, she might now enter upon, free
from the reproach of her own conscience and from the up-
braidings of her husband's friends.
Whatever view we take of the motives for Jannai's ad-
THE ASMONEANS. 157
vice, it is certain that it was the best which, under the cir-
cumstances, could be given. As such the queen followed
it strictly and in every particular; and the result was such
as Jannai had foreseen. The Pharisees, restored to power,
granted King Jannai's corpse funeral honours far more
splendid than those of his predecessor. And they praised
his wisdom, for that by his last will — which, unlike the tes-
tament of his father Hyrcanus, was carried out to the let-
ter— he had appointed his widow Alexandra queen-regent
of the kingdom. Along with the royal dignity, he invested
her with the government during her lifetime, and with
power to determine which of her two sons, Hyrcanus or
Aristobulus, should succeed her.
As the queen could not, in person, hold the office of
high-priest, she conferred that eminent dignity upon her
eldest son, Hyrcanus, a man of mild and indolent disposi-
tion, ill-qualified to take part in the turmoils of the
troubled times in which he was cast. The second son,
Aristobulus, who was placed at the head of the army, was
of a very different character, — impulsive and energetic,
like his father, like him a Sadducee in principle, but by
no means his equal in talents and in firmness of purpose.
By this arrangement the different crowns or powers in
the state came to be divided, according to ancient usage,
and so as to satisfy the wi.shes of the people. The crown
of royalty rested on the brow of queen Alexandra ; and
one of the first acts of her reign was to recall and annul
all the severe penal decrees which Hyrcanus I. and Jannai
had enacted against the Pharisees, whose expositions of
the written Law, or the traditions of the oral Law, once
moi-e reigned supreme. The crown of priesthood was worn
by Hyrcanus, who, influenced by the kindred of his mo-
ther, had united himself to their sect, and came to be
looked upon as the chief of the Pharisees. The crown of
the Law once more adorned an independent Sanhedrin.
Vol. II. 14
158 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
Emancipated from the degrading thraldom to which King
Jannai so long had reduced it, and purged of its most
obnoxious Sadducee members, that great national council
was, in reality, the governing body.
A body of six thousand mercenaries in the queen's pay,
and a much larger -number of national troops, formed two
considerable armies that protected the frontiers, and which
her son commanded. But all real power was concentrated
in the hands of the Sanhedrin, supported by the immense
majority of the people. And the best proof of the wis-
dom and sound policy with which this council conducted
public aiFairs, is furnished by the fact that during the nine
years of Alexandra's reign (from 79 to 70 b. c. e.) neither
foreign wars nor domestic outbreaks disturbed the peace
or interrupted the prosperity of Judea.
And yet that period, as well as the greater part of the
time of Jannai's reign, was one of intense agitation, dur-
ing which the powers of Europe and of Asia were arrayed
in deadly conflict against each other ; and the Romans, for
the first time since the fall of Hannibal and Carthage, en-
countered a foe who, for thirty years, could find employ-
ment for their arms, and defend the riches of the East
against the strength and rapacity of the West.
Mithridates VI. Eupator inherited from his father the
petty kingdom of Pontus, on the southern shores of the
Black Sea, near the Caucasian mountain ridge, and now
forming that portion of Turkey-in-Asia, in which the cities
of Trebizond and Erzeroom are situated. This obscure
nook of the earth, which neither before him nor after him
has filled any space in the annals of history, was, by his
talents and enterprise, raised to a degree of greatness and
power that enabled him for a length of time, and often
successfully, to I'ival Rome. lie succeeded to the throne
in his thirteenth year, but did not assume the reins of
government till he was twenty years of age. The
THE ASMONEANS. 159
intervening seven years were to him a season of severe but
profitable probation. His mother, a woman of depraved
mind and strong passions, cruel and unscrupulous, was ac-
cused of the murder of his father, and thirsted for the
blood of her only son. Instigated by her, his tutors — to
whom his scorn of submission and promptness to rebel
against all authority had rendered him obnoxious — deter-
mined to destroy him ; but the many snares they laid for
him redounded only to his advantage or glory.
When encouraged to mount too mettlesome horses, he
learned to tame their fiery spirit; when assailed more
secretly by poison, he took precautions for rendering it
harmless, and at length invented the famous Mithridate,
which the ancients praise as a certain antidote against all
poison, (Pliny N. H. lib. xxv. cap. 1 et 6.) In danger of
assassination in his apartment, he lived seven years in the
open air, spending his whole days in the chase, and sleep-
ing under the canopy of heaven in the midst of companions
attached to his fortunes and rivals of his manhood. Strong
of body, active of mind, fearless and enterprising in the
extreme, but cruel, treacherous, and selfish, he never spared
man in his wrath nor woman in his lust. Capable of con-
ceiving the grandest designs, and gifted with uncommon
patience and perseverance, the first half of his long reign
of sixty years, obscure as it is in history, was nevertheless
a fit preparation for the splendour that followed it. Dur-
ing this period he gradually extended his sway in Asia,
until his dominions extended two thousand miles in length,
and were inhabited by twenty-four different nations, speak-
ing as many difi'erent languages, in all of which the tena-
cious memory of Mithridates made him a master, so that he
is celebrated as the greatest linguist of ancient times.
When he had thus extended his dominions toward the
East, and consolidated the strength of his obscure and bar-
barous empire, he turned his attention to the more civilized
160 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
regions of the West. But this brought him in contact with
the Romans, and led to a series of wars which completely
altered the political condition of AVestern Asia, and event-
ually caused Judea to forfeit her dear-bought and highly-
cherished independence. The wars between Mithridates
and the Romans were attended by, and became the cause
of such dreadful and ferocious bloodshed, that the cruel-
ties of Jannai are completely thrown in the background.
There are periods in history when a contagious phrenzy
seems to have seized upon the minds of men, and atroci-
ties the most heinous are perpetrated, simultaneously, as
it were, in different parts of the world. Shortly before
the time that Jannai caused the eight hundred to be
crucified, Mithridates so planned it that all the Italians,
residents or visitors, throughout Asia Minor were mas-
sacred in one single day. Of this catastrophe, the modes
and instruments combined every variation of cruelty, and
the number of victims is computed, by the lowest estimate,
at 80,000; by the highest, at 150,000. (Yal. Max. lib. ix.
cap. 2. Dion. Legat. 37.)
To revenge this foul deed, the Romans prepared to send
a large army into Asia ; and as the war against the rich
sovereigns and in the wealthy countries of the East was
expected to be extremely lucrative, the command in that
war became a subject of contention and of civil war be-
tween the two most renowned generals of Rome, Marius
and Sylla. Upward of 100,000 Roman citizens perished
by the sword or by the hand of the executioner. The vic-
torious Sylla is said to have proscribed or sentenced to
death 40,000 citizens, and among them ninety senators
and fifteen men who had been consuls of the Roman re-
public. At the same time, Sylla's campaigns and extor-
tions in Asia Minor, the revenge he took on the people
for the crime committed by Mithridates — while to that
king himself he granted peace — were so destructive, that
THE ASMONEANS. 161
this great, wealthy, and flourishing portion of the East
could never again recover its pristine prosperity. (Schlos-
ser's History of the World, vol. iii., pp. 654-560.)
It is instructive to observe how the spirit of partiality
distorts the views and opinions of historians. The Pharisee
senators of Judea, while they preserved peace at home
and with their neighbours, deemed it an act of justice that
the councillors of the late King Jannai — who had insti-
gated him to the cruel execution of the 800, and who were
known to have aided and abetted in the bloodshed caused
by his rancour against the Pharisees — should be called to
account and punished. In this they acted as every suc-
cessful party has invariably been found to do under similar
circumstances. They first took care of their friends,
releasing all the prisoners, and recalling all the exiles
belonging to their own party ; and having thus strength-
ened themselves by the recovery of the ablest men of their
own body, they next proceeded to punish the most obnox-
ious of their antagonists.
Their demand for justice was chiefly directed against
the advisers of the crucifixion of the prisoners of Betliome,
and the murder of their wives and children ; and certainly,
if there were any persons active in advising that dreadful
enormity, they richly deserved punishment.
But unfortunately for the Pharisee senators who then
governed Judea, their sect, long after their decease, be-
came hateful and got a bad name. Accordingly, the
writers in the Universal History refuse to acknowledge the
justice of the measures adopted by the "Pharisaic crew"
against the advisers of King Jannai, (vol. x., p. 357,) and
they have been followed by other writers. But while
they vent their indignation against the luckless Pharisees,
these same writers have little or no fault to find with the
demagogue monster Marius, or the aristocratic butcher
Sylla. But then, to be sure, these wholesale slaughterers
14*
162 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
were not Pharisees ! No doubt the party so unexpectedly
in power under Queen Alexandra, may have outstepped
the precise bounds of moderation and equity ; and the
reaction may possibly have proved fatal to some who had
no share in Jannai's crimes. But it appears certain that
by far the greater- number of those who suffered were
guilty. The first that was brought to justice was Diogenes,
a principal chief of the Sadducees, and the personal friend
and confidant of the late king. His trial, condemnation,
and execution, were followed by the conviction and death
of several others of those Sadducees who, during the late
king's reign, had enjoyed the greatest share of power and
influence throughout the kingdom.
Queen Alexandra could not but feel unhappy at see-
ing her husband's most zealous and faithful friends
perish under the hand of the executioner. But her re-
monstrances were silenced by the declaration of the San-
hedrin, that to stop the course of justice was contrary to
the law of God and to the security of every good govern-
ment. And though the queen might, in some instances
at least, have been entitled to question the justice of the
course adopted by the popular leaders, yet she felt that
she was weak, while they were strong ; and that of two
evils, this reaction, with its executions, was preferable to
a civil war. She therefore was obliged to submit, sorely
against her will, and not without feelings of bitter remorse
that preyed upon her health.
However, the Sadducee, or rather the royalist party,
overthrown solely by the death of Jannai, and the conse-
quent transfer of authority to their enemies, was still full
of life and vigour, and by no means inclined tamely to
succumb and to perish. The young prince Aristobulus,
who had placed himself at the head of the Sadducees,
and considered the cause of his father's friends as his
own, encouraged them to resist, and at all events to ob-
THE ASMONEANS. 163
tain the queen's sanction and consent to measures that
would at least secure their persons against persecution.
Introduced by him into her presence, the chiefs of his
party appealed to the queen for protection. They re-
minded her of their great services and unswerving loyalty
to her late husband, and professed the most faithful at-
tachment to herself and her children ; that it was in con-
sideration of these services rendered to her dynasty, that
they were now exposed to the persecutions of a party
which at one time had been the most hostile to her house ;
that, consequently, they conjured her not to let the friends
of her husband and of her royalty be destroyed by his
bitterest foes, and that not in a time of civil disturbance,
but of profound peace, and under the government of her
who had been a witness of all the difficulties and hard-
ships they had suffered for him and with him. They im-
plored her not to permit the destruction of so many re-
nowned warriors, whose names still struck terror in her
foreign enemies ; and they concluded with requesting her
either to permit them in a body to withdraw from the
country, or that she would assign to them certain fortified
cities which they might garrison, and in which they might
reside unmolested. Prince Aristobulus seconded and
joined in their request, and indulged in bitter taunts
against the men who took advantage of the weakness of a
woman, and therefore made her retain a power which, in
her hands, was subservient to their ambitious will, but
which of right belonged to the sons of Jannai.
These appeals made the strongest impression on the
mind of the queen. Protect the Sadducee chiefs against
the justice of the Pharisees, she could not. Permit them
to withdraw from the country, she would not. And yet to
deprive herself and her house of friends, whose loyalty
and valour had been tested on many a battle-field, and
thus to hand her sons over to the same dependence on the
164 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
Pharisees wliicli she herself found so galling, was an ex-
treme by all means to be avoided. She therefore, after
mature deliberation, resolved to confide to the friends of
her late husband the command of the several fortified
cities of the kingdom, whence she might recall them in
due time, and where, for the present, they might either
remain unmolested, or else be able to stand on their own
defence. As, however, she did not wish to exasperate the
Pharisees by placing too much confidence in their oppo-
nents, she took care not to intrust any Sadducee with the
command in the three principal strongholds, Hyrcania^
Alexandria, and 3Iac]ia'ro7i, in which the royal treasures
were deposited.
The Pharisees were satisfied with their present advan-
tages, and did not attack the Sadducees in their retreats.
Prince Aristobulus was shortly afterward sent, at the
head of an army, into Syria, to defend the Jewish posses-
sions in that country against a predatory inroad under-
taken from Egypt by Ptolemy Mennceus, who obtained
possession of several places without Aristobulus doing
any thing worth notice to prevent him. On his return,
the young prince, who had taken great pains to ingratiate
himself with the soldiers, was constrained to take up his
abode in Jerusalem, and was closely watched by the sena-
torial party ; while, at the same time, the favour of his
elder brother, Ilyrcanus, was courted, and no means ne-
glected to gain his good will. Queen Alexandra con-
gratulated herself on having thus saved her husband's
surviving friends without any breach of the public peace
at home, when she became alarmed by the tidings of war
and invasion from abroad.
Tigranes, King of Armenia, the son-in-law and ally of
Mithridates, King of Pontus, had, as we have already re-
lated, been elected king of Syria by the Antiochians.
lie had built for his residence a city which he called Ti-
THE ASMONEANS. 165
granocerta, near the river Tigris, about three hundred
miles south of his former capital, Artaxata, on the Araxes.
To people and fill the vast circuit of the walls -which his
ostentatious vanity had traced, he needed men and mova-
bles. We have already related how he partly met this
want, by carrying many inhabitants of Syria, among them
numbers of Jews, into Armenia. But as this supply
proved insufficient, he had, in his treaty of alliance with
his father-in-law, stipulated that whatever conquests they
jointly made, Tigrancs was to make prize of and carry
off all the inhabitants and all movable property, while
Mithridates contented himself with rifled cities and de-
populated territories. (Justin, lib. xxxvii. cap. 3.)
The Jews were the ancient allies of the Romans, with
whom the two kings were at war. Judea was densely
populated and wealthy; reasons abundantly sufficient to
justify, in the eyes of Tigranes, an attack upon the friends
of his enemies. When the queen Alexandra heard of his
intention, she and her councillors were justly alarmed ;
for against so powerful an enemy Judea could offer no
effectual resistance. Tigranes had already advanced as far
as Ptolemais, and had laid siege to that city at the head
of 50,000 men, when Queen Alexandra sent ambassadors,
charged with rich presents, to compliment the king and
to endeavour to propitiate his favour. To their great sur-
prise and relief, the ambassadors met with a most friendly
reception, and both their compliments and presents were
graciously accepted.
No doubt the king's grand-vizier, Shambat Bagrad,
who was a Jew, exerted all his influence in favour of his
coreligionists; but it is certain that some cause more po-
tent must have been at work to induce the haughty Ti-
granes to forego his purpose ; and that cause was the
irresistible progress of the Boman arms. Lucullus, the
successor of Sylla in the command against Mithridates,
166 rOST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
had utterly defeated that monarch, and forced him to seek
refuge in the dominions of his son-in-law and ally, the
king of Armenia.
According to the state law of the Romans, the com-
plete conquest and undisturbed possession of a country,
did not constitute a sufficient and legitimate title to have
and to hold it forever, unless it was ceded to them by a
treaty, or the king of the conquered country had fallen
into their hands either dead or alive. It therefore became
of importance to Lucullus to secure the person of Mithri-
dates, whose dominions were already in possession of the
Romans ; and as that monarch had fled to Armenia, Lu-
cullus pursued him, determined to obtain the surrender
of the ex-king of Pontus, either by negotiation or force.
Such were the news that reached Tigranes immediately
before the arrival of the Jewish ambassadors ; and as he
felt the necessity of instantly returning to defend his
hereditary kingdom, he deemed it most prudent not to
provoke the queen of Judea, who, though little able to
resist the force he could lead against her, might yet,
during his absence, prove a troublesome neighbour to his
possessions in Syria.
This embassy to Tigranes was the last public act of
importance undertaken by orders of Queen Alexandra.
Her advanced age — for she was then in her seventy-third
year — and the anxieties of government had so far under-
mined her constitution, that the terror caused by the ex-
pected attack of Judea by Tigranes was more than she
could stand. The reaction that followed on the return
of her embassy proved fatal to her nervous system, and
threw her on a bed of sickness, hopeless of recovery.
No sooner was her mortal malady known, than her
younger son, Aristobulus, thought the time come for real-
izing a design which he had long harboured, of securing the
crown for himself. Intrusting his secret solely to his
THE ASMONEANS. 1G7
wife — a woman of great prudence and energy — whom, with
her children, he left in Jerusalem, he himself, attended by
a single domestic, quitted the city clandestinely at night,
with the intention of visiting and bringing over to his
interest those friends of his father who, by his assistance
and intercession with the queen, had obtained the custody
of several fortified cities. The first stronghold he visited
was Agaba, where one of the most influential chiefs of the
Sadducees, Gabertus, held the command. By this man,
who had been a special confidant of King Jannai, Prince
Aristobulus was received with open arms, and his plans
found a ready and powerful abettor. For Aristobulus
soon convinced him that his life and that of all the Sad-
ducee chiefs and friends of Jannai depended on the pro-
tection of the queen ; but that in the event of his feeble
brother Hyrcanus succeeding to the throne, the ultra
Pharisees would govern even more absolutely than they
had done under Alexandra ; and then would not rest sa-
tisfied with less than the utter ruin of the friends of
Jannai.
Though this reasoning was more plausible than just —
since it was evident that Queen Alexandra could impose
but little restraint on the animosity of the dominant
Pharisees, and that had they been inclined to incur the
risk of a civil war, the name of Alexandra would have
been a tower of strength to them, even in a greater degree
than that of Hyrcanus could be, as his mental impotence
was generally known — the chief of the Sadducees readily
adopted the views of Aristobulus, and seconded his design
with such zeal, that in fourteen days twenty-two of the
principal strongholds of Judea declared for him.
The queen, on her sick bed, had noticed the absence of
her younger son on the morning after his departure ; but
probably she did not suspect his design, and, at all events,
she did not deem it necessary or wise to compel his return
168 rOST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
to Jerusalem. The Pharisees, however, soon obtained
information of his rapid progress, and that not only the
Sadducees, and the army generally, went over to him, but
that even the people, with whom the sect of the Pharisees
had so long been all-powerful, evinced a strong inclination
in his favour. Their principal chiefs, unprepared for such
an emergency, now presented themselves at the queen's
bedside, and bringing Hyrcanus, her elder son, with them,
they urgently pressed her to declare her views on this
alarming state of things, and to advise them what to do ;
their object being to use her authority, as she was much
beloved by the people.
The queen, who was dying, had just strength enough
left to declare that she felt herself past the cares of go-
vernment. She however named her son Hyrcanus for her
successor, remarking that she left the Pharisees every
requisite for the defence and protection of the new king
and of themselves, — arms, soldiers, and money ; and that
it was for them to make the best use of the abundant
means at their disposal. She expired immediately after-
ward, leaving behind her a reputation for wisdom, piety,
and kindliness which would have been perfect, were it not
for the stigma with which her treachery to the murdered
Prince Antigonus has branded her name.^^
'^ There is reason to doubt whether the Queen Alexandra, or Salome,
the mother of Hyrcanus and Aristobulus II., was the same person ■with
the Queen Salome, or Alexandra, the widow of Aristobulus I., who con-
spired against her brother-in-law Antigonus. Josephus, indeed, every-
where speaks of her as if but one queen of the name were in question ;
but an examination of dates will prove that such cannot be the case. For
Hyrcanus, the eldest son of Alexandra by Jannai, was, according to Jose-
phus himself, upward of eighty years of age when he was put to death,
30 B. c. E. He must therefore have been born about the year 111 u. c. e. ;
and as Ai-istobulus I. did not die until the year 106 b. c. E., it follows that
at the time Jannai married the childless widow of Aristobulus I., his son
Hyrcanus must have been five years old, and consequently could not be
THE ASMONEANS. 1G9
, Her peaceable reign of nine years had done much to
obliterate the traces and to repair the ravages caused by
the long civil war ; and though her administration was
merely nominal, so that the merit of the good done during
her reign in reality belongs to the Sanhedrin, still we
must not forget that on more occasions than one, she, as
queen regent, sacrificed her feelings to her duty ; and
that when at last she did to some extent indulge her feel-
ings, it was in support of clemency and of the true
interests of her dynasty.
No sooner had she descended to th^^rave, than the
horrors of civil war, which she had long restrained, burst
forth over the land. The reign of the Pharisees had been
rigorous to that degree that it alienated the people, who,
till then, had been so strongly attached to them. The
Talmud [Jerush, tr. Sanhedrin,) records instances of their
judicial severity, and also of the reaction they created in
the popular mind. Thus Simon the son of Shetahh is
said on one occasion to have sentenced and executed
eighty women convicted of witchcraft.
Two of the relatives of these women conspired together
to obtain full revenge on the rigorous judge. They ac-
the son of the widow. It is true that, according to this view, Jannai was
a father at the age of seventeen ; and as he died after a reign of twenty-
seven years, in his forty-ninth year, while his wife, who survived him
only by nine years, was seventy-three years old when she died, it follows
that she was fifteen years older than he. And this would give us a royal
prince of seventeen married to a woman of thirty-two, old enough to have
been his mother as well as the mother of his son. But this discrepancy
between the age of the king and queen remains the same, whatever
opinion we adopt with respect to the identity of the mother of Hyrcanus
and the widow of Aristobulus I. The notices in the Talmud (which calls
the daughter of Shetahh Zion) on Jannai and his family are too scanty to
help us to get over the difficulty ; and as Josephus evidently contradicts
himself, it is safest to assume two distinct Alexandras, so as not to inter-
fere with the age of Hyrcanus II.
Vol. II. 15
170 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
cused the only son of Simon of a capital crime ; and so
skilfully had they planned their charge and framed their
evidence, that the innocent youth was convicted, and the
"wretched father compelled to pass sentence of death upon
him. When the young man was led forth for execution,
the false accusers 'relented, and came forward to declare
that they had committed perjury, and that the convict
was innocent. But the law, according to the interpreta-
tion of the Pharisees, does not permit a witness to retract
or to recall the testimony to which he has sworn ; no other
evidence could be produced to invalidate or rebut the first
statement on which the condemnation had been founded;
and the unhappy Simon, a prey to contending emotions,
was wavering between his duties as a judge and chief of
the law and his feelings as a loving father. His son,
however, with a degree of fortitude seldom surpassed,
urged his father to carry out the sentence, "for," said he,
" it is better I should die, than that doubt should be
thrown on the interpretation of the law." And so he died.
All this, however, acted on public opinion unfavourably
to the party in power ; and as the imbecile and indolent
disposition of Hyrcanus II. was generally known, the people
dreaded that, with the death of the queen, even the feeble
restraint which she had imposed on the rigour of the sena-
tors would cease, and their rule become insupportable.
Arlstobulus himself, in the first instance, and the friends
of his father who had joined him, had doubtless watched
this change of opinion in the people ; and as they were
assured of the soldiery and of the priests, their success did
not appear doubtful.
The friends of Hyrcanus had seized on the wife and
children of Aristobulus, and caused them to be strictly
confined in the royal palace or castle of Baris ; and
threats were held out that the life of these precious
pledges should answer for. his rebellion, unless he at once
THE ASMONEANS. 171
submitted to the lawful authority of his elder brother.
But Aristobulus had already formed so strong a party
among the members of the Sanhedrin, as well as among
the mercenaries who guarded the palace, that he saw no
reason to dread any immediate violence to his wife or
children. Regardless, therefore, of the menaces of the
Hyrcanists, he took upon himself the royal state and title,
and advanced against Jerusalem by slow marches, each
day bringing him fresh accessions of strength.
The Hyrcanists, finding that nothing but the sword
could decide between the two brothers, raised what forces
they could and marched against him. The two armies
met at Jericho, and a battle appeared inevitable. But as
Aristobulus — ardent and full of confidence in the bravery
and fidelity of the veterans whom his father had so often
led on to victory — advanced to the charge, the great ma-
jority of the troops of Hyrcanus passed over and joined
the ranks of his competitor. They were followed by
several members of the Sanhedrin, who had secretly en-
tered into relations with Aristobulus. The unfortunate
Hyrcanus fled and shut himself up in the same castle of
Baris in which his sister-in-law and nephews were confined.
The few troops that remained faithful to him, and had
followed him in his flight, threw themselves into the forti-
fications of the temple, where they soon found themselves
destitute of provisions, and were compelled to surrender
to Aristobulus, who thus, with little or no bloodshed,
. obtained possession of the entire kingdom.
Poor Hyrcanus was left without any defenders in arms,
and with scarcely any adherents. But his right was un-
questionable. And Aristobulus, who had not hesitated
to seize on the supreme power, which he justly averred his
brother was incapable of wielding for the public good,
did not venture to ofi'er any indignity to the feeble but
guiltless man whom he had stripped of his crown, but
172 rOST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
could not rob of his birthright. Under these circum-
stances, Ilyrcanus, timid and destitute of ambition, pro-
posed a treaty, which Aristobulus accepted, *and which
transferred to the latter the rights of the former.
According to Josephus, (Antiq. lib. xiv. cap. 1-3,) Ilyr-
canus abdicated both the crown and the high-priesthood ;
and was thenceforth to lead a i)rivate life, but with all the
honours due to his rank and regal birth. According to
Jewish historians, however, [Juckasin fo. 138 B. Rahad
8, 1,) Ilyrcanus only abdicated the kingdom, but preserved
the dignity of high-priest until his flight from Jerusalem,
of which we shall presently speak. We ourselves incline
to this latter account, in preference to that of Josephus.
For Aristobulus at the time affected to court popularity;
and among the Jews of all sects nothing could be more
unpopular than the union of the two offices of king and
pontiff in the same person.
To strengthen the treaty, and to secure to the descend-
ants of Hyrcanus, who had no son, that royal dignity
which he himself laid down, it was agreed that his only
daughter should be given in marriage to the eldest son of
Aristobulus. And in order to give their treaty the great-
est possible degree of solemnity and publicity, it was
sworn to by both brothers in the temple, at the altar, be-
fore the sanctuary, in the presence of the priests, and
within sight of the assembled people. The transaction
being thus completed, Ilyrcanus evacuated the royal
castle of Baris, and withdrew to the mansion which, dur-
ing the lifetime of his mother, he had occupied in Jerusa-
lem. His reign had only lasted three months ; and in
laying down the crown he doubtless blessed his happy
stars for having been relieved from the perils, anxieties,
vexations, and griefs to which he had been a prey during
his short-lived royalty, and which formed all that he had
tasted of regal sway and enjoyment.
THE ASMONEANS. 173
Aristobulus, better qualified than he to preside over the
destinies of his people, reigned six years with consider-
able prudence. A Sadducee himself, and raised to the
throne by the aid chiefly of that sect, he yet preserved
moderation sufficient not to persecute the Pharisees, or to
renew against their tenets the severe decree of his father
and grandfather. Indeed, it does not appear that he in
any way molested them, or even deprived their chiefs of
their seats in the Sanhedrin ; though, of course, he filled
up every vacancy in that august council with friends of
his own, and generally transferred the offices of trust and
power to his own partisans.
But though he did not unduly interfere with the Phari-
sees, they did not trust him, but looked upon his forbear-
ance as either the efi'ect of present weakness, or else as a
snare to lull them into false security. They ascribed to
their adversaries a degree of cunning and deep-laid
schemes of revenge which are proved by no facts or
overt acts ; and feeling that their own sect had nothing to
hope for, but much to fear, from Aristobulus, they continued
to look upon Hyrcanus as their chief and the legitimate
king of Judea. Unfortunately for the independence and
welfare of the Jews, the fears of the Pharisees were
shared by a man who possessed a perfect mastery over the
weak mind of Hyrcanus, and whose shrewd and corrupt
appreciation of events enabled him eventually to raise his
own house on the ruin of the Asmoneans.
That man was Antipas, or, as he Grecified his name,
Antipater, the father of that King Herod, or Hourdous,
whose evil repute is alike recorded in Jewish as in Chris-
tian history. Antipater was the son of an officer high in
the confidence of King Jannai, who appointed him go-
vernor of Idumea, and of Queen Alexandra, who conti-
nued him in that office. Respecting this progenitor and
grandfather of a royal dynasty, his early life and pedi-
15*
174 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
gree, so little is known, that even his name is uncertain.
While friends and flatterers of that prosperous family re-
presented the Herods as of pure and noble Judean de-
scent, their enemies, ^ho are far more numerous, exclaimed
that they were originally idolaters of the lowest station,
and holding mean offices in a heathen temple.
Strabo falls into the error of assuming that the Herod
family belonged to the ancient blood-royal of Judea, the
house of David. The panegyrist of King Herod, Nicho-
las Damascenes, who published his history during the life-
time of that monarch, derived his pedigree from one of
the chiefs of those Jews who returned from Babylon-
ish captivity. For this piece of barefaced flattery this
writer is sharply rebuked by Josephus, who, however,
goes no farther back than the father of Antipater, a
noble Idumean, and governor under Jannai of his na-
tive province.
A later Jewish writer [Semach David, xvii. 1,) says
this governor was of Jewish descent, and after the con-
version of the Idumeans under Hyrcanus I. married a
lady of royal birth in that country, whence he was desig-
nated as the Idumean.
It is, however, well known that the family of Herod
never insisted on their Judean origin. It is even related
of King Agrippa, the grandson of King Herod, that on
one occasion, when the Law of Moses was read in his
presence, the words, "From the midst of thy brethren
shalt thou set a king over thee ; thou mayest not set over
thee a stranger who is not thy brother," (Deut. xvii. 15,)
so affected the king that he began to weep bitterly; on
which the assembled Sanhedrin, who witnessed his emo-
tion, with one accord exclaimed, "Thou art our brother;
thou art indeed our brother !" An anecdote which goes
far to confirm the statement of Josephus, especially as it
is well known that one of the reasons for the invincible
THE ASMONEANS. 175
dislike with which the Jewish nation viewed Herod the
Great, was his being of alien descent.
Eusebius (Ecclesiastical History, lib. i, cap, 6, 7) speaks
of a letter written by Julivis Africanus, and in which Anti-
pater is stated to have been the son of one Herod, whose
father was vestry-keeper in the temple of Apollo at Asca-
lon; and so poor withal that when his son (Herod) was
taken prisoner by some Arab robbers, he had not the
means to pay the ransom they demanded ; that young
Herod consequently remained with these roving Idumean
plunderers, who subsequently were subjugated by Hyr-
canus I. and compelled to embrace the Jewish religion. This
last account is not at all inconsistent with the statement
of Josephus that this man was an Idumean noble; for the
very fact of his being appointed governor of the province
would raise his family to the rank of nobles, whatever
his origin might have been.^^
Amid all these conflicting opinions, one fact remains
established: the father of Antipater was governor of
Idumea. In that office he had entered into relations of
amity with the king of the Arabs, which subsequently
became of great utility to his son. Antipater had, as a
boy, been sent to Jerusalem, partly as a hostage and
partly for education, and was brought up with the two
sons of King Jannai, who were nearly of the same age
•5 Hardouin, a learned Jesuit of the seventeenth century, who had the
Bingular crotchet of asserting that all the Greek and Latin classics were
forgeries, with the manufiicturing of which the Benedictine monks had
amused themselves in their cloisters during the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries, and who includes Josephus's works in the number of these
forgeries, insists upon it, that Herod, King of Judea, was an Athenian.
His proofs are, that this king, on some of his medals, is called a benefac-
tor of Athens ; and that thei-e actually was a famous man of the name of
Herod living in Athens during the days of Cffisar and of Cicero. We
mention this opinion only for its singularity, and to show what absurd-
ities very learned men may sometimes propound.
176 POST-EIELICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
with himself. His coui'age, ready wit, and decision of
character soon gained for him a perfect mastery over the
mind of the feeble Hyrcanus, with whom his insinuating
address and apparent kindliness speedily rendered him a
prime favourite. Aristobulus, on the contrary, soon took
a deep dislike to Antipater, which grew with his growth,
and reached that degree of intensity that he could not
conceal the aversion which the sight of Antipater called
forth within him. A lively French writer (Salvador)
speaks of this aversion as a secret instinct, which seemed
to tell Aristobulus that among the causes that were to
ruin his dynasty, this Antipater would rank foremost.
We have no means of knowing how or where Antipater
was occupied during the stirring events that followed the
death of Queen Alexandra, until the transfer of the su-
preme power from Hyrcanus to Aristobulus. But the
probability appears to be that Antipater was actively en-
gaged in upholding Hyrcanus' cause in Idumea, and was
not in Jerusalem at the time of the treaty. But soon
after Hyrcanus' retirement into private life, we find Anti-
pater at his side, busy as a go-between, keeping up the
communication between the disaffected Pharisees and the
chief of their choice, the abdicated king. The commu-
nity of interests between himself and the leading Phari-
sees, equally shut out from power by the personal dislike
of Aristobulus, made it easy for Antipater to keep up
among the great body of that sect a feeling of jealousy
and fear against the reigning monarch, whom they styled
a usurper, and who, they were assured by the subtle Idu-
mean, would never think himself secure until he had cut ofi"
his injured brother, and with him all those who had sup-
ported his righteous cause.
By such insinuations, he soon drew the Pharisees into
his design of dethroning Aristobulus, and restoring Hyr-
canus to the throne. His greatest difficulty was to prevail
THE ASMONEANS. 177
on Hyrcanus to join them, for the Indolent disposition of
that prince long resisted all Antipater's importunities.
As year after year glided by, Hyrcanus became more ob-
stinate in his refusal to believe that his brother would at-
tempt any thing against his life. He himself had no am-
bition, nor yet the desire to recover a crown that to him
had proved one of thorns ; or if he had, it was checked and
overcome by the danger of the attempt, which he viewed
in the most dismal light. When Antipater perceived that
fear was Hyrcanus' predominant feeling, his first care
was to secure an asylum where that timid prince might
feel himself safe from the heavy hand of his brother. This
asylum he succeeded in obtaining with Aretas, King of the
Arabs, residing in Petra, whom he visited in person, and
whence he returned to Jerusalem with such despatch and
privacy, that he came back before his absence had been
suspected.
He then began to work upon Hyrcanus' fears by the
assurance that his life was in immediate danger, and that
unless he at once escaped nothing could save him. His
remonstrances were seconded by several of Hyrcanus'
friends, who declared that they shared the danger ; that
their lives depended on his safety ; that he was the choice
of the people, who would not fail to rally in his cause as
soon as his person was known to be beyond the immediate
reach of his brother's power. All these importunities so
completely bewildered the imbecile Hyrcanus, that he lost
all power of will and of action. Antipater, who had reason
to dread that his treasonable design could not much longer
remain concealed from Aristobulus, and who therefore was
himself actuated by the very fear with which he had laboured
so hard to inoculate Hyrcanus, took advantage of the pros-
trate condition of that hapless prince, and carried him off
by night, and almost by force, from Jerusalem. Every pre-
paration had quietly been made to insure rapidity of loco-
178 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
motion ; and the passive Hyrcanus allowed himself to be
hurried along, almost -without resting, until he reached
Petra.
It is probable that on his previous visit to the king of
the Arabs, Antipater had asked for no more than an
asylum for Hyrcanus, whose life, he averred, was threatened
by his brother, the usurper of his crown. But when the
legitimate sovereign of Judea was present to ratify en-
gagements which his minister might contract, Antipater
began to treat with A r etas for his co-operation to restore
Hyrcanus to the throne. The Jewish negotiator stated that
his master had numerous adherents, and that a powerful
party in Judea would be sure to declare for him as soon as
he could appear at the head of an army ; that Hyrcanus was
a man of mild, peaceable disposition, who would in no case
attack or molest his neighbours : while Aristobulus resem-
bled his father Jannai, from whose activity and enterprise
the Arabs had already suifered so much ; that the usurper
had been prevented from carrying out his father's plans
of conquest solely by the necessity of watching the party
of Hyrcanus, and of keeping his forces at home and in
readiness to suppress any rising on the part of his brother's
adherents ; that under these circumstances it was mani-
festly the interest of Aretas to help Hyrcanus to regain
his crown, especially as Hyrcanus was willing to pay
liberally for effectual aid.
Aretas listened favourably to these representations; and
a treaty was concluded, by which the king of the Arabs
engaged to lead the king of Judea back to Jerusalem at
the head of an efficient army, and the king of Judea un-
dertook to restore to the king of the Arabs twelve consider-
able fortified cities on the southern and eastern frontiers
of Judea, which King Jannai had conquered and reunited
to the original possessions of Israel. Thus the very first
act in the political and administrative career of Antipater,
THE ASMONEANS. 179
fully Indicated the spirit and policy of the Herodian dy-
nasty, which looked for support to foreigners, and was
ever ready to sacrifice to its own private advancement the
best Interests of Judea.
Aretas acted up to his engagement, raised an army. It
is said of fifty thousand men, Invaded Judea, and proclaimed
himself the auxiliary and champion of the legitimate king,
Hyrcanus, and as such, an enemy of the usurper Aristobulus,
but not of the Jewish nation. The partisans of Hyrcanus
flocked to his standard, while Aristobulus, taken by sur-
prise, was but ill prepared to encounter such an Invasion.
But the veterans of King Jannal despised the Arabs whom
they had so often defeated ; and Aristobulus readily com-
plied with their loudly-expressed desire to be at once led
against the enemy.
In his eagerness, however, he overlooked the fact that
the Arabs had been joined by numbers of Jews, who would
fight with all the rage of party zeal and of sectarian ran-
cour. His forces boldly met the Arabs and their auxilia-
ries the Hyrcanlsts ; but after a long and obstinate fight
the greater number prevailed, and Aristobulus was de-
feated with great loss. He retreated to Jerusalem, and
was closely pursued by Aretas, who presented himself be-
fore the gates and demanded admission as the ally of the
lawful sovereign of Judea. The adherents of Hyrcanus
in the city rose ; the mass of the citizens, awed by the nu-
merous forces that threatened to besiege them, offered no
resistance ; the gates were thrown open, and Aretas, at the
head of his Arabs, entered the city of Jerusalem without
opposition. Aristobulus, with the few troops that had
escaped from the battle, retreated within the fortifications
of the temple ; the priests and his principal Sadducee ad-
herents joined him, and prepared to defend him and them-
selves to the utmost ; while the populace, under the In-
fluence of the Pharisees, declared for Hyrcanus and lent
180 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
their aid to Arctas, ^vho at once laid siege to the temple
mount.
This sudden change in the affairs of Judea took place
in the early part of spring, and shortly before the great
annual festival of the Passover, the. due celebration of which
made it imperative on the greater part of the male
population of Judea to appear at the temple. But as,
under the existing state of things, this became impossible,
many eminent inhabitants of Judea retired to Egypt to
celebrate the Passover in the temjile built by Onias, and
which thus obtained the recognition that until then had
been denied to it by the Judeans. As those who were
besieged within the temple of Jerusalem had neither lambs
nor other animals required for the sacrifices of the fes-
val, Aristobulus applied to the besiegers to supply him
with the necessary number, so that the public offerings
might not be interrupted. The besiegers agreed so to do,
on condition that he should pay one thousand drachms of
silver for every head of cattle, and that they should re-
ceive the money before they delivered the animals. Aris-
tobulus consented, and the money was let down to the
besiegers by a cord from the top of the wall that encom-
passed the temple mount. But the thieving Arabs had no
sooner received the money than, instead of furnishing the
animals as agreed, they began to deride the Jews in the
temple^^ for their folly in parting with their money for
i** A Talmudic legend relates that the besiegers fiiruisheJ the besieged
with two lambs every day, one for the continual ofiFering in the morning,
and the second for the evening offering ; and that these lambs were hoisted
up to the temple mount in a basket, which the besieged lowered with tho
payment agreed upon. After this had been done several days, a man,
well versed in Greek mythology, advised the besiegers to put a swine instead
of a lamb into the basket. Ilis advice was adopted, and the impure animal
had nearly reached the summit of the temple wall before the imposition was
discovered. This gave rise to a decree which anathematized the raising of
swine in Judea, and the teaching of Greek mythology to Jewish children.
THE ASMONEANS. 181
notliing. The priests, filled with grief at the interruption
of the public worship, and mortified at the dishonesty and
want of faith of the besiegers, went before the altar, and,
in lieu of sacrifices, oifered up their prayers that the Lord
would speedily punish the perfidious foes for their con-
tempt of his worship.
Another "crime, greater and still more atrocious, because
committed by Jews, likewise disgraced the progress of the
siege. There lived, at that time, a man in Jerusalem of
advanced age and great piety, named Hlionia Hamangol,
'< Onias of the circle," to whose prayers unfailing efficacy
and power was ascribed.^" He had retired from Jerusa-
lem and taken refuge in one of the caverns near the city,
where some of the most violent of the Hyrcanists laid hold
of him, dragged him by main force to the siege, and
insisted upon his offering prayers to God for the destruc-
tion of King Aristobulus and his adherents. He resisted
a long time, till, worn out by their threats and importu-
nities, he lifted up his hands to heaven and prayed, " Lord
God of Israel, sovereign ruler of the universe, those that
besiege thy temple are thy people, and those that are
besieged within it are thy priests. Therefore, I beseech
thee. Lord ! do not hear either side when they pray
against each other," He had scarcely pronounced this
brief and most patriotic supplication, before the exaspe-
" On one occasion of long and grievous drought, when famine threatened
the land, and public fasts and prayers had been repeated in vain, Hhonia
traced a circle in the ground, entered within it, and continued his prayers
incessantly, until an abundant fall of rain refreshed the parched land and
averted the impending calamity. From this circumstance he obtained tlie
surname of Hamangol, "of the circle," which attested the efiScacy of his
prayers. The Sanhedrin does not seem to have altogether approved of his
mode of praying, as it is recorded that Simon the son of Shetahh sent a
messenger to tell him in the name of that i\^as?", (president,) "If thou
wert not Hhonia, I should have excommunicated thee." (Talmud, tr.
Taanith, fo. 23.)
Vol. II. 16
182 POST-BICLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
rated multitude let fly at him such volleys of stones, as
killed him on the spot.
Joscphus (Antiq. lib. xiv. cap. 2-4,) remarks that mis-
deeds so heinous called for speedy punishment ; and as the
crimes had been twofold, the chastisement with which the
people were visited was likewise twofold. An awful storm,
shortly after the murder of Ilhonia, destroyed all the fruit
and grain throughout Judea, so that a measure of wheat
sold for eleven drachms of silver, and all the people suf-
fered grievously from famine. The second punishment,
however, was far more fatal. The Romans interfered in
the affairs of Judea with a strong hand, and successively
subdued the country, destroyed the city and temple, and
dispersed the Jewish people, who have never since been
able to recover the land promised to Abraham, Isaac, or
Jacob, or to reconstruct the body politic of Israel.
The adherents of Aristobulus throughout Judea who had
not been able to join him previous to his hasty and ill-
advised attack on the invaders, and who had, at first, been
completely overwhelmed by the sudden and calamitous
progress of events, gradually began to rally ; and as, to
their great joy, they found that the temple was stoutly
defended, they determined to strain every nerve in order
to succour their king before he should be reduced to ex-
tremity. The mass of the people, upbraiding Hyrcanus'
faction for having brought an army of foreign marauders
into the land, and exasperated at the interruption of the
temple-worship and at the insult offered to religion, also
began to take up arms in the cause of Aristobulus. A
considerable force was thus collected and on the point of
marching to Jerusalem, in order to raise the siege of the
temple, to expel the foreign invaders, and to punish the
traitors that had invited them. The advance of this
army, however, as well as the siege operations of Aretas
and his auxiliaries, were suddenly arrested by tlie start-
THE ASMONEANS. 183
ling intelligence that a Roman army had taken possession
of Damascus and was approaching the borders of Judea,
with the declared intention of putting down the disturb-
ances in that country. The chiefs of the two Jewish
factions felt the importance of securing the 'good graces
of these powerful arbitrators ; and ambassadors from Hyr-
canus, as well as from Aristobulus, presented themselves
before the officers who commanded the Roman troops,
advancing from Damascus toward Judea.
The wars so long waged against Mithridates had at
length been successfully brought to a close. That mo-
narch, expelled from his dominions, had sought refuge with
his ally and son-in-law, Tigranes, who, by his refusal to
surrender the fugitive, had brought upon himself the ir-
resistible arms of the Romans. They soon reduced the
king of Armenia nearly to a level with the ex-king of
Pontus. Tigranes's army was routed; his proud capital,
Tigranocerta, taken and plundered ; and he himself, alto-
gether unattended and anxious only for the safety of his
person, had escaped to dark lurking-places in the northern
and roughest parts of Armenia. There he was found by
Mithridates, who had not been present at the rout of the
Armenian army, and who now shared with his vanquished
son-in-law, his own guards and every other supply with
which he was furnished. His advice and sympathy en-
couraged Tigranes to endeavour in some measure to re-
trieve his affairs by raising another army, while both the
kings joined in humbly soliciting aid from the Parthians,
which they did not obtain.
■ But Lucullus, the Roman general whose valour and skill
had reduced these two powerful kings to so abject a con-
dition, was now to encounter a more formidable foe, in the
disaffection of his own troops. They who had been the
instruments of his glory, became the tools used for his dis-
grace. Lucullus had on more occasions than one during
184 rOST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
Lis command in the east, restrained the extortion of tax-
gatherers, set bounds to the exorbitancy of usm-ers — some
of them of the highest rank — and resisted the corruption
of judges and the chicanery of lawyers, who, like vultures,
had flocked from Rome into the newly-conquered provinces
to fatten upon their life-blood. By these means, however,
he had roused and combined against himself the bitter
rancour of all who were concerned in these abuses, and
particularly the keen resentment of the whole body of
Roman knights, who farmed the revenues of the provinces.
The clamours they raised against him gained strength and
effect from the unhappy circumstances of the times. In
the progress of luxury and selfishness, fomented and fed by
an accumulation of external advantages, the Romans had
arrived at a most corrupt and degraded state of society.
Men of real worth were so few and so little inclined to
pander to the passions of the populace, that unprincipled
egotists, who assumed the semblance of virtue as a gainful
art, acquired unbounded popularity, and became the fond
idols of profligate and wrong-headed votaries.
An idol of this kind public partiality had erected in the
person of Cneius Pompeius, a favourite of Sylla, who for
his successes in Italy, Sicily, Gaul, and Africa, had saluted
him with the title of Great, before his twenty-fifth year.
Popular favour had granted him the honours of a public
triumph, while he had yet reached no higher civil dignity
than that of a knight, and had gained his victories not
over foreign enemies, but over domestic rebels. He had
been Consul jointly with Crassus, of whom hereafter we
shall have occasion to say more, in the same year that
Lucullus defeated Tigranes : and his emissaries had sown
the seeds of disaffection so successfully in the minds of the
army in Asia, that the troops of Lucullus refused any longer
to obey that commander, and declared that they would
follow no leader except the great and generous Pompeius.
THE ASMONEANS. 185
The king of Pontus, then in his sixty-ninth year, but
watchful, active, and enterprising as ever, soon became
acquainted with the disaffection and disobedience that pre-
vailed in the Roman army, and at once turned it to his
own advantage by suddenly making an inroad into his
own hereditary kingdom, and defeating the lieutenant of
Lucullus Avith great slaughter. The enemies of that com-
mander raised an outcry against him, and eventually suc-
ceeded in getting him recalled, and his command transfer-
red to Pompeius, with powers such as till then had never
been confided to any Roman general.
He had shortly before been appointed to head an arma-
ment against the pirates of Cilicia ; and to give the great-
est possible efficacy to his operations, he was entrusted
with supreme authority during three years, over all the
seas navigated by the Romans, and all the shores subject
to their sway to the distance of fifty miles inland. He
was to be furnished with five hundred galleys ; one hun-
dred and twenty thousand sailors, soldiers, and marines ;
a body of five thousand horse ; six thousand talents (equal
to six millions of dollars) in ready money, and an unlimited
command over the Roman treasures throughout all their
territories. His success had been equal to the vastness
of his means. In one single campaign he effectually sub-
dued the pirates, sunk three hundred and seventy-eight
of their galleys, destroyed one hundred and twenty of
their harbours and strongholds, and forever broke their
power.
The whole of his vast forces flushed with victory, he
now joined to the armies that had been commanded by
Lucullus, and found it easy to complete what that ill-re-
warded general had so well begun — the subjugation of Mi-
thridates and Tigranes. The former of these two kings,
outmanoeuvred by the generalship and overwhelmed by the
numbers of the Romans, was once more and irretrievably
16*
186 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
dispossessed of his dominions ; while Tigranes, as abject
in adversity as he had been insolent in prosperity, suc-
cumbed to the terror that preceded Pompey, and submitted
to the terms which that conqueror was pleased to dictate,
and which transferred to the Romans the entire kingdom
of Syria, the ancient heritage of the Seleucidae, but whom
the Syrians themselves had expelled fourteen years previ-
ously, when they elected Tigranes. The Roman chief,
whose personal presence was required in the lesser Ar-
menia, sent his lieutenants Scaurus and Gabinius on before
him to occupy Antioch and Damascus, the ancient seats
of the royal house of the Seleucus.
Before these commanders of the Romans, the ambassa-
dors both of Aristobulus and Hyrcanus presented them-
selves, both equally eager to secure the favour of the Ro-
mans. But that favour was only to be obtained at the
price of hard cash. And Aristobulus, who held the temple
and all its rich treasury, possessed advantages against
which poor Hyrcanus could not contend. He could only
afford promises, while his competitor gave ready money.
Moreover, the Romans deemed it much easier to frighten
away the besieging Arabs for Aristobulus, than to take so
strong a fortress as the temple for Hyrcanus. For the
price of four hundred talents (about four hundred thousand
dollars) paid to Scaurus, and of a sum variously estimated
at from one hundred to three hundred talents (one hundred
thousand to three hundred thousand dollars) to his col-
league, Gabinius, a letter was granted by Scaurus com-
manding Aretas to abandon the siege and to quit Judea,
under the threat that in the event of his refusal the Roman
arms would at once be turned against him.
Aretas was not in a condition to disobey the haughty
orders of the Roman. The siege Avas progressing slowly.
The forces which had been raised by the adherents of
Aristobulus would of themselves have been enough to give
THE ASMONEANS. 187
full occupation to Aretas and the Hyi'canists : the garrison
of the temple, encouraged by the approaching succour of
friends, was ready at the shortest notice for a desperate
effort against the besiegers ; and when to all this we add
the terror of the Roman name, it is not surprising that
Aretas at once raised the siege and began his retreat, car-
rying Hyrcanus and Antipater along with him.
But though Scaurus had interdicted all further hostilities
on the part of the Arabs, he had not extended the same
prohibition to the Jews. The siege of the temple had no
sooner been raised, than Aristobulus sallied forth with the
garrison and hastened to put himself at the head of the
army which his adherents had raised, and which Avas en-
camped at no great distance from Jerusalem. Eager to be
revenged for his own defeat, and for the insult offered to
the worship of the temple, the king of Judea hurried his
army onward in pursuit of the Arabs, whom he overtook,
attacked, and defeated with great slaughter, at a place called
Papyrion. Seven thousand Arabs were slain, and with
them Cephallon, the brother of Antipater.
Doubtless one motive of Aristobulus' impetuous on-
slaught on the retreating invaders, was to obtain possession
of the persons of Hyrcanus and his chief counsellor Anti-
pater. In this, however, he was disappointed, as the pru-
dent Idumean had taken timely care of himself and of his
master. Aristobulus returned victorious to Jerusalem ;
and the spoil of the Arabs offered the victors some com-
pensation for the loss Judea had sustained through the in-
vasion. Josephus gives it as his opinion, that, had the Ro-
mans not interfered to save him, Aristobulus must have
succumbed to Hyrcanus and his Arab ally. This opinion,
however, seems but little borne out by facts, when we con-
sider first, how completely Aretas was overthrown by the
Jews ; and next, how vigorously the temple was defended
188 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
against the Romans under Pompey, assailants far more
formidable than Aretas and his Arabs.
The king of Judea was not destined long to enjoy his
triumph. Pompey in person arrived at Antioch, whence
he subsequently proceeded to Damascus. His victory over
Tigranes had made him master of all Syria, and had trans-
ferred to Rome all the rights possessed by the king of
Armenia, and of which Pompey did not hesitate to avail
himself. Ambassadors from the neighbouring kings and
pretenders appeared to offer the homage of their masters
to the great Roman, and to lay at his feet the magnificent
presents with which each of them was charged.
From Egypt came a gold crown of great value. Aris-
tobulus sent a golden vine upon a square mount of the
same precious metal. The branches, leaves, and fruit of
the vine, were most skilfully worked ; and on the mount,
deer, lions, and other animals of considerable size, sported
in life-like attitudes. The whole of this curious and taste-
ful piece had been made by order of Jannai, for what pur-
pose is not known. Pompey sent it on to Rome, where it
was seen by Strabo among the treasures in the temple of
Jupiter on the capitol. He relates that it was valued at
500 talents, (about half a million of dollars,) and that the
only inscription it bore was, "Alexander, King of the
Jews." (Strabo apud Jos. Antiq. lib. xiv cap. 4.) It ap-
pears that after Pompey had decided against Aristobulus,
the Roman senate determined not in any way to recognise
him as king ; but at the same time they were equally de-
termined not to return his valuable and beautiful present.
Therefore, in order to avoid naming the unfortunate donor,
they inscribed on the gift the name of his father, Jannai,
who had been the hereditary ally of Rome, but whose in-
tercourse with the mighty commonwealth had carried with
it no presents so costly.
At this congress of ambassadors, Aristobulus was repre-
THE ASMONEANS. 189
sented by Nicodemus, who had ah^eady successfully nego-
tiated for him with Scaurus and Gabinius, while Ilyrcanus
was represented by the indefatigable Antipater. This
acute observer of the times had no sooner discovered the
inability of Aretas to uphold the cause of his master Hyr-
canus, than all his efforts were directed to ingratiate him-
self with the Romans, and especially to gain the favour
of the vainglorious Pompey. He had nothing to offer but
promises, and of these his liberality was boundless. Ni-
codemus, who was indebted for his previous success to the
'present weight of his reasons, contrasted against the un-
certain future held out by Antipater, was naturally more
circumspect and less prone to make offers that would have
to be realized instanter. After he had presented his vine,
he thought that nothing further could possibly be required
from his master.
But he soon found out his mistake. The Romans were
become so corrupt, that even those among them who still
preserved some outward show of self-respect, were insatiable
of gold. Cicero's letters have preserved to us ample proof
that the "noble Brutus" — even Marcus Junius Brutus,
ultimus Romanorum, "the last of the Romans" — was a
common and exacting usurer ; and that the great Pompey
was an equally greedy extortioner. [Oic. ad Atticus, lib.
V. epist. xxi. lib. vi. epist. i. ii.) The hundreds of talents
which had already been paid to Scaurus and Gabinius
ought, according to the opinion of Nicodemus, to have se-
cured the success of his mission. But of these sums none
had reached Pompey. The vine, though a most magnifi-
cent present, was intended for the republic, not for the
general-in-chief.
Moreover, ready money was more productive at the mo-
derate interest of forty-eight per cent, per annum, payable
monthly, that these noble Romans were in the habit of
exacting from those provinces in Asia which the war-con-
190 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
tributions imposed by themselves, bad reduced to the ne-
cessity of borrowing money on any terms. Nicodemus was
therefore pretty plainly informed that money was useful
and must be forthcoming. In a moment of anger the poor
Jew was ill-advised enough to upbraid the two Roman
chiefs, in the hearing of their great commander, with the
sums of money which they had already received, and which,
as he insinuated, had been given to them — Scaurus and
Gabinius — not for themselves alone. The consequence of
these ill-timed remarks was to irritate these two lieutenants
and confidants of Pompey ; and the ever-watchful Anti-
pater soon contrived to convert their irritation into decided
enmity against Aristobulus, and to secure their influence
with Pompey in favour of Hyrcanus, or rather, as the event
proved, of himself.
The Roman general had hitherto carried himself with
great fairness between the two contending brothers, had
listened to each ambassador with equal attention, and had
finally decreed that Hyrcanus and Aristobulus should both
appear in person and plead their cause before him at Da-
mascus, early in the ensuing year, (63 B.C. E.,) when he
promised to decide the controversy as justice should direct.
But though his carriage and expressions were seemingly
fair, his conduct, biassed by Scaurus and Gabinius, became
partial. The fourth book of Maccabees tells us, (ch. xxxviii.)
that at the farewell audience which he granted to Nicode-
mus, Pompey actually promised that he would decide in
favour of Aristobulus ; but underhand he acted in favour
of Hyrcanus.
The order to appear in person before Pompey, was con-
sidered by Aristobulus as degrading to himself and dan-
gerous to the independence of Judea. The haughty man-
ner in which Pompey treated the last heir of Seleucus Ni-
cator, who was not only stripped of the remnant of his an-
cestral possessions, but grossly insulted, was not at all cal-
THE ASMONEANS. 191
Ciliated to reconcile the heir of the Maccabees to the hu-
miliation of dancing attendance before the pretorian tri-
bunal of a haughty Roman. But the entreaties of his
friends, and the advice of his most influential counsellors
prevailed over his own personal repugnance, and Aristo-
bulus presented himself before the self-constituted umpire
of the long-pending dispute. In reply to Hyrcanus, who
rested his claims on the right of the elder, and denounced
his brother as a usurper, Aristobulus urged necessity,
arising from the want of all capability on the part of Hyr-
canus. His plea was brief and haughty: '< I have already
reigned several years," said he, "by the will of my people.
And though my brother be the elder, I am forced to wear
the crown in self-protection, because his mental weakness
and imbecility are well known, and render him utterly in-
capable of governing ! ' ' This, probably, was the very worst
plea he could have advanced ; for imbecility of character,
in the princes under their control, was far from being
deemed any disqualification by the Romans, who had their
own selfish ends to serve.
Beside these two claimants of the crown, a third party,
undesired by either of the others, and equally hostile to
both, appeared in the persons of many Jews of high con-
sideration, who pleaded against the descendants of Jo-
chanan Hyrcanus I., that in order to enslave a free people
they had changed the form of government from pontifical
to regal, contrary to ancient law and usage. But though
Pompey, who heard them all with patience, had in his own
mind decided the controversy, he still hesitated to pro-
nounce his decision. He was preparing an expedition
against Aretas, King of the Arabs, and deemed it of im-
portance that no impediment to the advance of his legions
should be thrown in their way by Aristobulus, who might
have closed the difficult mountain passes against them.
The Roman general therefore declared that he would ad-
102 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
journ his decision, and that after his return from his
march against Aretas, he -woukl himself visit Jerusalem,
and there pronounce judgment between all the contending
parties.
The motives which actuated Pompej were too evi-
dent to escape the penetration of Aristobulus, who, more-
over, had no wish to receive Pompey in Jerusalem, and
had not invited him to come there. The king of Judea,
therefore, determined at once to return to his own country,
and to prepare for defending his cause by arms ; and so
enraged was he with the supercilious hauteur of the Ro-
man, that he left Damascus without taking leave of Pom-
pey. Perhaps Aristobulus calculated on the possibility
of making common cause with his late enemy Aretas,
against whom the Romans were about to march. But in
this expectation he was disappointed. Aretas sent his
humble submission and presents to Pompey ;'^ and as the
Arab ambassadors arrived shortly after the abrupt de-
parture of Aristobulus, the Roman general was at liberty
to employ against Judea the expedition he had prepared
against Petra.
Pompey professed to be greatly offended at the depart-
ure of Aristobulus, though in reality, the inconsiderate
conduct of the Judcan was most advantageous to the far-
reaching policy of Rome. As Tigranes, King of Armenia
18 We have followed Josephus, supported by Plutarch, who relates that
Pompey did not march into Arabia until he had taken Jerusalem and set-
tled the affairs of Judea. But Appian and Dion Cassius both relate that
Pompey did not advance against Judea till after he had subdued Aretas.
"After having regulated matters in Syria and Phoenicia," says Dion,
"Pompey marched against the king of the Arabs, whose dominions ex-
tending to the Red Sea, now form part of the Roman territory. This king
and his neighbours he without difSculty reduced to subjection, and placed
garrisons in their strongholds. From (hence he mai'ched against Syria-
Palestine, which was divided between the two brothei's, Hyrcanus and
Anstobiihi^'." (Din. lib xxsviii. p.- 1121.)
THE ASMONEANS. 193
and Syria, had never possessed any part of the Asmonean
monarchy, Pompey, who claimed to be the successor to the
rights of Tigranes, had no fair pretence for annexing that
important southern district to his new province of Syria.
But the contumacious flight of Aristobulus, so insulting to
Rome and its representative, called for punishment ; and
that punishment could be so administered as to compensate
Rome for the trouble of marching her legions against Je-
rusalem, even while the cause of Hyrcanus was upheld.
Pompey collected the troops he had in Syria. Antipater
oflered the services of the Hyrcanists to facilitate the ad-
vance and progress of the legions, while he himself re-
mained with them, acting as their guide ; and the feeble
Hyrcanus, at his bidding, for the second time followed in
the wake of foreign invaders, let loose against his country
under the pretext of maintaining his rights. (63 b. c. e.)
Vol. II. 17
BOOK IV.
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA.
CHAPTER XIII.
Pompey's treachery : Aristobulus a prisoner — Hyrcanus received into Je-
rusalem— Siege and capture of the temple — The observance of the
Sabbath — Judea becomes tributary to Rome — Hyrcanus, stripped of
royalty, is recognised as high-priest ; and Aristobulus, a prisoner, is car-
ried to Italy — Fortifications of Jerusalem demolished — Pompey enters
the sanctuary of the temple : orders the pubUc worship to be restored :
his return to Rome and triumph — Cicero hostile to the Jews : his ora-
tion in defence of Flaccus — Escape of the Asmoneans from Rome — Ci-
vil vrar in Judea — Alexander — Aristobulus — Crassus plunders the tem-
ple— His campaigns against the Parthians : his defeat and death — Civil
war between Pompey and Caesar — Death of Aristobulus : of Alexander
— Battle of Pharsalia — Defeat and miserable death of Pompey — Hyrcanus
declares for the victor. — (From 63 to 48 b. c. e.)
The Roman legions, guided by Antipater, first entered
and took possession of the territories east of Jordan,
where Pompey fixed his head-quarters at Pella, subse-
quently the seat of the first Christian bishops of Jerusa-
lem. In addition to the Roman regulars, a great number
of Syrian and other auxiliaries followed his standard ; and
though historians have not preserved to us the exact num-
ber of warriors that Pompey led against Jerusalem, a cir-
cumstance casually introduced by a Roman writer, in a
non-historical work, will enable us to form some idea on
the subject. Speaking of the great wealth of many Asiatic
landowners of that period, Pliny, among several others,
names a certain Ptolemy, "who, at a banquet, entertained
194
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 195
one tlioiisand guests, setting out a dinner service of gold
sufficient for them all, and plates changed at every course,"
"and who," according to the historian Varro, "during the
war of Pompey against the Jews, maintained 8000 men,
cavalry, as Roman auxiliaries, at his own expense." (Plin.
lib. xxiii. cap. x.)
From Pella the Roman general marched to the Jordan,
crossed that river, and encamped at the town of Corea.
Near that town Aristobulus had stationed himself in the
strong fortress of Alexandrion, upon the road between
Jericho and Jerusalem, and well situated to defend the
approach to the Jewish metropolis.
During the months intervening between his abrupt de-
parture from Damascus and the approach of Pompey, the
king of Judea, seconded by his faithful adherents, had used
every exertion to prepare for a vigorous defence. His
fortresses, especially the temple of Jerusalem, were well
provisioned and strongly garrisoned ; and at Alexandrion
he himself commanded a considerable body of troops. But
the breaking out of hostilities was still delayed ; for though
Pompey in his own mind had determined to ruin Aristo-
bulus, and had proclaimed himself the ally of Hyrcanus, the
Roman general nevertheless persevered in that ambiguous
policy which was habitual to Rome.
He seemed to remain open to negotiation with the
prince, who, during six years, had been recognised as king
of Judea; and pursued a line of conduct admirably de-
scribed by the sagacious Montesquieu: "Whenever civil
dissensions broke out in any kingdom, the Romans at once
set themselves up as judges, by which means they made sure
of having against them only that party or faction against
"which they had decided. If princes of the same dynasty
advanced conflicting claims to the crown, the Romans
sometimes declared each of the claimants to be king, for
they had pushed matters to that point that nations as well
196 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
as kings were become subject to the Roman commonwealth,
without exactly knowing why or by what right. To have
heard of the senate, was deemed enough to entitle that irre-
sistible body to exercise its authority." [Crrandeur et De-
cadence des Romains. ch. vi.) So long as the strongest
fortresses and most "important military points throughout
the country were in the hands of Aristobulus, Pompey was
desirous to avoid a general rising of the entire Jewish na-
tion. His professions, accordingly, were those of a well-
meaning ally, and it was in this character that, as soon
as he arrived at Corea, and ascertained that Aristobulus
was at no great distance from him, he invited the king of
Judca to an interview.
Aristobulus was too clear-sighted to be deceived by the
professions of Pompey. He would therefore have declined
the invitation, but those that were about him prevailed
upon him not to throw away the last chance of an ami-
cable arrangement. He was forced to yield, and several
interviews took place, at which the king spared neither
compliments, promises, nor presents to engage the Roman
general on his side. But at each interview Pompey be-
came more exacting, and Aristobulus more agitated by
rage and fear. His pride could not reconcile itself to the
idea of submitting to the harsh and imperious dictation of
a foreign commander ; at the same time the downcast looks
of his most faithful counsellors, the vastness of the Roman
armament, and the internal dissensions of the Jews, led
him to fear the complete success of the machinations of
Antipater, the man whom of all others he most detested.
This inward struggle imparted to his conduct a charac-
ter of vacillation and inconsistency that exposed him to
contempt as well as censure. It is related that he repeat-
edly quitted Alexandrion with the intention of repairing
to the Roman camp and submitting to the terms exacted
by Pompey ; but that half-way he altered his mind and re-
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 197
traced his steps, lest he should be condemned by public
opinion for having yielded too soon. At length Pompcy
grew tired of the loss of time occasioned by the tergiver-
sation of Aristobulus, and seized on the opportunity aflFord-
ed by a visit of the king of the Jews, to require that all
the fortified towns and strongholds of Judea should be put
into the hands of the Romans, and that Aristobulus should
then and there issue written orders to all the governors and
commanders in these fortresses to surrender at once and
without resistance. Aristobulus in vain remonstrated, and
reminded Pompey of his plighted word which had accom-
panied the summons to visit the Roman camp, and which
assured the king of Judea of perfect freedom to come and
go. Pompey would not listen, and Aristobulus, alarmed
for his personal safety, was obliged to yield, and to issue
the orders for the unconditional surrender of all his fort-
resses into the hands of Pompey.
And here the authorities diifer. According to Josephus,
(Ant. lib. xvi. cap. 6,) Aristobulus, as soon as he was permit-
ted to quit the Roman camp, fled with all speed to Jerusa-
lem, with the full resolution to defeat in part, at least,
the treacherous design of the Roman, and to prevent the
surrender of the metropolis. But according to Dion Cas-
sius, (lib. xxxvii.,) the Jewish king, after having subscribed
the order for the surrender of his fortresses, was not per-
mitted to quit the Roman camp, but was retained as a pri-
soner and loaded with chains.
Whichever of these two accounts be the correct one —
and we are inclined to prefer that of Dion Cassius — the
stigma of foul treachery remains branded on the name of
Pompcy. By treachery and the breach of his solemn
promise, he obtained possession of the strongholds in Ju-
dea ; and he seized on the person of Aristobulus by an act
of perfidy which nothing can justify, even if we adopt the
account of Josephus, as will presently be told. The Ro-
17*
198 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
man historian Tacitus, speaking of this invasion of Judea
by Pompey, uses the proud expression, ^' Momanorum pri-
mus, Cn. Ponipeius Judeos domuit" — "Cn. Pompeius was
the first Roman who tamed the Jews." (Hist. lib. v. § ix.)
But the impartial voice of posterity refuses to allow the
haughty claim. Pompey took advantage of the intestine
divisions of the Jews to enter their country as the ally of
their lawful prince, and marked every step of his progress
with perfidy, treachery, and deceit; and finally, in the
name of peace and of his ally Hyrcanus, he without oppo-
sition appropriated to himself the greater part of the Jew-
ish territory. Conduct like this must be designated by a
word very different from tanning. That conveys the idea
of superiority acquired by force ; whereas Pompey cheated
the Jews in peace and in war, while in fair fight he could
■gain no advantage over them.
When Pompey, by means of the written orders extorted
from Aristobulus, had obtained possession of several fort-
resses that secured his line of communication and of re-
treat, he determined to march against Jerusalem. He
had advanced as far as the plain of Jericho, and was about
to form an encampment, when the labours of his troops
were suspended by the sight of horsemen approaching
them with great speed, their spears entwined with laurels.
These were messengers from Pontus, bringing to Pompey
the first tidings of the death of Mithridates. Eager to
learn the good news from the mouth of their general, the
legionaries, instead of waiting to raise, after the usual
manner, a tribunal composed of solid earth, piled hastily
their packsaddles and baggage into a suggestum or pulpit,
from whence Pompey announced to them the tragic end
of their formidable enemy.
After his defeat and expulsion from his kingdom of
Pontus, Mithridates had fortified himself in the Taurian
peninsula, (the present Crimea.) Collecting around him
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 199
numerous hordes of Scythians, and extending his alliance
to the fierce German nations between the Danube and the
Vistula, he prepared to carry the Avar into Italy ; a plan
which a century before him had been formed by the king
of Macedon, who had learned from Hannibal the Cartha-
ginian which was the weak point of the Roman power.
But the followers of Mithridates were terror-stricken at
the vastness of his designs ; his own sons conspired against
him ; and the great king, in the seventy-third year of his
age, was driven to commit suicide. Cicero styled him "the
greatest of kings, next to Alexander," (Academ. lib. ii.
cap. i. ;) and the joy with which the tidings of his death
were received throughout the Roman world, was the most
eloquent funeral oration that could be pronounced over
him by his enemies. In the camp of Pompey the news
diffused general joy, for, according to Roman maxims, the
destruction of a hostile king seemed essential to the con-
clusion of a war. Accordingly, the whole remainder of the
day was spent in congratulations and festivity ; and the
next morning had far advanced before the legions resumed
their march toward Jerusalem, and soon arrived in sight
of that celebrated and most important metropolis of the
East.
That was a great day in the annals of the human race,
on which Jerusalem and Rome for the first time stood face
to face. Then began that conflict, which during the first
two centuries was national, military, and physical ; but
which since then, assuming a diiferent, a spiritual character,
has unceasingly continued, calling forth the utmost exer-
tions of mental and moral power, so evenly balanced that
even now, after a lapse of eighteen centuries, it is impos-
sible to decide which symbol has deserved best of mankind,
which of the two has evinced the strongest innate principle
of life, while each alike aspires to, and entertains hopes
of, the glories of the final victory.
200 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
Pompey pitched his tent on the mountain of Olives,
from whence his eye could embrace the whole extent of the
city. According to Josephus, Aristobulus II., in person,
held the command in Jerusalem ; but, as we have before
stated, according to .Dion Cassius, that king already lan-
guished in chains within the camp of the Roman. Jeru-
salem itself was in a state of the greatest excitement. We
follow Josephus in stating that the partisans of Ilyrcanus,
who formed the great majority of the populace, with the
Pharisees and a great number of the senators at their
head, did not conceal their joy at the approach of their
allies, the Romans, and insisted upon the city gates being
opened to the powerful auxiliaries of their legitimate king.
The adherents of Aristobulus, though less numerous,
were far more powerful. The priests, who had witnessed
the solemn compact sworn to by the two brothers, and who
charged Ilyrcanus with perjury ; the veteran warriors of
Jannai, determined to defend the independence of Judea
to the utmost ; the Sadducees, who dreaded the return to
power of Ilyrcanus and his Pharisee advisers — all these
men, whom the people had long been accustomed to re-
spect and obey, adhered firmly to Aristobulus. But even
they, dreading the last extremity, were urgent with their
king to renew his eflforts for peace with the Roman. Aris-
tobulus himself, who from the lofty summit of the temple-
mount could see the vast extent of the lines of the Roman
host and their formidable preparations, felt his heart fail
within him at the thought of standing opposed, single-handed,
to the conquerors and masters of the world. As yet, no
blood had been shed ; and thinking it possible, even at this
the latest moment, to buy off the greedy Romans, the un-
fortunate Aristobulus yielded to the entreaties of his best
friends, and once more entered the Roman camp.
Admitted to the presence of Pompeius, the king of Judea
threw himself at the feet of the Roman general, and with
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 201
tears in his eyes entreated him to forbear any hostilities
against the Jewish nation, promising him a considerable
sum of money on condition of his withdrawing his forces
from before Jerusalem. Pompey, as if he agreed to the
proposal, despatched Gabinius, at the head of a body of
troops, to command, in the name of Aristobulus, that the
gates of Jerusalem be forthwith opened and the sum of
money paid which the king had offered. But Gabinius
produced no orders in writing from Aristobulus, nor was
that hapless prince permitted to quit the camp of Pompey.
The consequence was, that when Gabinius delivered his sum-
mons, which he stated was the result of a treaty between
his general and their king, the chiefs whom Aristobulus
had left in command at Jerusalem expressed their surprise
that the king himself had not returned, and refused to
comply with the summons until they should have some
better authority than the simple assertion of Gabinius.
The Roman, highly offended, returned to his general;
and as he was altogether in the interest of Ilyrcanus and
Antipater, the report of his mission and repulse was so
framed as greatly to exasperate Pompey, who conceived
or professed^ himself insulted by the refusal of Aristo-
bulus's officers to obey his summons. He charged the king
of Judea with duplicity; reproached him for attempting
1 According to Jewish historians, the arrest of Aristobulus had been
preconcerted between Pompey and Antipater; for the latter, who re-
ceived continual intelligence of what was passing in Jerusalem, was in-
formed that however clamorous the populace might be in favour of Hyr-
canus, there was no chance of the people rising in arms against Aristo-
bulus so long as he was on the spot; but that if he were once out of
Jerusalem, there was no one among his pai'tisans of weight sufficient to
balance the authoi-ity of those chiefs of the Sanhedrin who were in favour
of Hyrcanus. Antipater, therefore, strongly urged Pompey to avail him-
self of the first opportimity that offered to secure the person of Aristo-
bulus ; a measure which was certain to be followed by the instant surren-
der of Jerusalem and submission of the Jews.
202 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
the defence of Jerusalem, contrary to his engagement in
writing to put all his fortresses in the hands of the Ro-
mans ; and finally, proclaiming him a traitor and an enemy
to Rome, he ordered him to be thrown into chains and con-
signed to prison, which was immediately done.
The tidings of this event soon reached Jerusalem, and
carried to its utmost height the popular agitation and ex-
citement. The friends of Aristobulus raised loud cries of
indignation and rage at the treachery of Pompey, and
maintained that war to the knife should be persevered in
until the king was restored to freedom. The more timid
of his adherents gave it as their opinion that, in the ac-
tual state of things, it was utterly impossible to free Aris-
tobulus ; and that under the circumstances it would be most
prudent to submit to Hyrcanus, their native prince, since,
by so doing, they would deprive the Romans of all further
pretext to interfere in the affairs of Judea. The friends
of Hyrcanus were loud in their clamours for instant and
unconditional submission to the legitimate monarch, whose
right, now that the usurper had been removed, could not
be disputed by any one. They were the most numerous,
and as their ranks were swelled by all those whose fear of
the Romans outweighed every other consideration, they
carried the day. The friends of Aristobulus and their
adherents, finding the public feeling against them, retired
within the fortified precincts of the temple, and abandoned
the city of Jerusalem to the friends of Rome.
The Hyrcanites no sooner saw themselves in undisturbed
possession of the city of Jerusalem, than they sent a depu-
tation to the Roman camp to invite their legitimate king
to enter his loyal metropolis, and to assure his mighty
auxiliaries, the Romans, of a friendly and hospitable re-
ception, and of every supply of provisions and stores
that Judea could furnish. The deputation was well re-
ceived, and Hyrcanus, with, his counsellor Antipater, once
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 203
more entered the royal palace, under the escort of a con-
siderable body of Roman troops, commanded by Piso, a
patrician who had been despatched by Pompey to take
military possession of the city and of the principal edifices.
The Roman general next summoned the defenders of
the temple to surrender, but met with a stern refusal. The
chiefs who commanded within its precincts, as well as their
followers, were, to a man, devoted to the cause of Aristo-
bulus, and determined, live or dip, to uphold it to the last.
They execrated Hyrcanus for his perjury and Antipater
for his treason. Moreover they looked upon themselves,
and justly, as the cauge of Aristobulus's catastrophe ; since
it was contrary to his own judgment, and in consequence
of their urgent solicitations, that their king had gone on
his last unfortunate errand to Pompey, or that indeed he
ever had visited the camp of the invader, and -thus given
the Roman an opportunity of ensnaring him and throwing
him into chains. It, therefore, was become an indispen-
sable condition with them, and without which they refused
to listen to any proposals, that Aristobulus should be set at
liberty, and replaced in the same situation as when he al-
lowed his noble nature to be deceived by the perfidy of the
Roman.
The summons to surrender was sternly rejected, while
Romans and Jews prepared for the first time to test each
others' prowess. The Romans were a people of soldiers
that, during centuries, had been trained to warfare, and
possessed in the highest degree all the advantages which
discipline, military skill, and experience could bestow ;
added to which the prestige of uninterrupted success im-
parted to the Roman legionary a feeling of conscious su-
periority that rendered him almost invincible. On the
other hand, the Jews were a people of freemen, agricultu-
rists and herdsmen, fond of peace and justly appreciating
its blessings, but imbued with the highest degree of patriot-
204 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
ism and devotion to the law of their God and the land of
their fathers — a devotion which, under the leadership of
the Maccabees, had raised them to the pinnacle of military
fame, and had rendered them, not like the Romans, a ])eo-
ple of soldiers, but something much superior, a people of
heroes, to whom the consciousness of the great principle
they represented and defended imparted a degree of supe-
riority not less invincible than that of the Roman. Un-
fortunately for the Jews, who now, for the first time, were
to defy the terrors of the Roman eagle, the disproportion, .
so vast at all times, between tJieir limited means and the
inexhaustible resources of the great commonwealth, was
on the present occasion still further augmented by their
own intestine dissensions. The ranks of the Roman were
swelled by Jews ; and the rancour of the Hyrcanite against
the Aristobulite, of the Pharisee against the Sadducee, was
far more deadly than that of the Roman against the Jew.
The temple of Jerusalem stood on the summit of a lofty
mountain, three sides of which rise so steep and perpen-
dicular from the ravines that surround it as to be almost
inaccessible. The communication between the city and
these three sides of the temj^le-mount — which, in addition
to their natural defences, were strongly fortified — was kept
up by numerous causeways and bridges, which, however,
the royalists — as for distinction's sake we shall style the
besieged — took great care to demolish; so that to the east,
west, and south they were secured against any attack.
To the north the temple-mount is less steep ; but this, its
only accessible side, was defended by strong walls, high
towers, and other fortifications : it also had a wide deep
moat and a spacious valley beneath it. The bridges across
this moat had been broken down ; so that on this side like-
wise the temple-mount was completely isolated. The ex-
perience acquired during the former siege undertaken by
Arctas, and the time Aristobulus had for making prepara-
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 205
tions against tlie Romans, had not only pointed out and
enabled him to perfect the defences, but also to lay in
abundant supplies for the wants of the public worship, as
well as for those of the garrison.
Pompey, who arrived in person at Jerusalem shortly
after his proposals for a surrender had been rejected, recon-
noitred the temple, and soon convinced himself that a fort-
ress so strong, and about to be defended with such vigour
and resolution, required all the preparations and appliances
for attack that he could possibly command. He began the
siege by enclosing the temple-mount with a strong wall to
prevent the flight of the besieged or their receiving any
help from without. In this work, to which the royalists
could offer no interruption, Hyrcanus and Antipater af-
forded him every assistance as well of materials as of la-
bour ; though later military critics considered the erection
of this wall as useless labour, since the nature of the ground
shut in the besieged as effectually as it kept out the be-
siegers. Pompey's next measure was to cause a large sup-
ply of battering-rams, ballistas or machines for throwing
huge stones, and other engines of siege, to be brought from
Tyre; and having completed these preliminaries, he di-
rected his actual attack against the only side of the mount
that was accessible, the northern.
His battering engines Avere raised on mounds and plat-
forms, and threw large stones against the walls and into tho
fortress. The besieged plied their batteries with equal skill
and greater success ; as fast as the Roman mounds and plat-
forms were raised, the besieged levelled or dismounted them,
inflicting great loss in killed and wounded on the besiegers,
without suffering much themselves. The siege had already
taken up three months without any advantage to Pompey,
and might, according to all human probability, have lasted
much longer, and perhaps even been raised, had not the
royalists themselves, from an excess of sectarian feeling,
Vol. II. 18
206 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
ruined their own defence, and permitted the Romans to
acquire advantages which greatly facilitated their success.
The sabbath-day was, as is well known, kept holy by
the Jews, who strictly abstained from all manner of work.
How far this observance was carried in time of war, during
the first temple, we have no means of knowing. But dur-
ing the second temple, and until the time when the Mac-
cabees rose against Antiochus Epiphanes, the observance
had been so rigid that the Jews would not even attempt to
defend their own lives if attacked on the sabbath-day. Ac-
cordingly it is said that Ptolemy I. Soter stormed and took
Jerusalem on the sabbath ; and it is certain that Antiochus
caused a general massacre of the inhabitants of that city
to be undertaken on the sabbath; but in neither case was
any opposition or resistance ofiered by the Jews. We
have already related how Mattathias, the father of the
Maccabees, alarmed by the ruinous eifects of this over-
rigid observance, had directed his attention to the text in
Scripture, (Lev. xviii. 5,) which declares of the obser-
vances of the Law, that " man shall do them that he may
live by them," but not that he Avas to perish by them ; and
that, in consequence of this interpretation, it had been de-
clared lawful for a Jew to defend his life if attacked on the
sabbath-day. This maxim had been generally acted upon —
by Judah when he defeated Nicanor, by Jonathan in his
campaign against Bacchides, and on other occasions.
The Pharisees had early adopted the interpretation of
Mattathias, though their antagonists felt some scruples as
to the extent and precise meaning of "self-defence," and
doubts were raised whether it was lawful on the sabbath-
day to demolish works raised by the enemy which did not
instantly threaten life, whatever they might do ultimately.
The Pharisees, more lax, or rather less fettered by the
letter in their interpretation of Scripture, permitted the
utmost latitude of necessary self-defence, {Talmud, tr.
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 207
Yomah fo. 85, Maimon. pref. Seder Zeraim ;) and from
the words of the text quoted, established the general rule
that "the preservation of human life supersedes the ob-
servance of the sabbath." But the Sadducees, spell-
bound by the letter of the Law, refused to receive this in-
terpretation; and though they respected the decision of
Mattathias, they refused to extend its application beyond
absolute self-defence against an actual assault on the person
with deadly weapons.
During the first months of the siege this Sadducee prin-
ciple of non-resistance had no opportunity of becoming
known to the Romans, because casually, and perhaps as a
mark of attention to Hyrcanus, their siege-works on the
sabbath-day had not been of any particular importance.
But it so happened that on a sabbath-day the Romans
were occupied in raising a mound and platform in a posi-
tion particularly menacing to the garrison of the temple ;
and they noticed with surprise that, though the besieged
watched their work with great attention, no opposition to
its progress was oflFered. The fact was reported to Pom-
pey, who applied for an explanation to Antipater. He had
no difiiculty in understanding the want of activity on the
part of the besieged ; and his explication induced Pompey
to adopt a line of tactics different from that which hitherto
he had employed. He commanded that throughout the
week the Romans were to raise no new works, but were to
content themselves with defending and strengthening those
already erected; but that on the sabbath-day they were
to fill up portions of the ditch, and to carry their works as
near to the walls as they could, in order to sap them, and
to ply their battering-rams ; but that they should do this
without shooting arrows, stones, or any other missive
weapons that might induce the besieged to stand on their
defence.
This plan proved successful. The besieged suffered the
208 rOST-BIBLICAL mSTORY OF THE JEWS.
Homans to carry on their approaches and to batter the
walls on the sabbath-day without offering any opposition.
And though they worked hard during the week to repair
the breaches, yet their new works, carried on in a hurry
and under a galling shower of missiles, were necessarily
less solid and capable of resisting the battering-ram than
the original masonry. And this difference was so great,
that Dion Cassius (lib. xxxvii. 8, 15, 18) does not hesitate
to ascribe the successful issue of Pompey's attack alto-
gether to the facility afforded to him by the besieged on
" Saturnsday," (the sabbath,) to sap and breach the walls,
without Avhich facility '< the place Avould in all probability
not have been carried by the Romans."
The consequence was, that after having sapped the
foundations, the Roman batteries played against a lofty
tower in the north-eastern angle of the mount, and at length
threw it down on a sabbath-day. In its fall it carried a
large portion of the wall along with it. The Romans no
sooner beheld the wide opening before them than with loud
shouts they rushed to the assault. Cornelius Faustus
Sylla, the son of the celebrated dictator, was the first who
with his legion mounted the breach and entered it at one
end ; Fabius followed him in the centre, and Furius at the
other end. The Hyrcanites with eager zeal pressed on
and closely followed the Romans. The besieged defended
themselves with all the courage of high-souled devotion.
But at length numbers prevailed. Twelve thousand Jews,
the veterans of King Jannai, sold their lives dearly. Many
of their chiefs preferred suicide to captivity; and amid
the horrors of the carnage it was remarked that the Hyr-
canites acted with greater fury and cruelty against their
conquered brethren than the heathen did.
Josephus (Antiq. lib. xiv. cap. 4) states that the day
fixed upon by Pompey for the general assault was one of
public fast and humiliation, but does not give any further
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 209
indication of the day. This has caused a considerable dif-
ference of opinion among historians. Some assume that
the fast-day was that of the 10th month, (Nov.-Dec.,)
others, that it was that of the 4th month, (June-July,)
■while others fix on the day of atonement (September) as
the fatal fast which first saw the Roman eagle planted on
the temple-mount ; and from a circumstance related by
Josephus, we ourselves are induced with Salvador (Do-
minat. Rom. en Judde, i. 235) to fix on the sabbath of
sabbaths, the great fast of Tishri, the day of expiation
and reconciliation, as the one which the insidious counsels
of Antipater recommended to Pompey as best adapted to
complete the work of implacable hatred, of treason, and
of ruin.
The resistance and carnage continued several hours, and
did not cease till the last of the defenders, who disputed the
ground step by step, had been cut down or overpowered.
When, at length, the Romans had forced their way into
the inner court, they beheld a sight such as might have
awakened their better feelings, had they been possessed of
any, especially as it ought to have recalled to them a
tragic, yet most glorious, event in the history of their own
city. When the Romans were defeated by the Gauls, and
the latter, under their Brennus or chief, marched against
the doomed city, most of the population evacuated Rome
and sought refuge in Veil. A body of brave men remained
to garrison and defend the fortress of the Capitol; and
the most aged of the senators, disdaining to purchase their
small remnant of life by flight, and not wishing to incum-
ber with their helpless debility the retreat of their kins-
men and fellow-citizens, determined to meet their fate in
Rome. Each of them, seated on his curule chair in the
forum, with his ivory staff or sceptre in his hand, silent
and motionless awaited the foe. The Gauls soon entered
the almost deserted city and reached the forum. At first
18*
210 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
they looked with surprise and admiration at the stern, im-
movable old men seated before them, and whom they for-
bore to touch, as they held them to be statues of the gods
fashioned by the skilful hand of a sculptor. At length a
Gaul, more curious than his fellows, stepped up to Papy-
rius, and gently stroked the long white beard which
adorned that aged senator. The Roman resented the
liberty taken with his person, and struck the Gaul with
his staff. This became the signal for slaughter, and the
noble Romans met death with the same fortitude that had
induced them to confront it. Their number cannot have
been great ; but their patriotic devotion has immortalized
their memory.
A sight similar, but infinitely more dignified and holy,
was now offered in the court of the temple. When the
Romans burst in upon them, the ofiiciating priests were
assembled around the altar, and engaged in the afternoon
service and sacrifices. During all the din of assault and
battle, amid the shouts of the combatants and the shrieks
of the dying, these servants of the living God had not for
one moment intermitted their duty, but continued to offer
up the usual prayers, praises, and sacrifices with the same
calmness and God-fearing devotion that characterized their
Avorship on every solemn occasion ; and at last they suf-
fered themselves to be butchered with the utmost fortitude,
their blood mingling Avith that of the animals they them-
selves had sacrificed, not one of them condescending to
interrupt his sacred service to interchange a word with
his assailants or to beg his life at their hands.
Their heroic composure is said to have excited the ad-
miration of Pompey, who distributed magnificent rewards
to those of his warriors that had most distinguished them-
selves. The aid he had received from Ilyrcanus, and the
wish not to cause fresh bloodshed by exasperating the in-
habitants of Jerusalem, induced Pompey to protect the
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 211
sacred edifice of the temple, so that the building itself re-
ceived no great injury. But the defences, not only of the
temple-mount, but also of the city of Jerusalem, were ut-
terly demolished, and those among the few prisoners who
had been most zealous in the cause of Aristobulus were
put to death without pity. Some of the friends of the ill-
fated chief had forestalled the hatred of Antipater and the
sword of Rome, by suicide, throwing themselves down
from the lofty battlements of the temple-mount, or setting
their apartments on fire and perishing in the flames. Thus
the feeble Hyrcanus, or rather the malignant and ambi-
tious Antipater, enjoyed a revenge on their adversaries
which, though long delayed, was, in appearance at least,
complete, since the personal friends and adherents of
Aristobulus all perished.
But though Pompey, because it suited his purpose, had
thus far done the work of Antipater, the Roman next pro-
ceeded to do the work of his commonwealth. By the au-
thority of his praetorian tribunal, the cause between the
two brothers was decided in favour of Hyrcanus, while
Aristobulus and his sons were sentenced to be carried pri-
soners to Rome. The same tribunal next proceeded to
examine and judge the complaint preferred by the Jewish
people against the Asmoneans, that they had contrary to
right and ancient usage converted their high-priestly dig-
nity into a royal one. The sentence pronounced was
against Hyrcanus, in whose cause Pompey had aftected
such deep concern. The Asmonean was stripped of his
royal diadem and reduced solely to his function of high-
priest ; and thus he became ingloriously confounded with
the crowd of other princely hierarchs, tributary depend-
ants on Rome. Lastly, all conquests made by the Asmo-
nean princes were declared to be forfeited to Rome ; the
authority of the high-priest Hyrcanus was limited to Judea
Proper ; and for this he was held to pay a heavy annual
212 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
tribute to Rome. By his powerful dictum Pompey thus
and at once annihilated the work of a century, and re-
placed Judea and its people in that state of dependance
and tribute in which they had been under the Seleucidse,
whose successor, by virtue of the cession of Tigranes, King
of Armenia, the senate of Rome declared itself.
But deeply as all these acts of Pompey affected the wel-
fare and glory of the Asmoneans, he mortified the Jewish
people even in a more painful degree, and that with no
other view than the gratification of his own idle curiosity.
It is well known with what jealous care the Jews watched
over the due observance of that precept of the Law which
closed the interior of the temple against the intrusion of
any person not of the sacerdotal race of Aaron, and which
interdicts even the high-priest from penetrating into the
holy of holies oftener than once in every year, on the day
of atonement. The report circulated by the Greeks as-
cribed the most outre character to the mysteries of Jeru-
salem ; and Pompey, the spoilt child of fortune, determined
to see with his own eyes and to judge for himself. All
entreaties on the part of Hyrcanus and of the leading
Jews who had joined the Romans were vain. Pompey,
attended by a number of his principal lieutenants, en-
tered the sanctuary, and with curious eye viewed the golden
table, candlestick, altar of incense, censers, lamps, and
numerous other utensils, all of pure gold. He then drew
the vail that separated the "holy" from the "holy of
holies," but to his great surprise found that innermost re-
cess of the temple perfectly empty. " Pompey penetrated
into the temple of Jerusalem by the right of victory," says
Tacitus. " He discovered that this sanctuary contained
the effigy of no divinity. The innermost crypt was quite
empty, and no rites (or mysteries) were ever performed
therein." (Hist. lib. v. § iv.)
Still the sacredness of the place appears to have inspired
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 213
the sacrilegious intruder with uncommon respect, not to
say with awe. For though he found two thousand talents
(above two millions of dollars) in the treasury, and a vast
quantity of rich perfumes and spices, yet, contrary to the
usual greediness that characterized the Romans of his age,
and from which he himself was by no means free, he did
not appropriate to himself any thing whatever of all that
the temple contained, but instantly issued orders that the
priests and officers should purify the sanctuary and its
courts, and should at once resume the worship and daily
sacrifices. Cicero highly commends the respect Pompey
showed to the sacred utensils of the temple. [Orat. pro. L.
Flaceo.) Many other writers likewise mention the circum-
stance. "But this moderation did not hinder the Jews from
resenting the indignity he had offered to that holy place
more than all the mischiefs they had suffered from him,
and from ascribing all the misfortunes that afterward be-
fell him to that sacrilegious attempt. Many Christians
have been of the same mind, and men are indeed too apt
to judge rashly in matters of this nature. But whatever
may have been the cause of that great general's misfor-
tunes, it is plain that this victory over the Jews was the
last he ever gained, and that from this time his affairs went
from bad to worse, until he perished," miserably and igno-
miniously. (Universal Hist. vol. x. p. 374, note 1.)
Shortly after this outrage on the feelings of the Jews,
Pompey left Jerusalem. Some writers will have it that he
was haunted with a restlessness of mind and unnatural
dread, that did not permit him to stay within sight of the
temple. At all events, it is certain that his slow progress
along the coasts and islands of Greece — often retarded that
he might listen to the sweet voice of praise or witness the
solemn celebration of his own victories — did not evince any
great hurry to return to Rome, or to lay down his com-
mand ; and that, consequently, his anxiety to reach home
214 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
was not the cause of his abrupt departure from Jerusalem.
To us, however, it appears that the sober life at that time
led in Jerusalem, where debauchery was unknown, and
licentiousness was altogether foreign to the people, held
out no inducements for a longer sojourn in that city to
the luxurious patricians of the last corrupt age of the re-
public, who surrounded Pompey and ministered to his
vanity, even as he ministered to their love of pleasure and
of money.
He carried along with him, as prisoners, and destined to
grace his triumph, the unfortunate Aristobulus, with his
two sons Alexander and Antigonus, two daughters, and his
uncle Absalom. The whole number of royal and illustri-
ous captives who walked before the chariot of their victor
as -he entered Rome in his triumphal procession, the most
splendid that had ever been seen, was not less than three
hundred and twenty-four, among whom Aristobulus, the
king of Judea, and the younger Tigranes, the rebellious
heir-apparent of the king of Armenia, were the most im-
portant. Pompey was the first among Roman triumph-
ators to discontinue the barbarous custom of putting the
captives to death in the capitol after this public exhibition.
All his captives were liberated and sent home at the public
expense, with the exception of Tigranes and Aristobulus,
who were detained as prisoners in Rome, lest they should
excite disturbances in their respective countries. Alex-
ander, the eldest son of Aristobulus, had contrived to make
his escape before the prisoners reached Rome, and returned
to Judea, where his enterprises became the cause of much
useless bloodshed, as we shall presently relate.
In Cicero's letters (ad. Attic, lib. ii. epist. ix.) he de-
signates Pompey by the sesquipedalian epithet of Hierosa-
lymarius^ or "victor of Jerusalem." This has frequently
been considered as an expression of scorn against the Jew
ish people. But this is a mistake ; the sneer is aimed at
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 215
Pompey himself, and is intended to ridicule the excessive
vanity with which Pompey arrogated to himself great glory
for his success against a king who had not been vanquished,
but betrayed ; and for his conquest of a city that opened
its gates to receive him as an ally. And this application
of the word is abundantly proved by many other expres-
sions in these letters, in which the correspondent of Atti-
cus is by no means sparing of his jeers, but freely exposes
the weakness, the mock moderation, but real arrogance,
of Pompey and of his pretensions.
It is true that Cicero had no great love for the Jews.
Three years after the storming of the temple we find him
engaged in conducting the defence of L. Valerius Flaccus,
accused of extortion and malversation in his office of go-
vernor of Pergamus. Had Cicero conducted the prosecu-
tion, he would, doubtless, have consigned Flaccus to per-
petual infamy as a second Verres. But the great orator
was retained for the defence, and neglected no means that
the skill of the advocate could suggest to whitewash his
client. Lelius, the prosecutor, had assembled a number of
witnesses, Greeks from the cities of Asia Minor, and Jews
from Pergamus. The latter were to prove that Flaccus
had seized and confiscated the money collected by the Jews
as their annual tribute to the temple at Jerusalem, and the
amount of which, for the greater facility of carriage, had
been converted into gold coin. The act of spoliation could
not be denied, nor yet that it was an unlawful stretch of
power, violating at once the rights of property and the
rights of conscience.
To counteract the impression likely to be produced
against his client by these witnesses, the advocate skilfully
avails himself of the prejudices existing in the minds of
the Romans against Greeks and Jews, and his plea throws
great light on the popular reproach to which, in that age,
each of these two races were subject. The Greek is ac-s
21G POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
cuscd of treachery, the Jew of turbulence and superstition.
"As to the entire race of Greeks," exclaims Cicero, "I
grant their superiority in literature, in arts, in the graces
of language, in the acuteness of mind, and in the abundant
flow of speech. Should the Greeks lay claim to other simi-
lar advantages, I am not disposed to deny them. But
never did that nation know or recognise the sacred obliga-
tion of truth, while bearing testimony as witnesses. Their
evidence is always framed to injure, and never in good
faith." "As to the Jews," he continues, "thou knowest,
Lelius, how numerous and how united they are. To oppose
their barbarous superstition is, it appears, to be deemed an
act of cruelty ; to despise, when the good of the common-
wealth demands it, the clamours of this multitude of Jews,
80 turbulent in our meetings, is, forsooth, to be considered
as a serious offence. Flaccus acted wisely, as by sending to
Rome the gold destined for Jerusalem he resisted and weak-
ened the cause of this pernicious and hostile superstition.
I'ompey indeed acted differently when he took Jerusalem.
lie did not use his right as conqueror, and left untouched
the temple in that city. But he likewise acted wisely, as
he did in many other instances, since he gave no opening to
his detractors in a city so suspicious and backbiting; for I
shall never believe that any regard for the religion of Jews
and enemies was the motive of his forbearance. All states
have their religion. We Romans have ours. While Jeru-
salem flourished, and before its inhabitants broke peace
with Rome, the sacred rites of that people were deemed
opposed to the institutions of our ancestors, the gravity of
the Roman name, and the majesty of the Roman empire.
Far more, assuredly, ought this to be our judgment now,
when the Jews, by taking arms, have shown their hostile
disposition toward us, and when tlioir defeat, dispersion,
and subjugation have proved how hostile the gods are to
them." {Orat. pro L. Flacco, c. 28.)
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 217
It is amusing to see this pious advocate, this philosophi-
cal M. Tullius Cicero, whose veneration for the gods of
Rome was not one whit greater than that which any Jew
entertained for iheni, — it is amusing to see how this elocjuent
pleader contrives to adduce the misfortunes of tlio Jews as
a sufficient reason to prove that his and Flaccus' gods hate
them ; and that, therefore, the latter was not only free of
guilt, but even praiseworthy, for having robbed them of their
property and insulted their religious feelings. It becomes
painful when we remember how often during the Middle
Ages monks and friars repeated the argument of Cicero to
defend acts far more nefarious than those Flaccus had
committed. But it is absolutely heart-rending to think
th^t grave divines in this [soi-disant) enliglitened ago
should still cling to the absurd sophism by means of which
Cicero, the advocate, tried to palliate the guilt of his client;
that we should still be told, " You Jews are defeated, dis-
persed, subjugated; ergo, you must be wrong;" and what
is infinitely worse, that men who profess to "love God"
should oppress and persecute the Jew because his suffer-
ings prove "that God hates him."
At his departure, Pompey left Scaurus Avith two legions
in Syria ; but no Roman troops remained in Judea, where
Ilyrcanus, as etlmarch (prince) and high-priest, assumed
the government, or rather lent the sanction of his name and
authority to the government of his vizier, Antipater. And
as Ilyrcanus, alone of all his race, walked through the
splendid apartments of his royal palace, so lately inhabited
by his grandchildren, now on their road as prisoners to
Rome, he could at his leisure regret and repent the infatu-
ation or weakness that had first prompted him to break his
oath and to disturb the peace of Judea. lie had succeeded
in overthrowing his brother, but at what price ? The houso
of Asmoneus discrowned, the walls of Jerusalem and of
the temple-mount demolished, vast territories — the glorioua
Vol,. Ti. 19
218 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
acquisitions of his father and grandfiither — wrested from
hira, not by the fortune of war, but by fraud and iniquity;
and, more galling still, the heathen had set his sacrilegious
foot within the "holy of holies," where Hyrcanus him-
self dared not to enter but once a year ; while Judea had
been blotted out from the list of independent kingdoms,
and harnessed as a tributary to the triumphal car of all-de-
vouring Rome.
Such were the bitter fruits of his weakness, the sacrifices
at the price of which he nominally, and Antipater virtually,
were become rulers of what still remained of the king-
dom of Judea. As he alone, of all his family, trod the
royal hall of Baris Castle, it must forcibly have struck him
that all which had been done had served no other purpose
than to advance Antipater. But that very impression
helped the more firmly to rivet the chains of Hyrcanus.
Timidity was his besetting failing : that and mental impo-
tency combined to perpetuate the supremacy of his all-
powerful favourite, whom he no longer loved, but whom he
feared all the more. Antipater could easily read what
passed through the mind of his feeble master ; and as the
favour of Bome had been the great cause of Antipater's
exaltation, he determined, by all means, to preserve that
favour. Whether or not he already harboured the ambi-
tious design of supplanting the Asmoneans, and of raising
his own house in their stead, it is impossible to decide.
But every step taken by that far-sighted politician was
ably calculated to extend his own influence and to secure
the gratitude and friendship of the Bomans.
It was to him that Scaurus was beholden for a supply
of corn and other provisions, without which the Boman
army then on its march against the metropolis of Aretas,
King of the Arabs, would have been in danger of perishing.
This service was followed by another. Antipater, avail-
ing himself of his ancient • connection with Aretas, sue-
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 219
ceeded in persuading the king of the Arabs to pay three
hundred talents to the Roman general, and by that means
restored peace between this chief and the Romans. It is
also to the influence of Antipater that we are to ascribe
the favours extended by Hyrcanus to the Athenians, and
which were so important that their senate passed a decree
in which the pontiff of Jerusalem is styled a great friend
and benefactor to all the Greeks, and particularly to the
Athenians ; and that in return for his benefactions they
decree him a crown of gold and a statue of brass to be
placed in the temple of Demus and the Grraees.'^ (Jos.
Antiq. lib. xiv. cap. 9.)
In the midst of his schemes for his own ago-randizement
and that of his family, Antipater was disagreeably dis-
turbed by the unexpected return to Judea of Alexander,
the eldest son of Aristobulus, who had contrived to escape
from the custody of Pompey, and hastened back to his na-
tive land. Though the principal chiefs of the Sadducees,
Aristobulus' party, had perished in the storming of the
temple-mount and the subsequent executions, yet the party
itself still survived ; and when the return of Alexander be-
came known, the partisans of his father rallied around him,
so that in a short space of time he found himself at the
head of ten thousand foot and fifteen hundred horse. His
first care was to repair the strongholds of Alexandrion,
Hyrcania, and Blachceron, situated near the foot of the
Arabian mountains ; and having thus secured to himself
places of refuge strongly fortified, he began to make in-
2 Demus is the word used in the Greek of Josephus, which some versions
render " of the people." The learned Calmet, however, is of opinion that
there is an error in the Greek text of Josephus, and that it was the temple
of the Muses and Graces, sometimes called the temple of Academus and
the Gi-aces. It is related that there was, in the Academy at Athens, a
temple of the Muses in which Plato set up the statues of the Graces. No
other temple of the Muses iu Athens is mentioned by any writer.
220 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
roads into Judea, and to inflict great loss on the adherents
of Ilyrcanus.
The high-priest and his vizier, Antipater, had no forces
to send against the invader ; and when for their own pro-
tection thev began to repair the walls of Jerusalem, they
were compelled, by the jealousy of the Romans, to desist
from this necessary work of self-defence. The unresisted
progress of Alexander became so highly alarming, that An-
tipater was at length obliged to apply to the Romans for
assistance. His friend Scaurus had returned to Italy.
But as the threatening preparations of the Parthians
evinced their design of attacking the Roman dominions on
the Euphrates, and it was deemed needful that a general
of high reputation should hold the command in the East,
Gabinius, another lieutenant of Pompey and friend of An-
tipater, was appointed governor of Syria. (57 b. c. e.)
Immediately after his arrival, he made it his first care to
attack Alexander, whom a community of interests rendered
the natural ally of the Parthians against Rome.
The existence and the constant intercourse and intimate
relations of the great Jewish population residing on the Par-
thian shores of the Euphrates and Tigris, with Judea, se-
cured to this alliance great strength and lasting durability.
Throughout the long struggle which Aristobulus and his
two sons successively, and during a period of more than a
quarter of a century, maintained against Rome, the Par-
thians were the firm allies of the patriot Jews who wished
to regain the independence of their country and to expel
the nominees of Rome, Ilyrcanus and Antipater with his
house. As during more than two hundred years the power
of Parthia balanced the power of Rome, and frequently in-
flicted on it heavy blows and great losses, the alliance be-
tween Jews and Parthians outlived not only the dynasty
of the Asmoneans, but also the destruction of Jerusalem.
And it is thus early that we behold the cause of that ex
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 221
treme irritation and rancour which Jewish nationality
called forth in the Romans, and which eventually led to
that plan of extermination that the Romans twice at-
tempted to carry out against the Jews, both in Judea and
in their Eastern colonies ; once under an emperor celebrated
as most generous in his conquests, and the second time
under another emperor, the greatest lover of peace among
the monarchs of Rome.
As Gabinius himself could not find time to march in
person into Judea, he intrusted the command in that
counti-y to Mark Antony, subsequently so celebrated in
history as the triumvir, the lover of Cleopatra, the com-
petitor of Augustus Cesar for the empire of the world.
This Roman officer was soon joined by Antipater at the
head of such Jewish forces as the Hyrcanites had been
able to raise, and the command of whom the wily Idumean
shared with the two men he most dreaded, Malichus and
Pitolaus, whose influence with Hyrcanus almost equalled
his own, and whom Antipater now carried with him, lest,
during his absence, they should work his ruin.
Alexander, true to the traditions of the Maccabees, who
never shut themselves up in a fortress unless at the last
extremity, kept the open country till he was nearly sur-
rounded by the allied armies, superior to his own in num-
bers, in discipline, and in military skill. At length, in the
vicinity of Jerusalem, it came to a murderous battle, in
which Alexander was defeated with the loss of three thou-
sand men, but nevertheless cut his way through the Ro-
mans, and with the remains of his army reached Alexan-
drion in tolerable order. Unable any longer to keep the
field, the Jews threw themselves into that fortress, where
they were soon besieged by Gabinius himself, who had
now arrived on the scene of action. But as this general
perceived that the reduction of so strong a place would re-
quire much time, he left a sufficient force to blockade it,
19*
222 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
Tvhile he liimself made a progress through the country, and
in conformity with the instructions he had received from
Pompey, caused several cities to be rebuilt that during
former wars had been demolished. The principal among
these were Samaria, destroj^ed by Jochanan Hyrcanus I.,
and Gaza, destroyed by King Jannai. The former of
these towns the Roman called after his own name, Crcihi-
niana, which, however, a few years later, by the command
of King Herod, was changed into Sehaste. From this
journey Gabinius returned to his camp before Alexandrion,
which fortress still held out, though the garrison was
greatly straitened for provisions. But before Alexander
was reduced to extremity, his mother interposed her in-
fluence in his behalf. This lady, celebrated for her elo-
quence, and possessed of remarkable wisdom and prudence,
was considered well-disposed and friendly to the interests
of Rome. She therefore had remained in Judea when her
husband and children were carried ofi" by Pompey. And
as she had cause to fear that the prolonged and desperate
resistance of Alexander might cause the destruction of
Aristobulus and of her other children, still detained as
prisoners of war, she used every effort to mollify the Ro-
man. For this purpose, and by her directions, Alexander
offered to surrender the fortress of Alexandrion, together
with the other strongholds in his possession, and to evacu-
ate the country ; while his mother repaired to Gabinius, and
exerted all her powers of persuasion to obtain a compro-
mise for her son. Her efforts were successful. It was
agreed upon that, on the surrender of the three fortresses,
Alexander and his troops should be permitted to depart and
disperse without molestation. Gabinius also promised that,
in consideration of her services on the present occasion,
all her children then detained in Rome should be re-
stored to her — a promise which did not receive its fulfil-
ment till some considerable time later.
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 223
As soon as Gabinius obtained possession of the three
strongholds, he caused them to be demolished, that they
might not again serve as the asylum for insurgents ; for
the population of Palestine, hitherto so orderly and in-
dustrious, began to display a discontented and mutinous
spirit. As Gabinius feared that the injQuence of the great
Sanhedrin at Jerusalem might be, or had been, in some
•way, instrumental in producing or in fostering this danger-
ous state of mind among the people, he determined to
abolish the great national council, and also the lesser
Sanhedrin or municipal councils that in every city of note
dispensed justice, subject to the authority of the supreme
tribunal. Instead of these ancient and national institu-
tions, Gabinius divided all Judea into five districts, ap-
pointing for the government of each an executive council,
located at Jerusalem, Jericho, Gaddara, Amathis, and Sep-
phoris. The purpose of this change was to destroy that
nationality and centralization which made Jerusalem the
centre of union and of authority to all Jews ; and to sub-
stitute in its stead a sectional aristocracy, that, powerless
beyond the limits of its own canton, was nevertheless suffi-
ciently influential within its district to nullify the authority
of the prince and to place his supremacy in abeyance.
Accordingly, this division of power was so little agreeable
to Hyrcanus, or rather to his vizier, Antipater, that he did
not rest until, at the first favourable moment, he restored
the ancient and national order of things.
After reconducting Hyrcanus to Jerusalem, and con-
firming him in his high-priesthood, Gabinius returned to
Syria. But scarcely had the Roman governor left Judea,
before Aristobulus, accompanied by his younger son, sud-
denly appeared in his native land. The dethroned king
had escaped from his prison in Rome ; and as he had never
given his assent to the dismemberment of the Judean mon-
archy, or to any of the changes wrought by the Romans,
224 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
SO tliat no perjury was committed by him in resisting
them ; as, moreover, he was known to be personally a man
of courage and enterprise — his party at once revived, and
thirty thousand men hastened to place themselves under his
banner, most of them, however, without arms or military
training. He was a;lso joined by Pitolaus, a chief of great
influence, who had always been firmly attached to Hyrca-
nus, but bitterly hated Antipater, whose dangerous de-
signs he was too clear-sighted not to perceive. He was
attended by one thousand veteran warriors, armed and
equipped for battle, and his coming was therefore doubly
welcome to Aristobulus, who knew and respected his valour.
The king had determined not to expose to needless
danger the vast multitude that, unarmed and defenceless,
would only incumber his movements without augmenting
his strength. Of all that had joined him, he therefore only
retained eight thousand men, and with these he marched to-
ward the ruins of Alexandrion, with the intention of re-
storing that stronghold and of there establishing his head-
quarters. But he was not permitted to reach it. Gabi-
nius, who had received early intelligence of Aristobulus'
undertaking, and whose army had been concentrated for
action, at once despatched his own son Coesenna against
him, at the head of considerable forces, and appointed two
distinguished officers, Mark Antony and Servilius, as mili-
tary counsellors. They intercepted the march of Aristo-
bulus, and forced him to fight a battle, in which, notwith-
standing the extreme bravery evinced by himself and his
troops, superior numbers prevailed, and he was defeated
with the loss of five thousand men.
With one thousand he escaped the carnage, and threw
himself into the ruins of Macha^ron, the small remnant of
his army taking to flight and dispersing. The Romans
followed him closely, and after an obstinate conflict of two
days carried the ruins by storm and took prisoner Aristo-
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 225
bulus, who was covered with wounds, and his son Antigo-
nus, both of whom were sent back to Rome to their old
prison. On the remonstrances of Gabinius, however, who re-
minded the senate of the engagement he had entered into
with the wife of Aristobulus, the children of that unfortunate
monarch were set at liberty, while he himself was kept in
close custody during several years. In the account which
Plutarch gives of this campaign against Aristobulus, (Life
of Mark Antony, § 3,) he speaks of the Jewish forces as
far more numerous than those of the Romans opposed to
them. But this is only true with regard to the body that
first assembled around Aristobulus, and whom, for want
of arms, he was obliged to dismiss ; whereas, in the num-
bers that actually fought, the Romans were by far
superior.
Gabinius had at that time concentrated his whole army
near Palestine, on its march to Egypt. The Roman tri-
umvirate, formed by Pompey and his coadjutors in the
government of Rome, Cesar and Crassus, had entered into
an agreement with Ptolemy Auletes, King of Egypt, who
had been expelled by his subjects, but whom, in conside-
ration of the payment of 10,000 talents, (about ten mil-
lions of dollars,) the Romans undertook to reinstate on his
throne. The triumviri charged the governor of Syria with
the duty of carrying out this arrangement ; and, unfortu-
nately for Aristobulus, his attempt on Judea took place
at the very time that Gabinius had completed his prepa-
rations and was actually about to march through Palestine.
This circumstance explains how the Romans came to be so
quickly at hand and in such considerable numbers. After
the defeat of Aristobulus, the Roman general continued
his march to Egypt. He had been furnished with letters
by Hyrcanus, addressed to the numerous Jews residing in
that country, and especially at Onion, near Pelusium, the
key of Egypt. In these letters the high-priest charged
226 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
his coreligionists to forward, to the best of their power,
the cause of Rome and of their legitimate sovereign, Au-
letes. Hyrcanus also supplied Gabinius with corn, arms,
and money; and the fourth book of Maccabees (ch. xl.)
tells us that Gabinius, meeting with greater resistance than
he expected in Egypt, desired Hyrcanus to come and join
him ; that Hyrcanus, unwilling to quit Jerusalem in per-
son, sent his favourite Antipater with a considerable body
of Jewish troops ; and that by their assistance the Egyp-
tians were conquered and King Auletes restored to his
throne. (56 B. c. e.)
The attempt Aristobulus made to recover his throne had
been too quickly suppressed to permit his eldest son,
Alexander, to join him. It had been the misfortune of
these two Asmonean princes that their efforts had, from
necessity, been so ill-timed that they could not co-operate
together ; that, just before Aristobulus began to act, Alex-
ander had been reduced to inactivity ; and that before the
latter could aid his father, the old king had been defeated
and taken prisoner. Alexander, however, did not lose
courage. The absence of Gabinius with the Romans, of
Antipater with the veterans of Hyrcanus, seemed to the
young prince an opportunity too favourable to be neglected.
Alexander once more appeared in Judea, and soon saw
himself at the head of a body of men even more numerous
than that which had joined his father; for the national
discontent was general, the hatred of the Romans intense ;
and the country began to swarm with bands of armed free-
booters, who plundered every one known or suspected of
attachment to Hyrcanus and Rome. Coesenna, the son
of Gabinius, who commanded a small body of Roman
troops, was unable to stem the torrent. He was worsted
in several encounters, numbers of his men were slain, and
eventually he was forced to intrench himself on Mount
Gerizim, where Alexander closely besieged him. The son
THE EOMANS IN JUDEA. 227
of Aristobulus thus became master of Northern and Cen-
tral Judea, while Hyrcanus, unprotected and alone, was
trembling in defenceless Jerusalem.
In this crisis of his affairs, Gabinius, having fully suc-
ceeded in Egypt, hastened back to Judea with his army, in
order to relieve his son and to protect his ally. He first
sought to recall Alexander to reason, and for that purpose
sent Antipater to the Jewish camp to point out to the
rebels how hopeless was their attempt against the over-
whelming power of Rome. And so well did that skilful
intriguer discharge his mission, that great numbers of the
insurgents, frightened at his threats or allured by his pro-
mises, quitted the standard of Alexander and returned
to their homes.
Alexander, enraged at seeing his high hopes thus melting
into thin air, and alarmed lest a longer delay might behold
him altogether abandoned, resolved, too precipitately, to
stake the success of his cause on the issue of a battle. He
was still at the head of thirty thousand men, but badly
armed, and for the most part deficient in every soldierly
quality, except bodily strength and bravery. The troops
of Gabinius, on the contrary, Romans as well as Hyr-
canites, were veterans highly disciplined, skilled in the use
of arms, and admirably officered. The two armies met
near Mount Tabor, and, as was to be expected, Alexander
was defeated with the loss of ten thousand men ; his army
dispersed, and he himself fled. His general Pitolaus, how-
ever, succeeded in rallying a body of the fugitives, and
threw himself into Tariehceay a stronghold on the south
shore of Lake Grennezareth, and which subsequently became
celebrated by its heroic resistance against the legions of
Vespasian and Titus.
This dreadful defeat spread the terror of the Roman
arms through Judea, and for a brief space restored some-
thing like peace to that distracted country. The victor
228 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
Gabinius visited Jerusalem, settled the aifairs of Judea ac-
cording to the wishes of Antipater, and then returned to
Rome, followed by the execrations of the Syrians and
their complaints of his insatiable rapacity and extortions.
He was succeeded in the government of the East by M.
Licinius Crassus, one of the triumviri, who, dividing the
Roman world with them, had received for his share the
East and the command in the imj)ending war against the
Parthians. Crassus was a man of limited abilities, im-
mense wealth, and boundless avarice. His character is
well described by his biographer, Plutarch, who relates
that "according to public opinion Crassus knew more
about raising taxes than about conducting a war. The
character of his mind partook more of the money-broker
than of the commander of an army; and his time was
chiefly employed in weighing the gold and silver that he
contrived to amass." At the time of his undertaking the
war in the East, he was upward of sixty years of age ;
but he hastened to that lucrative scene of action with all
the enterprise of youth, stimulated by the avidity of old
age. Regardless of the civil affairs of Asia, his sole care,
when he arrived, was to collect men and money, and to
ransack every repository of treasure, even the most
sacred.
The fact that the temple in Jerusalem possessed a trea-
sury containing two thousand talents, besides vessels of gold
and of silver to at least an equal amount, was well known,
and formed one of the principal inducements why Crassus
had been in such a hurry to start off for his government
in the East, even before the year of his consulate at Rome
was expired. He had, with some difficulty, extorted from
the senate a decree empowering him to declare war against
the Parthians, and investing him with power and authority
almost equal to that which had been intrusted to Pompey
in the war against Mithridates. Of the three men who,
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 229
at that time, divided the Roman world between them,
Pompey coveted power in order to gratify his inordinate
vanity and pride ; Caesar, to satisfy the restless activity of
his mind and the ceaseless cravings of his animal spirits ;
but Crassus valued power only as a means of making
money. On his arrival in Jerusalem at the head of a
large army, he made no secret of his intention to carry
off the treasures which Pompey had left untouched. The
guardians of the temple treasury, powerless to resist,
would have been but too happy to have compounded with
the avarice of Crassus, by giving up the treasury, if he
would only have consented to spare the consecrated uten-
bIIs. But Crassus knew his power, and that the whole
was more than a part. The wants of the state, in the
impending great war, formed the pretext, and it was evi-
dent that nothing less than all would satisfy Crassus.
In this extreme, the treasurer of the temple, Eleazar the
priest, made one last effort to save the consecrated uten-
sils. There was in the temple a large beam of massive
gold, covered by another hollow beam of wood, that tra-
versed the entire width of the inner building, and divided
the "holy" from the "holy of holies." The vail that se-
parated the two compartments was fastened to this beam ;
and the old vails were thrown across it whenever a new
one was hung up. Thus, this costly piece, which weighed
three hundred Hebrew min^e, or seven hundred and fifty
pounds of solid gold, was perfectly concealed ; its existence
was known, indeed, only to l^he treasurer and to the high-
priest. The treasurer, Eleazar, was imprudent enough to
enter into a bargain with Crassus ; and the Roman having
solemnly sworn that in consideration of receiving this im-
mense ingot he would leave the rest of the consecrated
property untouched, the credulous Jew placed the precious
beam in his possession.
But Crassus was not a man to be bound by oaths when
Vol. II. 20
230 rOST-BTBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
gold was in question. The temple was stripped of all tlie
valuables he could lay his hands on, without sparing even
the most sacred utensils. The total amount of his plunder
exceeded ten thousand attic talents, (ten millions of dol-
lars.) Josephus, Avho relates the fact, fearing that other
nations might not believe him, deems it right to appeal
to the writings of Strabo the Cappadocian, and to other
records not now extant. (Antiq. Ixiv. cap. 12.) And the
amount is really so large as to appear almost fabulous. We
must, however, bear in mind that the temple of Jerusalem
treasured the accumulated gifts and offerings that, during
upwards of a century of prosperity, Jews from all parts of
the world had presented, and the costly works of art, in
gold and in silver, by which the Asmonean rulers and
kings of Judea, as well as monarchs of other countries,
evinced their respect and veneration for that most holy
temple. And when it is borne in mind that the Jews have
at all times been fond of enriching and adorning their
places of worship with precious utensils and ornaments,
the wealth accumulated in the temple, great as it was, will
appear by no means incredible. (54 b. c. e.)
But Crassus was not long to enjoy the fruits of his per-
jury. He led an ai-my of one hundred thousand men
against the Parthians ; and such was the terror of his name
and arms that, at first, he carried every thing before him.
But his excessive avarice ruined his success, by causing
him to waste his time, to disgust his auxiliaries, and to ex-
asperate his enemies ; until the treachery of his own allies
and the vigorous measures adopted by the Parthians, whom
he gave time to recover from their first stupor, involved
him and his army in utter destruction. Before his own
death, the wretched father had to endure the torturing
sight of the head of his only son stuck on a Parthian lance,
and insultingly displayed before the Roman legions. In
vain Crassus, though struck with the greatest anguish, de-
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 231
clared the misfortune to be a private one, and exhorted the
Romans not to lose heart at the death of a single soldier —
his time and theirs was come. After a series of disasters,
Crassus was compelled by his officers to consent to an in-
terview with the Surena, as the chief commander of the
Parthians was styled, both parties having sworn to a truce.
In this interview the perjured Roman fell a victim to the
perjury of the Parthian ; while of his vast army scarcely
one-tenth part saved itself by flight, and returned into
Syria.
Among those who escaped was a body of horse under
the command of O. Cassius, afterwards so celebrated as
one of the chiefs of the conspiracy against Caesar. The
disasters suffered by the army of Crassus had destroyed
subordination. Several of the officers who commanded
under the ill-fated pro-consul had abandoned him and
taken their flight to Syria some time before the final ca-
tastrophe. The chief of these fugitives was Cassius, who,
being advised to wait a few days till the moon should have
passed Scorpion, replied, that " of all signs in the zodiac
he minded only Sagittarius," meaning the Parthian archers,
whose arrows even transpierced the Roman bucklers.
(Plut. p. 562.) As highest in rank among the survivors,
the remains of Crassus' luckless troops rallied around
him ; and assuming the command in Syria, his military
skill enabled him to repel the inroads of the Parthians,
and finally, on the arrival of reinforcements from Rome,
to defeat them with such loss that they were compelled to
retreat and wait for reinforcements.
Cassius next marched into Judea, where Pitolaus, the
enemy of Antipater and chief of the party of Aristobulus,
held the fortress of Tarichcea, and had not only stirred up
a great body of Jews to rebel against Hyrcanus, but had
also endeavoured to establish relations with the Parthians,
and to receive a body of them as his auxiliaries into Judea.
232 POST-BIBLICAL HISTOllY OF THE JEWS.
To prevent this dangerous junction, Cassius laid siege to
and stormed Tarichcea. Numbers of Jews were made pri-
soners, and among them Pitolaus himself, who, at the in-
stigation of Antipater, was put to death. After this ex-
ploit, Cassius visited Jerusalem and reconciled Hyrcanus
to his rebellious subjects. (Fourth Maccabees, xl.)
Ever since the days of Antiochus Epiphanes and Nica-
nor, the Jews had adopted the maxim, that whosoever in-
jured Israel or was wanting in respect to the temple
of Jerusalem would be sure, ere long, to be overtaken by
the divine vengeance and severely punished. The catas-
trophe which befell Crassus — under whose leadership the
Romans suffered a discomfiture the like of which they had
never before experienced — was every way calculated to
confirm the Jews in that belief, which, however, received
its crowning proof from the miserable end of the great
Pompey. The loss Rome sustained by the destruction of
an army in the East was more than compensated by the
success and conquest of Coesar in the West, where he
added all Gaul (the modern empire of France, with Belgium
to the north, part of Italy to the south, and all the lands
on the Rhine to the east) to the territories of the Roman
republic. But the death of Crassus had removed the
balance of power between Pompey and Csesar, and left a
free scope to these chiefs, first, in their views of trampling
on the commonwealth, and afterwards in their designs of
supplanting each other. The death of Pompey's wife, the
daughter of C^sar, dissolved the last link that had united
and moderated two ambitious competitors, of whom the
one could bear no equal, and the other no superior. Caesar
passed the river Rubicon, which formed the limit of his
own government and divided it from Italy ; and Pompey,
who had made no preparations to resist the outbreak of
hostilities Avhich he had long foreseen, but the immediate
danger of which his vanity caused him to underrate, was
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 233
forced to flee from Rome and Italy, and to collect his
forces on the eastern shores of the Adriatic Sea. (50 b. c. e.)
It is not our intention to enter into the civil war between
the two great Romans, except inasmuch as it touches on
the history of the Jews. When Caesar took possession of
Rome, one of his first acts was to release from prison the
dispossessed king of Judea, Aristobulus, who, with his
family, had sufl'ered so much from Pompey, and who was
burning for an opportunity to revenge his wrongs. The
extent of his influence in the East was fully proved by the
fears that influence had inspired, and which explained his
long detention in prison. Csesar at once saw how useful
Aristobulus might become to his cause against that of
Pompey, which was strongest in the East ; and, placing
him at the head of two legions, he sent him to keep Syria
in awe. But the aged king was not permitted long to
enjoy this change in his fortunes. The partisans of Pom-
pey contrived to poison him on the way, and thus frus-
trated Caesar's design. The body of Aristobulus was em-
balmed by the friends of Csesar, and kept in honey till they
could convey him to Judea, there to be interred with his
ancestors.
His son, Alexander, did not long survive him. Jose-
phus and the other historians who mention his having
raised some troops in the expectation of joining his father,
do not explain when or by what means this unhappy prince
fell into the power of his enemies. But it is certain that
Pompey sent orders to his son-in-law, Q. Metellus Scipio,
who held the command in Syria, to put the Asmonean
prince to death, and that Scipio caused Alexander to be
seized, tried at Ancioch on a charge of rebellion, convicted,
and beheaded. (49 b. c. e.) In these assassinations it is
easy to trace the influence, if not the hand, of Antipater,
who thus early commenced that system of extermination,
to which, begun by him and continued by his sons, the
20*
234 rOST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
entire house of the Asmoneans fell victims, until not one
of them remained. Ptolemy Mennajus, prince of Chalcis,
offered an asylum to the two daughters of Aristobulus, and
to his youngest son, Antigonus ; and subsequently mar-
ried one of the two daughters, named, like her mother,
Alexandra.
While this was doing in Syria, C?esar undertook his cam-
paign in Spain, where he converted the veteran and hos-
tile legions of Pompey into friendly auxiliaries. From
Spain, where, as he declared, he had to encounter "an
army without a general," Ccesar returned to Rome, and
thence hastened to Greece to confront Pompey, or, as he
called him, "the general without an army." After a par-
tial and indecisive engagement at Dyrrachium, in which
Pompey had much the best of the fight, but, by some fa-
tality, forbore to make the most of his advantage, the final
great battle of Pharsalia, in Thessaly, witnessed the com-
plete overthroAV of Pompey, and conferred on Csesar the
mastery of the civilized world. From the field of battle
Pompey fled to the sea-coast, embarked for the isle of Lesbos,
■where he took on board his wife Cornelia and his younger
son Scxtus, collected two thousand men in Cyprus and Ci-
cilia, and having heard that the citizens of Antioch, who
gave the tone to Syria, had declared against him, he de-
termined to proceed to Alexandria, where he expected that,
until a more fortunate turn in his affairs, he would find
protection with his pupil Ptolemy, the young king of Egypt.
Discovering, as he sailed along the coast, that the king
was at Pelusium, Pompey cast anchor off that city, and
sent some of his ofiicers to intimate his situation and his
wishes. The king's counsellors were divided in opinion :
if protection should be given to Pompey, they might pro-
voke the resentment of Caesar ; if Pompey, after being re-
jected by them, should ever re-establish his affairs, they
must expect his utmost vengeance. The wisest course with
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 235
SO formidable a fugitive appeared to be Ms immediate
murder.
The execution of this design was committed to Achillas,
the military commander in the district, and to Septimius,
a Roman tribune now in the service of Egypt, but who had
formerly followed Pompey in his expedition against the
pirates. These men put from shore in a small boat, and
rowed to Pompey's galley, inviting him to land, saying
that they would conduct him to the king. The meanness
of the equipage, and the want of ceremony in the address,
created suspicion in Pompey's friends, so that they joined
with his wife Cornelia and son Sextus in anxiously dis-
suading him from leaving them. But having gone too far
to recede, being in fact almost surrounded by Egyptian
galleys, he repeated two lines of Euripides :
"Who ventm-es thoughtless on a tyrant's shore
Eesigns all freedom that was his before."
Two of his servants descended to assist him as he stepped
into the boat and took his seat. Not a word was uttered
until Pompey, looking steadfastly at the tribune, asked
whether they had not been formerly acquainted. Sempro-
nius only assented by a nod. Finding him averse to con-
versation, Pompey kept silent, and began to read an ad-
dress to the king which he had drafted, when Achillas, see-
ing him absorbed in his reading, took the opportunity to
stab Pompey in the back, and the work of death was in-
stantly completed by the ruflSan attendants of the Egyptian.
The king and his troops were drawn up on the coast ;
Cornelia and Sextus stood on their deck in trembling
agony. The catastrophe could be seen from both sides;
and the shrieks of the wretched spectators at sea were dis-
tinctly heard by those on shore. As if a signal had been
given, all the Roman vessels cut their cables and fled, un-
pursued by the Egyptians. The murderers landed, and
cut off Pompey's head, which was embalmed and preserved
236 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
as a present for Csesar ; while the corpse of the once
most illustrious Roman was cast on the sand, and only
saved from becoming the prey of hungry hounds by the
affectionate devotion of his faithful freedman, who, though
unable to save his life, performed the last sad duties to
his headless trunk, assisted by a crippled old soldier Avho
once had served under "Pompey the Great."
As the particulars of this catastrophe became known to
the Jews, it struck them with surprise and awe : — surprise,
for who more than themselves had witnessed or received
proof of Pompey 's irresistible power and constant success ? —
awe, for who but the God of Israel, the Lord of the Uni-
verse, could so signally have vindicated the sanctity of his
temple, and punished the bold intruder into " the holy of
holies ?" When the report circulated through the East
that the Parthians had poured molten gold down the
throat of Crassus, all parties in Jerusalem agreed that
this was the finger of God ; but when the tidings arrived
that Pompey, who had caused Alexander the Asmonean to
be beheaded, had himself been assassinated, and his head
cut off by the slaves of a boy-king, whose father the great
Roman had placed on the throne, all men at Jerusalem ex-
claimed, " The hand of the Lord hath done this."
Up to the latest moment, Hyrcanus and Antipater had
remained faithful to Pompey. A body of Jewish auxiliaries
formed part of the army that fought at Pharsalia. Lucan,
in his poem of that name, (lib. vii.,) designates these aux-
iliaries as Itu7'eans ; but Appian, in his history of the civil
wars, (lib. i.,) enumerates the Hebrews along with the
Syrians and Phoenicians who joined the army of Pompey.
And as Ci^sar, the moment victory decidedly declared in
his favour, had called to his veterans to spare the Romans
and to punish the foreigners, the slaughter chiefly fell on
these unfortunate and unwilling auxiliaries, who had been
brought into the field by constraint, and not by any love
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 237
for Pompey. It is probable that through a fugitive from
the battle-field Antipater received the first intimation of
the signal defeat of Pompej, before it was generally
known ; at all events, he learned it sufiiciently early to
make his abandonment of the falling cause a matter of
merit with C^sar ; and it must be confessed that in this
change of his party, as generally whenever his interests or
those of his family were concerned, Antipater acted with
energy and prudence, and was guided by a happy instinct,
which never permitted him to be wanting to himseif. He
was moreover the father of four sons who understood and
concurred in his views — Phasael, Herod, Joseph, and
Pheroras — all of them brave, ambitious, magnificent, full
of spirit and high hopes. He also had a daughter, Salome,
who emulated his aspiring genius for intrigue, and who
was destined to become the scourge of his own house, even
as he became the scourge of the Asmoneans. Events
abroad as well as at home greatly favoured his ambitious
designs, so that he and his family went on gathering
strength from day to day, while the Asmonean family,
through the imbecility of Hyrcanus and the reverses of
Aristobulus and his sons, sustained a daily loss of power
and influence.
238 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
CHAPTER XIV.
Caesar in Egypt : besieged and in danger : rescued, chiefly by Antipater —
Caesar's gratitude — Antigonus claims Judea as heir to Aristobulus:
his claim rejected : Caesar's decrees in favour of Hyrcanus and the Jews
— Fortifications of Jerusalem rebuilt — Antipater procurator — His sons:
Phasael : Herod, governor of Galilee — His character : accused of ty-
ranny : his trial and flight — Caesar's last campaigns and death : Brutus
and Cassius masters of the East — Mark Antony, Octavius Caesar, and
Lcpidus triumvirs and masters of the AVest — Herod in high favour with
Cassius, who promises him the kingdom of Judea — Death of Antipater :
of Malichus — Herod afiianced to Mariamne the Asmonean — Battle of
Philippi : death of Brutus and Cassius — Mark Antony master of the
East: Herod finds favour with Antony, who appoints him and his brother
Phasael tetrarchs — Dissatisfaction of the Jews: massacre of their
delegates — Antony enthralled by Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt — He re-
turns to Rome and marries Octavia — The Parthians invade Judea:
place Antigonus on the throne : seize on the persons of Phasael and
Hyrcanus by treachery ; Hyrcanus, mutilated, is sent prisoner to Par-
thia : Phasael put to death — Herod escapes : pi'oceeds to Rome : is ap-
pointed King of Judea — Civil war between Antigonus and Herod — The
Parthians routed — Herod's party defeated near Jericho ; his brother
Joseph slain — Herod signally defeats Antigonus : marries Mariamne —
Siege and capture of Jerusalem — Number and importance of the sieges
of Jerusalem by the Romans, predicted by Moses ; (Deut. xxviii. 49,
50, 52 ;) — Antigonus, the last Asmonean king, scourged and beheaded at
Antioch. — (From 48 to 37, b. c. e.)
As, after the battle of Pharsalia, it had been the only
care of Pompey to provide for bis escape, so the sole object
of Caesar was to pursue and overtake him. He arrived at
Alexandria only three days after Pompey had been mur-
dered at Pelusium, and when the news of that event had
barely reached the former city. The forces Caesar brought
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 239
•with him by sea and land were not considerable ; and as
he found a large fleet in the harbour and ascertained that
there was a numerous garrison in the city, he hesitated to
land until a messenger from the king of Egypt brought him
the head of his vanquished rival. At the sight he shed
tears. He received, however, with complacency, Pompey's
ring, impressed with an armed lion, and long respected as
the signet of Rome's favourite and most powerful citizen.
At Cassar's landing, his being attended, in his quality of
Roman consul, by lictors bearing the fasces, gave ofi"ence
to the Egyptian garrison and to the turbulent citizens of
Alexandria, who looked upon this display of rods and axes
— the emblems of Rome's power — as an insult to the ma-
jesty of young Ptolemy. Their irritation was still further
heightened when Csesar summoned the king to appear be-
fore his tribunal and to submit to the decision of the consul
his own claims as well as those of his co-heiress and sister
Cleopatra, whom Ptolemy and his counsellors had expelled
from Egypt. This young queen, in full reliance on her
personal charms, and on the generally known amorous
disposition of Caesar, now ventured to return to the harbour
of Alexandria, and caused herself, concealed in a bale of
merchandise, to be carried into Coesar's apartment in the
royal palace. That conqueror delighted in the wiles of
love as in those of war. Her contrivance highly pleased
him, and he was subdued, or rather enslaved, by her p'er-
son and conversation.
The presence of Cleopatra in the palace, and her influ-
ence with Caesar, soon became known ; and as the counsel-
lors of Ptolemy, who had driven her out from Egypt, knew
her implacable and relentless temper, they arrived at the
conclusion that the safety of their own lives required that
Coesar should be disposed of in the same way as Pompey.
Accordingly the murderer of Pompey, Achillas, was sent
for, to perform the same ofiice on Caesar, and marched to
240 rOST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
Alexandria at the head of twenty thousand mercenaries,
the principal military force of the kingdom. He attacked
Caesar in the royal palace, the avenues to which had, how-
ever, been skilfully fortified, and were now so manfully
defended that the Egyptian was unable in any part to
make any impression. Simultaneously with the assault by
land, the Egyptian fleet attacked the few Roman, or rather
Rhodian, ships that had brought Caesar into the harbour.
But here likewise the superior skill of Caesar's Rhodian
mariners fully compensated for the inferior number of his
ships, and gained for him a signal victory. The Egyptian
vessels were, by Caesar's orders, burnt ; the fierceness of
the conflagration consumed the arsenal, and, spreading
widely, destroyed several other magnificent public build-
ings, among them the Bruchion library, containing four
hundred thousand volumes ; a calamity which served still
further to exasperate the Egyptians, and caused them all
the more fiercely- to persevere in their efi'orts to kill Caesar
and the handful of Romans and allies that surrounded him.
(Caesar de Bell. Civil : lib. iii.)
The news of Caesar's imminent danger at Alexandria,
and of his being besieged with a small force by the en-
raged multitudes of Egypt, soon reached Syria, and greatly
alarmed his adherents throughout the East. One of his
partisans, Mithridates of Pergamus, a namesake and kins-
man, but not a son, of the great king of Pontus, hurried to
raise some forces, with which he hastened to Egypt, where
he was anxiously expected by the Romans, as, with the
exception of a single legion which joined them, his was
the only succour at hand. But he proved unable to break
through Pelusium, the strong key of Egypt on that side,
and was compelled to retreat to Ascalon to collect rein-
forcements. This was an opportunity too fair to gain the
favour of Caesar for Antipater to neglect it. What he had
not done for Pompey, he dicl now. Not only did he send
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 241
an auxiliary body of three thousand Jews, well armed and
disciplined, and some other forces that he raised from
Armenia and the Lebanon, but he himself, in person, came
at their head. He also brought letters from Hyrcanus — •
either genuine or forged by himself — exhorting the Jews
of the territories of Onion, Delta, and Memphis, to assist
Caesar with all their might.
Thus reinforced, Mithridates once more advanced
against Pelusium. In the battle which was fought before
that city, at a place called the Jewish camp, Mithridates,
who commanded the right wing, must have been totally
defeated, unless Antipater, who at the head of his Jews
had been victorious on the left wing, which he commanded,
had hastened to his rescue and gained him a signal victory
over the Egyptians. At the storming of Pelusium, which
followed, Antipater himself was one of the foremost in
scaling the walls. On his advance toward Alexandria,
Mithridates had frequent engagements with the Egyptians ;
but by force or well-concerted stratagem he surmounted
every obstacle that the enemy or the nature of the country
threw in his way, until he arrived at Canopus, the most
western branch of the Nile. Throughout the whole of the
expedition he was powerfully supported and aided by the
courage and counsels of Antipater, whose abilities and
bravery were so strikingly manifested on every occasion,
that, in his written report to Csesar, Mithridates not only
felt bound to confess that his successes had been chiefly
owing to Antipater, but also to bestow on the Jewish com-
mander such encomiums that Csesar conceived a more than
ordinary esteem for a man of such consummate valor and
skill.
After Caesar's decisive victory over young Ptolemy^
who perished either in the fight or in the flight — he re-
warded his two auxiliaries munificently. On Mithridates,
the representative of the ancient kings of Pontus, he be-
VoL. 11. 21
242 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
stowed the crown of that country. Antipater, the servant
of Hyrcanus, was raised to the dignity of a Roman citizen,
with all the privileges thereunto appertaining ; and as
such appointed him Roman procurator in Judea. Hyr-
canus was confirmed in his full powers as prince and high-
priest of Judea, to be entailed on his posterity forever.
The five local governments established by Gabinius were
abolished, and the great Sanhedrin at Jerusalem restored in
the fulness of its pre-eminence. Csesar further ordered the
remission, every Sabbatic year, of the annual tribute pay-
able to the Romans ; and he conceded that the Jews should
not, as formerly, be obliged to provide winter quarters for
the Roman troops, or to pay an equivalent in money. Al-
together, the privileges and immunities he granted to the
Jews in Judea and throughout the empire were such that,
for a time, the Roman yoke became very light upon them.
After he had settled the afiairs of Egypt by fixing the
crown of that country on the brows of his mistress, Cleo-
patra, and placing with her on the throne her youngest
brother, also named Ptolemy, a child barely ten years of
age, Csesar visited Syria. In this country, Antigonus, the
youngest son of Aristobulus, who had resided with his
brother-in-law, Mennoeus, prince of Chalcis, presented
himself before the tribunal of the great Roman to solicit
that justice might be done to his family and to himself.
He urged the merits of his father Aristobulus, and of his
brother Alexander, so cruelly put to death by Pompey
because of their attachment to the cause of Caesar. He
pleaded the wrongs his family had suffered at the instiga-
tion of Hyrcanus and Antipater, so long the devoted tools
of Pompey, and he concluded with a petition that these
his enemies might be punished, and the principality he
inherited from his father — but of which Hyrcanus, by
the aid of Pompey, had unjustly robbed him — be restored
to him.
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 243
Unfortunately for Antigonus, his great adversary Anti-
pater happened to be in attendance on Caesar at the time
the Asmonean prince preferred his complaint and petition.
This experienced statesman and orator found no diffi-
culty in maintaining the cause of Hyrcanus. the elder
brother, unjustly deprived of his birthright under a pretext
of mental impotency that was evidently false, since Hyr-
canus had now for nearly twenty years administered the
affairs of Judea with ability and success, while Aristobulus
had been justly kept in prison as the enemy of Rome, and
Alexander had with equal justice been put to death as the
wanton disturber of the public peace in Judea and Syria.
Of his own share in all these matters, and that it was he
and not Hyrcanus who in reality governed Judea, the
astute Antipater said little or nothing. But his defence
of Hyrcanus was so complete, and his own recent services
so important, as to leave no hope for the unfortunate An-
tigonus. Csesar heard him coldly ; his suit was rejected,
and he himself dismissed as a factious and troublesome
person who could never be at rest.
But Csesar went further than barely acquitting Hyr-
canus and repulsing Antigonus. A decree was issued —
preserved to us by Josephus, (Antiq. lib. xiv. cap. 17,) in
which " C. Julius Coesar, emperor and dictator the second
time," expresses his high sense of the services rendered to
him by Hyrcanus, the son of Alexander, a Jew, both in
peace and in war ; and that, in consideration of these ser-
vices, he confirms unto Hyrcanus and his heirs forever the
government of the Jews as their prince and high-priest,
and renews and confirms unto the Jews all the privileges
and immunities he had already granted them. This second
decree Caesar caused to be engraved on tablets of brass in
Greek and in Latin, and to be hung up in the temples of
Tyre, Sidon, and Ascalon, and also in the capitol at Rome.
And when Hyrcanus sent an embassy of thanks to Rome,
244 POST-BIBLICAL IIISTOEY OF THE JEWS.
tlie ambassadors — as the fourth book of Maccabees (c.
xliv.) relates — were received with great marks of honour,
Csesar bestowing on them the signal and much-coveted
distinction of making them sit down in his presence. The
same book affirms that Caesar bestowed on the temple of
Jerusalem the annual tribute which the maritime province
of Syria — from Gaza to Sidon — was held to pay to Rome;
and that he restored to Ilyrcanus the city of Laodicea and
some others which formerly had belonged to the Asmoneans.
But though this is doubtful, it is certain that Caesar re-
instated the Jews in the rank of friends and allies of Rome ;
and that they were proclaimed as such in all the principal
cities of the Roman world. He also granted permission
that Ilyrcanus might restore the fortifications of Jerusalem
and of the temple-mount, which had been demolished by
Pompey, but which, as soon as the permission was granted,
Hyrcanus and Antipater set about rebuilding with great
zeal, and so as to render them more strong than ever. (46
B. C.E.)
The success thus attending the policy of Antipater na-
turally served to increase his personal influence and the
power of his house. On Ctesar's return to Rome, Anti-
pater accompanied him as far as Tyre, where the Dictator
embarked for the island of Sicily. On the journey back
to Jerusalem, Antipater everywhere harangued the Jewish
people, and entertained them with glowing descriptions of
Hyrcanus' goodness and of the power of Rome, promising
that their orderly conduct as faithful subjects would be
rewarded by their having a mild government, and enjoying
the blessings of peace and freedom ; but that in the event
of their proving rebellious nothing short of utter ruin
awaited them, "for the Romans will be obeyed." With
these words he invariably closed every oration, thus giving
the people distinctly to understand that his own authority
throughout Judea was thenceforth to be considered as su-
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 245
preme, since he alone was the much-trusted Procurator and
representative of these all-powerful Romans.
The rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem, and the resto-
ration of the national Sanhedrin in that city, were the two
great events that marked the return of Antipater to Jeru-
salem. The local aristocracy and courts established by
Gabinius having been abolished, Antipater placed adhe-
rents of his own as governors in these five districts. To
his eldest son, Phasael, he intrusted the command of the
metropolis. To his second son, Herod, he confided the
important and extensive government of Galilee. In the
text of Josephus, such as we now possess it, this second
son of Antipater is said to have been only fifteen years old
when his father appointed him governor of Galilee. (47 B.
c. E.) But a verification of dates proves that this figure is
a mistake, arising probably from some blunder made by a
copyist. It is certain that Herod reached the age of se-
venty years ; that after he became king (37 B. c. E.) he
reigned thirty-four years, and that he died in the year
3 B. c. E. He, therefore, must have been born about the
year 73 b. c. e., and consequently, at the time he became
governor of Galilee, was twenty-five or twenty-six years old.
His first acts fully proved him gifted with all the energy
and daring which are usual at that age, together with an
uncommon degree of ability and shrewdness, but, likewise,
with a total disregard of the milder feelings of human na-
ture. Indeed, the training of Antipater, while it called
forth and gave full play to all the sterner and more grasp-
ing faculties of which his children were possessed — am-
bition, indifibrence to human sufi'ering or personal danger,
and a quick appreciation of the means best adapted for
the gaining of immediate objects — left no room for the
cultivation of benevolence, modesty, or moderation. By
intrigue, by the unscrupulous sacrifice of evei'y higher con-
sideration to the means and end of the moment, and by
21*
246 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
the total disrcgai'd of truth, of justice, and of humanity,
the fabric of Antipater's greatness had been raised ; and
by the same means it was now to be upheld and augmented.
The district of Galilee, of Avhich Herod had "been ap-
pointed governor, was, from its geographical position, its
extent, its fertility and populousness, next to Jerusalem, the
most important portion of Judea, of which it formed the
northern boundary and protection against Syria. From
the mountain region of Libanon to the north, to that of
Carmel to the south, with the upper Jordan and the two
lakes of Samaclionitis and of Genesareth to the east, and
the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Galilee formed a per-
fect enclosure, extending about fifty miles from north to
south, and about thirty miles from east to west. The
climate is described as mild and salubrious, the soil as ex-
tremely fertile and highly cultivated, and the population
as exceedingly dense and numerous. It contained many
cities, among which were several with fifteen thousand in-
habitants and upwards. As it laid nearest to Syria,
it carried on a considerable trafiSc with that country and
with the great commercial cities of Sidon and Tyre, and
was, moreover, traversed by the principal caravan road
from the east to these two maritime outlets of inland com-
merce. Hence the wealth of Galilee in coin, merchandise,
and movable property generally, was very great.
The approach to the country from the north, through
the mountain passes of the Libanon, was exceedingly dif-
ficult ; so much so, indeed, that the invaders of Judea,
whether Syro-Greeks or Romans, preferred skirting the
eastern banks of the Jordan, and crossing that river south
of the limits of Galilee, rather than taking the nearest and
most direct road across the mountains. At the time that
Herod assumed the government, however, these mountain-
passes — which so long had formed a protection to the
wealth of Galilee — were occupied by a population hostile
THE KOMANS IN JUDEA. 247
alike to the family of Herod and to the supremacy of his
protectors, the Romans. Josephus designates these moun-
taineers as " robbers." But the history of revolutions and
insurrections in all countries, and at all times, affords us
the proof that this odious designation is indiscriminately
applied by each party to its opponents, and that the name
finally adheres to the weakest, who in this, as in every
other respect, "must go to the wall."^
These men, whom Josephus designates as "robbers,"
were in fact political refugees — not so much partisans of
Aristobulus as of Jewish national independence — and Avho,
at different times, under Aristobulus, Alexander, and
Pitolaus, had fought against Hyrcanus and his allies the
Romans. When vanquished, these patriots, as we with
justice may style them, fled to the fastnesses of Mount
Libanon, where vast caverns afforded shelter to their wives
and families ; while the men sallied forth and made fre-
quent predatory attacks on such parts of the country,
north and south of the great mountain-chain, as were
known or suspected to be friends of Rome and Hyrcanus.
Doubtless, these patriotic refugees, who had carried no-
thing out of the conflict, except their families and their
own persons, while their lands and chattels had been con-
fiscated to enrich the victorious faction, were not back-
ward in applying the name "robbers" to Antipater, his
sons, and his friends generally ; and probably they looked
upon their own plundering forays as acts of retributive
^ A remarkable instance of the importance attached to the branding of
political opponents as "robbers," is afforded by the case of Cremutiua
Cordus, an author of some note in Rome, who, at a period not long subse-
quent to the events narrated in our text, was driven to commit suicide, in
order, by his own death, to save his family from the ruinous efiFects of a
prosecution instituted against him, because, in his writings, he had omit-
ted to designate Brutus and Cassius as lairones, "robbers." (Tacitus,
Annal. lib. vi. § xxiv.)
248 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JKWS.
justice, and by no means criminal. At their head was a
bold and enterprising chief, named Hezekiah, who, with
energetic impartiality, plundered alike Judeans, Syrians,
or Romans, and was equally dreaded north and south of
the Libanon.
Cocsar, on his departure from Syria, had appointed his
kinsman, Sextus Caesar, president or governor-general of
Syria. Complaints of the mischief done by Hezekiah were
frequently laid before the Roman president, who as fre-
quently called upon Ilyrcanus for " indemnity for the
past, and security for the future." And it is probable
that Sextus Caesar's threat of sending a Roman detach-
ment into Galilee to put down the insurrection, induced
Antipater to send the most bold and active of his sons into
the disturbed districts, with orders, by every possible ex-
ertion, to avert the military occupation of Galilee by the
Romans.
Herod was of a temper sufficiently prone to give effect
to the commands of his father. Ambitious and ruthless
as in reality he was, he possessed a suppleness of mind,
and an amiability of carriage, that obtained for him the
good opinion of all whose favour he thought it worth while
to gain. Affecting the utmost zeal for the welfare of his
province, he assembled around him the leading men of
Galilee, and, by his apparent affability, rendered himself
so generally popular, that when he pointed out the neces-
sity of crushing Hezekiah and his adherents — not only for
the protection of the peaceful provincials, but still more
for the purpose of keeping the Romans out of the country —
every man in Galilee embraced his views, and Hezekiah,
whose safety had till then in a great measure been cared
for by the good-will the populace entertained for his cause,
suddenly found himself deprived of that protection and
early intelligence which, till then, the connivance and sym-
pathies of the people had afforded to him.
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 249
On the other hand, the unceasing activity of Herod was
such — he was so zealously served by his spies, and his
measures were so judiciously planned and so ably executed
— that, notwithstanding the extreme vigilance of Heze-
kiah, that wary chief was surprised by Herod, and taken
alive, with several of his principal followers. His adhe-
rents, panic-struck at the loss of their leader, dispersed, and,
for a time, peace and security were restored to Galilee,
the inhabitants of which country were delighted with
Herod's success, while they admired his military and
administrative talents. Sextus Ctesar was likewise much
pleased with Herod's services, and sent letters both to
Hyrcanus and Antipater, to compliment them on the
ability and success of the young governor of Galilee.
Stimulated by Herod's example, the eldest son of Anti-
pater, Phasael, governor of Jerusalem, guided by the wise
counsels of his father, neglected nothing that could re-
commend him to the favour of the inhabitants of that me-
tropolis. And thus, by means of his sons, Antipater saw
himself and them beloved, not only by the people, but also
by the feeble Hyrcanus, whom he and they still appeared
to treat with all the respect due to his station as high-
priest and reigning prince, at the head of the national
affairs.
But at the very time that Antipater and his sons deemed
themselves safely at anchor in their prosperity, and upheld
in their power by that threefold cord, — the favour of Rome,
of Hyrcanus, and of Judea, — a tempest was brewing over
their heads that threatened utterly and irretrievably to
overwhelm them. Hezekiah and his followers had fallen
into the power of Herod alive. The law required that the
prisoners should be tried in conformity with its precepts ;
that they should not be convicted except upon full and
sufficient evidence, and that — their guilt proven, and not
till then — they should suffer the extreme penalty inflicted
250 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
by justice. All these requirements and forms of the law
Herod had set aside as tedious and unnecessary. His
prisoners were no sooner brought before him than he caused
them to be put to death. No investigation was granted,
no appeal to the Sanhedrin or to the high-priest was per-
mitted, but, in the fulness of the authority he arrogated
to himself, Herod substituted his fiat for the time-honoured
precepts of the Law. The Romans and Syrians were
pleased, for they had been freed from troublesome neigh-
bours. The Galileans were pleased, for they had got rid
of the chief disturber of the public peace. The inhabitants
of Jerusalem, mostly Hyrcanists, cared little about the
manner in which a champion of Aristobulus and of the
hated Sadducees were disposed of. But the leading men
throughout Judea became alarmed ; the Sanhedrin felt at
once indignant and intimidated. They had long taken
umbrage at the excessive power wielded by Antipater, who
at the same time was the lieutenant of Rome and of Hyr-
canus. They had long felt that the only security for the
internal peace and welfare of Judea, was the prudence and
moderation which taught Antipater to conceal his supre-
macy, and which had even prompted him to restore the
Sanhedrin to the full exercise of its judicial authority.
But the daring of Herod, in putting his prisoners to
death without trial or investigation, was an act so unpre-
cedented, and, according to Jewish feelings and habits of
thought, so heinous, as to leave no doubt on their minds
of his cruel and arrogant nature, or of his willingness to
play the tyrant over them, since his very first act as an
administrator of public affairs was to violate the law, and
to insult the Sanhedrin. They, therefore, in a body, as
well as individually, addressed themselves to Hyrcanus,
and tried to rouse his fears by showing how completely
he himself was reduced to a cypher, whilst all real power
was in the hands of Antipater and his sons, from whom
THE KOMANS IN JUDEA. 251
the worst was to be dreaded ; and especially from Herod,
•who set at defiance the law of God as well as all human
authority. But Plyrcanus loved Herod. He had by this
time become accustomed to the ascendency of Antipater;
and all attempts to shake his affection for the son, or his
confidence in the father, were fruitless.
At length he was induced to yield to pity what he had
refused to justice or prudence. The widows and mothers
of the captives, whom Herod had so unceremoniously put
to death, arrived in Jerusalem, arrayed in mourning gar-
ments, and, placing themselves on Hyrcanus's road to the
temple, they attacked him daily with their loud lamenta-
tions, and clamorously cried for justice. Whether mem-
bers of the Sanhedrin had caused these women to come to
Jerusalem, or whether they acted of their own accord, can-
not be ascertained. But the result of their appeal — for
some among them maintained that their sons had been
wrongfully done to death, since they were no followers of
Hezekiah, though they happened to be with some of his
men, their own kinsmen, at the time of the capture, and
that a proper investigation would have established the
fact, and saved the lives of the innocent — was, that Hyr-
canus at length complied with their demand. Herod was
summoned to appear and defend his conduct before the
Sanhedrin, and a day was appointed for his trial.
In the then state of affairs, this measure was a decisive
coup d'etat. Its success would insure the fall of Antipater
with his sons ; but if, on the contrary, the Sanhedrin
should succumb, the power of the Idumeans would thence-
forth become irresistible. Antipater prepared for the
crisis with his accustomed energy and foresight. By his
advice Herod obeyed the summons, and came to Jerusalem ;
but he was attended by a body of armed retainers suffi-
ciently strong to protect his person. And he also took
care to secure the direct intervention in his favour of Sex-
2.52 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
tus CDDi?ar. To him Herod applied, and explained that
the crime of "which he Avas accused was, in fact, a merito-
rious action, called for alike by the people of Syria and of
his own government of Galilee; since the ordinary forms
of law gave so many chances of escape to the criminal,
that, in the event -of a public trial, his enemies would
doubtless have succeeded in saving the lives of Hezekiah
and of his followers. That, therefore, he (Herod) had
deemed it his duty to leave nothing to chance, but to make
root-and-branch work with these robbers and disturbers
of the public peace, against whom Sextus himself had been
on the point of taking up arms.
In reply to this application, Sextus C?esar furnished
Herod with a letter to Hyrcanus, in which the high-priest
was strictly charged — under the penalty of Rome's severest
displeasure, and the threat of instant and grievous chas-
tisement— to watch over the personal security of Herod,
and by no means to permit that he should be convicted.
This letter, which was handed to Hyrcanus shortly before
the trial, had the effect to completely overawe that timid
prince, and utterly to quench that fictitious assumption of
energy and independence, so foreign to his real character,
which, on this occasion, it seems he had displayed.
According to Josephus, (Antiq. lib. xiv. 9,) the presi-
dent and vice-president of the Sanhedrin at the time
were named Pollio and Sameas. Now, in the Rabbinical
chain of tradition, which enumerates all the chiefs of the
Sanhedrin in regular succession, no such names are to be
found. It has therefore been assumed that these Pollio
and Sameas are Hillel and Shammai, men highly cele-
brated in tradition as expounders of the Law, and founders
of two eminent schools. But chronology and facts reject
this assumption. Since Hillel — who became president of
the Sanhedrin in the first years of Herod's reign — had,
previous to his election to that high ofiice, not even been a
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 253
member of the great national council, and Shammai, the
vice-president, Avas appointed at a later period than Hillel.
The two names given by Josephus have therefore, by some
historians, been identified with Shemmaiah and Abtallion,
the predecessors in office of Hillel and Shammai. There
are some circumstances which militate against this opinion;
nevertheless it might be reconciled with chronology, and
it appears far more likely that the Hebrew or Syriac name,
Abtallion, should have been changed into the Greek Pollio,
than that such a transformation concealed the name of
Hillel.
But whoever presided on the day of Herod's trial, it
became a memorable one in the annals of the Sanhedrin.
Herod appeared before his judges, arrayed in purple, his
bright helmet, reflecting the rays of the sun, on his head,
his sword glittering at his side, and a body of armed fol-
lowers surrounding his person. His wdiole carriage, so
little resembling the humble guise and demeanour of a
culprit accused of heavy crime, and standing before judges
whose verdict was to decide over life or death, utterly con-
founded the Sanhedrin. It was something new, to which
they were not at all accustomed, and they proved unequal
to the great occasion they themselves had so rashly pro-
voked. The letter which Hyrcanus had received from
Sextus Caesar, and which had been communicated to the
Sanhedrin, had fully served its purpose of intimidation.
And when now Herod presented himself, pride on his
haughty brow, and defiance in his fiery eye, he gave thera
plainly to understand that he came not as a private person,
much less as a criminal to be judged by them, but that he
stood before them conscious of his power, and prepared to
extort his acquittal by terror and the force of arms. Ac-
cordingly, the members of the high court were awe-
stricken ; and those who had been most urgent for the prosecu-
tion now remained mute, afraid to enter on the proceedings.
Vol. TI. 22
254 POST-BIBLTCAL III.<=TORY OF THE JEWS.
At length Samoas, a member of the Sanheclrin, much
respected for his learning, his piety and integrity, rose,
and, unable any longer to suppress his indignation, abru^jtly
addressed himself to Hyrcanus and to the court in a strain
of honest and powerful remonstrance. "Men of the San-
hedrin," said he, "-and thou, 0 king, has any man ever
been seen, who, accused of crime and summoned before
this high court to clear himself, has presumed to present
himself in the manner Herod does ? Charged w'ith mani-
fold murders, and liable to be punished for so grave a
crime, he comes here dressed up in purple, his hair care-
fully curled ; he comes into the sanctuary of justice armed
and surrounded by a troop of guards. Should we pro-
nounce against him the sentence decreed by the law, he
will use force to prevent its being carried out, and his first
blows would be struck against ourselves. I do not so much
blame him for the means he takes to secure his forfeited
life, which he values more highly than the law of God.
But what surprises me is to see the high-priest, and you,
the judges, thus timidly and tamely permitting this arro-
gant culprit to have his own way. But take notice of
what I am going to say to you. God is a righteous and
powerful judge; and this very man, whom now, in cow-
ardly compliance with the wishes of Hyrcanus, you are
about to acquit, will prove the ruin of you, judges, and of
your king."
With these remarkable words he resumed his seat. The
future proved how true had been his prophecy. The im-
mediate effect of his speech was that a majority of the
Sanhedrin, recalled to a sense of their duty, prepared to
enter on the proceedings ; and that in a spirit by no
means favourable to the accused. But Hyrcanus, who
saw and dreaded the turn the affair was taking, suspended
the session, and adjourned the court till the next day.
During the intervening evening, Hyrcanus gave Herod a
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 255
hint to flee for his life, of which the latter was not slow to
avail himself. He quitted Jerusalem that same night, and
hastened to Damascus, the seat of the Roman pro-consul.
Under the powerful protection of Sextus Caesar, Herod no
longer hesitated publicly, and most arrogantly, to set the
Sanhedrin at defiance, informing that high court that, in
the event of any further citation to appear being issued
against him, he would disclaim its jurisdiction. The mem-
bers were greatly enraged at this uncalled-for insolence ;
but, as they could not prevail on Hyrcanus to take any
measures for vindicating their authority, they were obliged
to submit to the affront.
Herod was too haughty, and his mind too active, to rest
content in indolent dependence on the protection of the
Romans. A large sum of money, furnished by his father,
enabled him to purchase from his friend, Sextus Caesar,
the government of Ccele-Syria. Having thus obtained a
locality in which to exercise his authority, his next care
was to raise an army, with which to march against Jeru-
salem, in order to be revenged on the Sanhedrin for the
contumely they had put upon him, and on, Hyrcanus for
having exposed him to their insults. From that design he
was, however, diverted by his father and by his elder bro-
ther, Phasael, who reminded him of the great obligations
he owed to the high-priest, by whom he had, in all pro-
bability, been saved from an ignominious death, and to
whom both he and they were indebted for all the power
and grandeur they enjoyed. Herod yielded for the pre-
sent, satisfied with the terror his armament had caused in
Jerusalem, and with the foretaste he had thus given to his
enemies of a revenge which he consented to defer, but by
no means to renounce.
While Herod was thus busy in Judea, events of far
higher importance agitated Rome. Caesar's long stay in
Egypt, enthralled by the charms of Cleopatra, had afforded
256 POST-BIBLICAL HISTOKY OF THE JEWS.
time to his enemies to rally and gather strength after the
stunning overthrow at Pharsalia, and the death of their
chief, Pompey. In Asia, Pharnaces, a son of Mithridates,
attempted to recover his late father's kingdom, and justi-
fied his claims by a decided victory over D. Calvinus, a
Roman pro-consul and commander. In Africa, the defeat
and death of Caesar's lieutenant. Curio, enabled Scipio and
Cato to seize upon the whole of the Roman possessions,
in the name of the senate. And in Europe, the sons of
Pompey landed in Spain, where the numerous partisans
of their father soon made it easy for them to recover the
authority he so long had held in that country. (Appian de
Bell. Civil., lib. ii.)
These reverses at length roused Caesar from his dream
of pleasure, and, bursting through the snares of Cleopatra,
he once more took the field. The ignominious defeat of
Pharnaces entitled Caesar to pen his famous despatch, veni,
vidi, vici, "I came, I saw, I conquered." At Thapsus,
in Africa, the senatorial army was routed and Scipio slain,
while Cato, at Utica, stabbed himself, that he might die
free, without exposing his friends to a hopeless conflict.
And finally, at Munda, in Spain, the young Pompeyans,
after a well-contested battle — and in which Csesar was
more near being routed than in any other he ever had
fought — were utterly defeated ; and the head of Cneius,
the eldest of the two sons, was presented to the victor three
years after he had received that of their unfortunate father.
Having thus crushed all his avowed enemies, Ctesar re-
turned to Rome, and celebrated, with unparalleled mag-
nificence, his triumph over the three divisions of the then
known world. Among the ambassadors who awaited his
arrival to tender their felicitations, those of Ilyrcanus, or
rather of Antipater, were received and entertained with
special favour and distinction. Cocsar granted them the
right of sitting down with the senators of Rome, at every
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 257
public entertainment, and he decreed that whenever Hyr-
canus or his successors should have occasion to present a
petition to the Roman senate, the Jewish ambassadors
should be introduced to that august body either by the
Dictator in person, or by his Master of the Horse, and
that they should receive an answer within ten days. Csesar
gave many other proofs of his friendship for the Jews,
whom on all occasions he classed among the most highly
favoured of the allies of Rome.
Though Csesar had returned to Rome to enjoy without
disguise the unlimited and absolute sovereignty he had ac-
quired, his active mind did not suffer him long to remain
at rest. Accordingly, he began to prepare for a campaign
against the Parthians. And as there was an oracle or
popular superstition in vogue, that the Parthians could
only be conquered by a king, it was proposed that C?esar,
who had already been deified or declared a god by the
senate, should be proclaimed as king, and bear that title
everywhere, except in the city of Rome itself. But this
was more than his former equals in the senate could pa-
tiently endure. Indeed, the ostentatious display Caesar
made of his power appeared to them more insupportable
than its actual weight. A conspiracy was formed against
him by more than sixty indignant senators, headed by
Marcus Brutus and Caius Cassius ; and Caesar perished
under their daggers "at the foot of Pompey's statue," in
the senate-house, on the Ides (15th) of March, (44 b. c. e.,)
while the conspirators rushed forth brandishing their
bloody weapons, parading a cap of liberty through the
streets, and proclaiming the downfall of tyranny and the
victory of freedom.
But Rome, its senate, and its people, were so irretriev-
ably corrupt, that even the potent words of "Liberty and
Equality," which, in modern times, have convulsed the
world, proved vain and useless. The degenerate dcscend-
22*
258 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
ants of Publicola and Junius Brutus felt tliat they were
alike unworthy and incapable of freedom and self-govern-
ment; that they needed a master; and that Cnesar, from
his pre-eminent talents and clemency of character, was
far more deserving of sovereignty, and more certain to ex-
ercise his power for the general good, than any who might
strive to succeed him. The conspirators, alarmed at the
manifestation of public feeling against them, were driven
to quit Rome ; and it is a remarkable fact that all of them,
within three years of his death, perished untimely, either
by their own hand or by that of Csesar's avengers.
The chiefs of the conspiracy, Brutus and Cassius, had
been appointed by Ctesar to command in the great pro-
vinces of Macedon and Syria. Of these appointments
Mark Antony, who, after the death of Cgesar, had been
left sole consul, deprived them, and in lieu of provinces
granted them commissions for providing Italy with corn.
He afterward assigned the province of Crete to Brutus,
and of Cyrene to Cassius. But with these inferior ap-
pointments they were by no means satisfied ; and, availing
themselves of the fleets they commanded as purveyors,
they crossed the Adriatic sea in order to take possession
of the provinces to which they had originally been
appointed.
In this they were eminently successful. In consequence
of his long and splendid employment in the East, particu-
larly his signal service in repelling the Parthians from
Syria, the name of Cassius stood high with the legions in
that and the neighbouring provinces. With another class
of persons, of no small weight, the fame of Brutus was un-
rivalled. He was descended from the first and great
champion of Roman liberty, and the dignity of the name
he bore was sustained by the purity of his life. Though
trained by his maternal uncle, Cato, according to the
stern maxims of the Stoics, he was esteemed by the people
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 259
for his kindness of heart, while the great admired his pro-
ficiency in philosophic literature, and all ranks looked upon
him as a man eminently qualified to fill a high destiny.
The Greek cities, both in Europe and Asia, were frequented
by young Romans of distinction, who there prosecuted
those studies in which Brutus excelled, and who heard the
eloquent professors of that lofty philosophy which Brutus
practised. In the ashes of expiring freedom at Athens, a
new fire began to kindle ; Ca;sar was branded as a tyrant,
and Brutus and Cassius hailed as the avengers and cham-
pions of liberty.
The contagion Spread from Greece to Macedon, and from
Macedon to Asia. The governors of provinces surrendered
their trust and the armies they commanded to Brutus and
Cassius ; to them the qumstors (public treasurers) brought
the revenues under their charge, while the cities on the
sea-coast afibrded their shipping. The veterans of Pom-
pey, so numerous in the countries he had subdued, and
especially in Syria, rallied round the standard so long
hoped for, and at last raised, to avenge the cause of that
long-admired and much-regretted chief. Cassius thus as-
sembled twelve legions in Syria, of which province he was
completely master ; Brutus, who exercised undisputed
authority in Macedon, raised six legions among the war-
like countrymen of Alexander the Great ; and the cause
of liberty thus triumphant in the East, the leaders began
to turn their attention to Rome and the West.
There, however, the avengers of Ctesar had been suc-
cessful. Mark Antony, with whom we are already ac-
quainted, sole consul at the time of Caesar's death, ex-
ecutor under his last will, and guardian of his young kins-
man and heir, at first attempted to seize on sovereign
power. Famed for his great military talents, though no-
torious for his profligacy, beloved by the soldiery, though
detested by the senate and the people, he would probably
260 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
have succeeded, had it not been for the opposition he so
unexpectedly met with from Octavius, the nephew of
Ctesar, who had appointed this youth his heir. Though
only in his nineteenth year, neither the tears of his mother,
nor the remonstrances of his stepfather and friends, could
deter him from appearing at Rome to claim the inheritance
and name of his murdered kinsman. That inheritance,
according to the opinion of Octavius, comprised the power
of Cffisar as well as his property ; and to seize and secure
that power was a design which Octavius prosecuted with
an extraordinary mixture of caution and courage, steadily
advancing to his end while he dexterously varied the
means. " In the first year of his public life he was a
zealous patriot. Then during twelve years he acted the
part of a cruel triumvir. But during the last forty-four
years of his life and reign he deserved to be called the
father of the Roman people." (Gillies, viii. 411.)
It is needless to follow the intrigues and turns of for-
tune which reduced Antony to the state of an outlawed
fugitive, and then again placed him at the head of an army
sufficiently strong to vindicate his claim to power. Even-
tually the Roman republic — as it still was officially de-
signated— was divided by "indenture tripartite" between
Octavius Csesar, Mark Antony, and ^milius Lepidus, who
had been Julius Caesar's master of the horse. They de-
clared themselves triumviri for the space of five years, at
the expiration of which period the ordinary adminstration
of the commonwealth was to be restored, provided the
murderers of Julius Csesar and their abettors had been
brought to condign punishment. The names of three
hundred senators and two thousand influential citizens
were inscribed on the condemned list ; and each of the
triumviri sacrificed some person near and dear to him;
Antony, his uncle ; Lepidus, his brother ; and Octavius
was base enough to sacrifice the man whom above all others
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 261
he professed to love, and ^YllOse virtues and talents he
never ceased to revere, Marcus Tullius Cicero, the greatest
of Roman orators.^ After having glutted their vengeance
and established their power in Rome, the triumviri sepa-
rated. Lepidus remained at the head of affairs in Italy,
while Antony marched against Brutus and Cassius, and
was shortly afterward joined by Octavius Caesar.
We have already seen how readily and seasonably Anti-
pater forsook the falling cause of his patron, Pompey, to
worship the victor star of C^sar. The same manoeuvre
he once more performed, and almost with equal success.
Julius Caesar had been his benefactor f but he was dead,
4 The sacrifice of Cicero was made -witli extreme reluctance by Octavius.
But Antony had been so exasperated by the philippics the orator had pro-
nounced against him, and was goaded into such fury by his wife Fulvia,
that he remained inexorable. He even rose from the table at which the
triumvii'i were seated, and declared that the death of Cicero was an indis-
pensable condition, and since that had been rejected the conferences must
end. (Plutarch, in Anton, conf. Dion, lib. vii. p. 331, et seq.) Cicero might
have escaped, but, being then sixty-four years of age and infirm, he pre-
ferred death to the privations of flight and the anxieties of concealment.
His head and hands were brought to Antony, who caused them to be fixed
on the tribune from whence Cicero had denounced him. It is said that
Fulvia had indulged her rage against the orator by tossing his head about
and tearing his tongue with a bodkin. (Ibid.) In his old age, Octavius, or,
as he then was called, Augustus, acknowledged to his grandson that Cicero
had been *'a virtuous man, a true patriot and friend of his country."
^ At the meeting of the senate after the death of Caesar, Mark Antony
and Dolabella introduced, among others, ambassadors from Judea, who
. happened to be in Kome at the time, and were admitted to renew their
alliance with them. In consequence of this, when Dolabella compelled
several Jews of Asia Minor to enrol themselves in the Koman army, Hyr-
canus complained, and reminded the pro-consul that the Jews, on account
of their having to observe the Sabbath, had always been exempted from
military service under the Romans. The remonstrance was successful ;
and Dolabella ordered the governor of Ephesus at once to set free the
Jewish recruits, and to see that the Jews be not disturbed in the exercise
of their religion. (Jos. Antiq. lib. xiv. cap. 18.)
262 rOST-BILLICAL HISTORY OF TUE JEWS.
and his murderer Cassius all-poAverful in Asia. Moreover,
Sextus Caisar, the pro-consul of Syria, had shared the fate
of his kinsman Julius, and been treacherously assassinated.
His death deprived Ilerod of a powerful protector ; but
the son and disciple of Antipater was not less ductile or
ready to Avorship the rising sun than his father. As Cas-
sius, in order to equip and maintain his numerous army,
needed large sums of money, he was forced to exact im-
mense tributes from the countries under his sway. The
sum at which Judea was assessed was not less than seven
hundred talents (about seven hundred thousand dollars.)
Antipater knew how greatly Cassius was in want of a sup-
ply, and how much it was for his own interest to revive his
former favour with that great chief by speedily raising the
amount the Roman required. He therefore intrusted the
collecting of the assessment half to his two sons, Phasael
and Herod, and the other half to Malichus, a powerful sup-
porter and favourite of Hyrcanus. Assisted by his father,
Herod was the first among all the tributaries and tax-
gatherers who presented himself before Cassius, with one
hundred talents, the full amount his province had been
taxed at. The alacrity and ability with Avhich he raised this
sum recommended him strongly to Cassius's esteem.
His brother Phasael did not long remain behind him ;
but Malichus and those employed under him were in no
hurry to plunder their own people in order to glut the
ever-craving rapacity of the Romans. Every species of
delay was resorted to ; and Cassius, impatient and ruthless,
soon gave proof of his anger. The inhabitants of those
cities in Judea which were most backward in the payment
of the tribute levied upon them, were ordered to be sold
as slaves at public auction ; and Malichus himself would
have been put to death, had he not been saved by Hyr-
canus, who ransomed his favourite for a sum of one hun-
dred talents, which he took. out of his own coffers and sent
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 2G3
to Cassius. Maliclius, rescued from destruction by the
generosity of his master, strongly suspected Antipater and
his two sons as the cause why Cassius's anger had been
directed against himself personally ; especially as Pitolaus,
his former friend and partner in the favour of Hyrcanus,
had been put to death by the same Cassius at the instiga-
tion of Antipater. Thenceforth Malichus sought the op-
portunity of slaying Antipater ; and in this determination
he was joined by several of the leading men of Judea, ex-
asperated against the Idumean family for their zeal in the
cause of an assassin, and alarmed by the promise made
to Herod by the Roman, who, on confirming him in his
government of Coele-Syria, assured him that as soon as the
war against Octavius and Antony, to which he was march-
ing, was ended, Brutus and himself would make Herod
king of Judea, as a reward for his zeal and fidelity. (Jo-
seph. Antiq. lib. xiv. cap. xi.)
While men's minds were agitated by the report of this
promise, Antipater died suddenly on his return from
dining at Hyrcanus' table in company with Malichus and
several other leading men. As this was considered a very
suspicious circumstance, it was asserted that Malichus
had caused his rival to be poisoned in a glass of wine by
Hyrcanus' butler, whom he had bribed for that purpose.
In vain Malichus protested his innocence ; the sons of An-
tipater did not believe him ; and, what is worse for his re-
putation with posterity, both Josephus (Antiq. lib. xiv.
cap. 20) and the author of the fourth book of Maccabees
(ch. xlvi.) considered him guilty of the crime. So that
it is difiicult to conceive on what grounds M. Salvador
[Domination Romaine en Judee, i. 286) treats the accu-
sation as not proved. Malichus certainly lost no time in
making the most of Antipatcr's death. He introduced an
armed force into Jerusalem, and seized upon the govern-
ment ; and it seems probable that his intention was to take
264 POST-BIBLICAL HISTOBY OP THE JEWS.
advantage of the civil war of the Romans in order to expel
them from Judea.
But the sons of Antipatcr had not been idle. They had
laid their complaint before Cassius, and obtained from him
the order to put Malichus to death, which they did by
stratagem near Tyre, and under the very eyes of Hyrcanus.
A brother of Malichus, who caused some trouble, was soon
subdued by Phasael, who, after the defeat of Brutus and
Cassius, even took upon himself to expel their lieutenant,
Felix, from Jerusalem. Antigonus, the son of Aristobulus,
who had assembled some forces and marched against Judea,
supported by his brother-in-law, the prince of Chalcis, by
the prince of Tyre, and by the Roman governor of Da-
mascus, was encountered by Herod, defeated, and his army
dispersed. The victor acted with his usual policy ; the
Tyrians who fell into his power were well treated, and gene-
rously permitted to return to their home, enriched with
presents Herod bestowed upon them. He was shrewd
enough to appreciate the importance of a good name ; and
his conduct on this occasion did not fail to answer the
purpose he intended, as the great commercial city of Tyre
thenceforth became a valuable friend to his family.
Amidst all these commotions, no man was more helpless or
miserable than poor Hyrcanus. Deprived of the guidance
of Antipater, whose aspiring abilities had relieved the im-
becile prince of the burden of government, and of the so-
ciety of Malichus, whose friendship he had leaned on for
support against the Iduracan family, Hyrcanus, left to
himself, had been made the tool of each party successively
that had predominated in Jerusalem. When the two bro-
thers, Phasael and Herod, gained the upper hand, they
upbraided Hyrcanus in the bitterest terms for his base-
ness and treachery ; but though he was altogether in their
power, they feared to proceed to extremes against him.
On the contrary, they remembered their father's lessons,
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 265
and were therefore desirous of a reconciliation "with the
high-priest, in order, hy the sanction of his authority, to
legalise their power. As Hyrcanus, from habit, was
attached to the sons of Antipater, and especially to Herod,
and, moreover, felt the want of a strong arm to lean upon,
and a clear head to direct him, he readily entered into the
views of the two brothers ; and the means for uniting him
firmly to their interests, and them to his, were soon found.
Hyrcanus, as we have already stated, had no sons, and
only one daughter, named Alexandra. This princess —
by virtue of the compact made between Hyrcanus and Aris-
tobulus at the time the elder brother abdicated — was
bestowed in marriage on Alexander, the eldest son of
Aristobulus, and became the mother of two children, a
daughter and a son, both distinguished for their graces of
person and of mind. After Alexander had been executed
by the order of Pompey, the widow, with her children, re-
sided in Jerusalem, under the protection of her father,
Hyrcanus. Her daughter Mariamne (Miriam) attracted
the notice of Herod, so that both policy and inclination
united in rendering him anxious to secure her hand. His
proposals were favourably received by Hyrcanus, who,
aged and decrepit, had but one wish, and that was to se-
cure the dignity of high-priest to his grandson, then a boy
in his tenth year, to the exclusion of his nephew, Anti-
gonus, the only surviving son of his late brother, King
Aristobulus. This wish Hyrcanus considered certain to
be realized, provided the powerful family of Antipater
were indissolubly united to his own. He accordingly
consented to the betrothal of Herod and Mariamne ; and
when the former returned from his successful campaign
against Antigonus, Hyrcanus went forth to meet and to
welcome him with all a father's fondness.
The battle of Philippi, in which Brutus and Cassius
were defeated and driven to commit suicide, left the tri-
YoL. II. 23
2G6 rOST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEAVS.
umviri masters of the Roman world. After the battle the
two victors, Octavius and Antony, divided that world be-
tween themselves, and then separated, each of them to
seize upon his share. The former returned to Italy ; while
the latter, to whose military talents the success was chiefly
due, was deemed entitled to reap the richest reward of
victory. Antony chose for his department the settlement
of the Eastern empire, w^here he could exercise unlimited
power without danger, whilst Octavius' undertakings
were attended with difficulty and extreme peril.
Antony's proceedings in the East were generally cruel
and contumelious. Religion and government, all rules
of justice, all feelings of shame or remorse, were equally
trodden under foot. At Ephesus, where he was met by
deputations from the various nationalities under Roman
sway, he mounted his imperial tribunal, and declared, with-
out circumlocution, that his object was chiefly to raise
money ; and as the eastern provinces had within the space
of two years furnished the murderers of their benefactor,
Caesar, with sums equal to the revenues of ten years, he,
himself, would be contented with demanding the same
amount, provided it be paid in one year. "When one of
the deputies, more bold than the rest, remarked that it
would be impossible to comply with this demand unless the
triumvir had the means of creating in one year ten seed-
times and ten harvests, Antony so far relented as to re-
duce the impost to nine years' revenues, and to extend the
time of payment to two years. This arrangement was ex-
tended to the sacerdotal principalities of Asia Minor and
Syria, to the allied kings on the eastern frontier, and to
those cities and nationalities which the Romans still mocked
with the name of freedom.
Among the first who hurried to meet and welcome An-
tony, in order to gain his favour by flattery and rich pre-
sents, was Ilerod, who had, indeed, a hereditary claim on
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 267
Antony's friendship. For when that pleasure-loving and
ever-needy Roman had served in the East, under Gabinius,
and had commanded a portion of the Roman forces in Ju-
dea, he had received many personal favours from Antipater,
■whose far-seeing policy neglected no man that hereafter
might become useful to him. One of the most surprising
facts in the career of Antipater and his sons, is the tact
and success with which they contrived to maintain them-
selves in favour with the successive " powers that be,"
however much these might dijGfer in their principles.
No men could possibly be more opposed in feelings, in
opinions, and in conduct, than Pompey, Caesar, Cassius,
Antony, and Octavius, who had superseded each other in
the supreme command of the East. In every case the
victor had destroyed his opponent, and proscribed his
principles and adherents. Yet with each of them Anti-
pater and his sons had been in high favour ; each of the
great Romans had helped to forward those ambitious
schemes which eventually fixed the crown of the Asmo-
neans on the brow of Herod. It would be difficult to sup-
pose that such excellent judges of human nature as Caesar,
Cassius, or Octavius, could allow themselves to be deceived
by the unprincipled pliancy of Antipater and his sons.
But the probability is that however much these great Ro-
mans might be opposed in motives and conduct, there was
one object in which they all agreed, and that was to pre-
serve the supremacy of Rome, by degrading and dividing
the nationalities most strongly antagonistic to her sway.
And as they saw that in relation to the Jews no better
instruments could be found than the Idumean family, these
men, who disagreed on every other subject, agreed in
making use of this family as an excellent tool, ready-
made, and to be handled accordingly.
Herod's claims on Antony's friendship were acknow-
ledged ; the large sum of money he presented was graci-
2G8 POST-BIBLICAL IIISTORY OF THE JEAVS.
ouslj accepted, and the value of the protection secured was
soon made manifest. Among the many embassies that
waited on the triumvir, Avas also a deputation of Jews from
Jerusalem, who came to present a formal complaint against
Herod and his brother Phasael, for that they had usurped
the entire administration of affairs, leaving to Hyrcanus
the bare name of prince without any authority. But
Antony refused even to hear the accusers, so great was
his friendship for Herod. At Ephesus the triumvir was
waited on by ambassadors from Hyrcanus, who came to
solicit freedom for those Jews whom Cassius had caused
to be sold as slaves, contrary to the treaty between the Ro-
mans and the Jews ; and who were actually kept in bond-
age at Tyre, Sidon, and other cities. The request was
at once granted ; and Antony not only wrote an obliging
letter to Hyrcanus, but shortly afterward also issued a
decree, commanding that the Jews thus unlawfully sold
should be set at liberty, and their property be restored
them. (Jos. Antiq. lib. xiv. cap. 22.)
In this ready compliance and immediate attention to
Hyrcanus's request, Herod's influence with the slothful
and negligent Antony was strikingly evident. But so de-
tested were the sons of Antipater, that even the services
they rendered to the people failed to reconcile them with
the great body of Jews. When Antony reached An-
tioch — where he took up his residence in the ill-famed
groves of Daphne, and where old Hyrcanus, in person,
came to present his respects to the ruler of the East — a
second deputation, consisting of upward of one hundred
of the leading men in Judea, appeared before him, to re-
new their complaints against the two brothers, Phasael
and Herod. This second deputation, more and less for-
tunate than the first, succeeded in obtaining an audience.
After their complaints had been fully heard, Messala, an
eloquent Roman, and favourite of Antony, undertook to
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 269
plead the cause of the accused. Antony, previous to pro-
nouncing his decision, turned to Hyrcanus, who was pre-
sent, and, in the hearing of the Jewish deputies, asked
the high-priest whom he considered as most competent to
conduct the affairs of government under himself? Influ-
enced by the recent contract of marriage between his
granddaughter and Herod, as well as by his affection for
the latter, Hyrcanus named the two brothers. Antony,
delighted, also declared for them, conferred on them the
rank and power of tetrarchs, or princes over a quarter of
a country, and committed the affairs of Judea to their
management.
With this decision the Jewish deputies were highly dis-
satisfied ; and some of them giving xent to their rage,
Antony caused fifteen of the most turbulent to be im-
prisoned, and would have put them to death had not Herod
interceded for them. The Jews, however, were too obsti-
nate and too much enraged to submit to an arrangement
that converted into lawful authority the usurped domina-
tion which the sons of Antipater had till then exercised.
On Antony's arrival at Tyre, a third Jewish deputation,
consisting of not less than one thousand persons, was an-
nounced to him. This embassy, however, the triumvir —
overwhelmed with presents and bribes by Herod — thought
proper to treat as a tumultuous assemby, which he ordered
the magistrates of Tyre to disperse by force. And though
both Herod and Hyrcanus himself forewarned the deputies
of their danger, these obstinate men insisted on appearing
before Antony, until Tyrian troops fell upon them and
routed them with considerable bloodshed, while many of
them were dragged to prison. This fatal result put an
end to Jewish deputations craving audience with Antony.
But as the great mass of the Jewish people loudly ex-
pressed their aversion and resentment against the two
brothers, whom they taxed with having caused the slaughter
23*
270 POST-BIBLICAL niSTORY OF THE JEWS.
of their deputies, Antony, enraged, and in order to inti-
midate the Judeans, caused all his Jewish prisoners to be
put to death— a cruelty "which only served still further to
exasperate the Jews.
At the time these events occurred at Tyre, Antony was
on his way to Egypt. When he served in that country
under Gabinius, he had been smitten with the precocious
charms of Cleopatra, then only twelve years of age, and
who now, in her twenty-ninth year, exercised over him a
degree of fascination even more powerful than that by
which she had so long subdued Julius Csesar. The history
of Mark Antony's thraldom to this charming but most
worthless woman is too well known to require more than
the slight mention which her connection with this history
requires. In her luxurious society at Alexandria Antony
wasted his time and neglected his duties, until, both in the
West and in the East, the rude summons of public calamity
roused him from his dalliance with the queen of Egypt.
(40 B.C. E.)
From the West (Rome) Antony was informed that hos-
tilities had broken out between his own adherents, headed
by his wife Fulvia and his brother Lucius, and his two col-
leagues in the triumvirate, Octavius and Lepidus ; that
Lucius had been forced to surrender, and Fulvia to flee
from Italy, Avhile three hundred men of rank and influence
had been put to death by the victor Octavius.'' From the
East, tidings reached Antony of a formidable inroad in
Syria by the Parthians, headed by Pacorus, the son and
heir of their king, supported by Labienus, a Roman
general, who had belonged to the party of Pompey, and
who rallied around him all the surviving partisans of that
leader, as well as those of Brutus and Cassius; and that
6 By a horrid act of superstition, he caused them to be sacrificed to the
manes of Julius Caesar, on the Ides of March following. (Appian. Plu-
tarch, in Antony.)
THE EOMANS IN JUDEA. 271
the invaders had been invited by the people, who, exaspe-
rated and exhausted by unceasing exactions, refused to bear
them any longer. (40 b. c. e.)
All this compelled Antony to break through the enchant-
ment that detained him in Alexandria, and to look closely
to his own affairs. He directed his attention first to the
danger that was nearest, and hastened to Tyre ; but on
his arrival there he found that the forces he could com-
mand were not sujQficient to repel the Parthians ; while the
lamentable letters he received from his wife Fulvia, then
at Athens, convinced him that his own personal safety and
prosperity could only be secured by his immediate presence
in Italy. He, therefore, hastened westward, and for a
time left Pacorus supreme in the East. On his road to
Italy, Antony met his wife Fulvia, and reprimanded her
severely for having embroiled him with his colleagues.
This bad woman was capable of any enormity, but her
proud heart could not bear reproach. After Antony's de-
parture she sickened and soon died.
On his arrival in Italy, affairs between him and Octa-
vius wore, for a time, a threatening aspect. But the Ro-
man legionaries had discovered the secret of their own im-
portance : they had learned to reason and to calculate.
Octavius had the stronger army ; Antony was the better
general. The result of a contest was doubtful ; the bene-
fits of peace were certain, and outbalanced, on either side,
the hope of augmenting them by victory. Both armies
insisted on a reconciliation between their leaders. The
death of Fulvia afforded a favourable opportunity to carry
out their desire. By his marriage with Octavia, the beau-
tiful, virtuous, and highly accomplished sister of Octavius,
Antony sealed his peace with her brother, and was left
sole master of the East, as soon as he should have expelled
the Parthians, a task which, during his continued absence,
he intrusted to his lieutenant Ventidius.
272 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
These invaders having, without much difficulty, made
themselves masters of Syria, next directed their attention
to Palestine. Through the mediation of Lysanias, prince
of Chalcis — who had recently succeeded his father Men-
nseus — a treaty was concluded between Pacorus and Anti-
gonus, the son of the late king Aristobulus IL, by which
the former, in consideration of the promise of one thousand
talents, (one million of dollars,) undertook to invade Judea,
to depose and expel Hyrcanus, and seat Antigonus on the
throne of his father. The partisans of Herod — whose in-
terest it obviously was to spread such reports respecting
this alliance with the Parthians as should render Anti-
gonus hateful to the Jews, and prevent them from joining
him — did not hesitate to assert that Antigonus had bound
himself by this treaty to surrender to the Parthians a
number of beautiful Jewish women. Josephus (Antiq. lib.
xiv. cap. 25) speaks of five hundred as the number stipu-
lated ; the fourth of Maccabees (ch. xlix.) says " eight
hundred women, the fairest and best-bred in all the coun-
try." It is doubtful whether any such stipulation was
ever made ; but it is certain (Jos. supra, et Bell. Judaic, lib. i.
cap. 14) that no women were ever surrendered to the
Parthians ; and it is equally certain that the odious report
failed to produce the effect intended, and that numbers of
Jews hastened to embrace the cause of Antigonus.
Pacorus furnished his ally with a considerable body of
Parthian troops, chiefly horse, commanded by his cup-
bearer and namesake. In the district of Daroma, or
Dryma,^ an action was fought in which Antigonus and his
7 The exact situation of tliis canton or district is matter of dispute.
Some assume it to have been the southern part of Judea, as Darom signi-
fies " the south," and that it extended from Beershcba to the lake As-
phaltites. Others are of opinion that this district was the one situated at
the foot of Mount Carmel, which the Greeks named Darimos, " The
Forest," or "Woodland."
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 273
allies gained some advantage and pushed on to Jerusalem.
Here the great mass of the populace declared for the son
of Aristobulus, while all those whose interests were iden-
tified with the existing order of things sustained Hyrcanus
and his champions, Herod and Phasael ; and as Antigonus
had obtained possession of the temple, the two brothers,
with the veterans under their command, took post in the
royal palace of Baris. The defence of this strongly-forti-
fied castle they divided between them, Herod commanding
within the building, while Phasael maintained the ap-
proaches. In his first attack, Antigonus was repulsed
with great loss, and his followers chased back into the
temple precincts. To watch their proceedings, the two
brothers stationed a guard of their soldiers in the adjacent
houses ; but these were set fire to by the mob, and the
soldiers perished in the flames before any help could be
brought to rescue them.
Several engagements between the partisans of Hyrcanus
and those of Antigonus were fought in the streets of Je-
rusalem, in which the two brothers — particularly Herod — •
displayed great valour and conduct, inflicting severe loss on
their enemies. But these losses were easily repaired by
the numbers that daily joined Antigonus ; while the Par-
thians, fearful of venturing with their cavalry into the
narrow streets of mountainous Jerusalem, remained en-
camped outside the city. The feast of Pentecost, which
brought an immense number of people to the temple,
greatly swelled the ranks of Antigonus, as most of the new-
comers declared for him ; though, being unarmed, they did
not add much to his available strength.
At length, both parties, tired of useless bloodshed, came
to an agreement that Pacorus the cup-bearer should be
invited into the city to mediate a peace between them.
Phasael received the Parthian with great courtesy, and
even invited him, with his attendants, to take up his resi-
274 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
dence in the royal palace. Here tlie cup-bearer, taking
advantage of the confidence his kind host placed in him,
persuaded Phasael to undertake an embassy to Barza-
phernes, the governor of Syria under the Parthian king ;
and he assured the tetrarch that this Avas the only means
of settling all disputes in a firm and satisfactory manner.
Herod, "whose dark and crafty disposition rendered
him at all times suspicious of treachery, was decidedly
averse to the proposal, and sought to dissuade his more
confiding brother. But Phasael, deeming it his duty to
run some risk in order to stop the effusion of blood, con-
sented to accept the assurance of Pacorus that he would
be received and dismissed with safety and honour. He
accordingly set out, taking old Hyrcanus with him, and
escorted by a Parthian guard of honour, led by Pacorus
himself. There is some uncertainty as to the precise city
in which Barzaphernes met them,^ but it is certain that
their reception was friendly and courteous. Phasael, how-
ever, soon discovered that the Parthians were solely intent
on the interests of Antigonus. Friends warned him of
treachery, and even ofiered him the means of escape ; but
he could not be prevailed upon to desert Hyrcanus, or to
forsake the interests of his brother and family, though he
was assured that Pacorus the cup-bearer had been sent
back to Jerusalem, in order to surprise and capture Herod.
All these tidings did not fail to produce their effect on
Phasael ; but his bold and firm character did not permit
him to have recourse to craft or to entreaty. On the con-
trary, he went straight on to Barzaphernes, to expostulate
with him ; and this he did in the severest terms, at the
same time telling the Parthian that if the object of his
• According to Josephus, (Bell. Jud. lib. i. cap. xi.,) Barzaphernes met
the Jewish embassy at Ecdipon, a place near the sea-shore, and at a small
distance north of Ptolemais. But the fourth of Maccabees (ch. xlix.)
states that the meeting took place at Damascus, the capital of Syria.
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 275
projected treachery was money, he, Phasael, was able to
bribe him higher to remain honest or to embrace Hyr-
canus's interest. Barzaphernes deemed it wisest to tem-
porize, and assured the tetrarch that nothing could be
more false than such a surmise. He even went so far as
to call on the gods to witness his sincerity. When,
however, he supposed that sufficient time had elapsed to
enable Pacorus to secure Herod, the Parthian governor
ordered both Hyrcanus and Phasael to be seized and
loaded with chains.
But Herod was on his guard, and before the cup-bearer
could reach Jerusalem, the tetrarch quitted that city by
night, carrying with him his mother, his young brother
Pheroras, and his own bride Mariamne, with her brother
Aristobulus, together with their most valuable effects, and
attended by his friends, his servants, and those veterans
who had so gallantly defended his cause. His intention
was to retire to Idumaea, where he expected to find support
from his kinsmen and the friends of his father. On his
march he met with many impediments,^ and had frequently
to cut his way through detachments of Antigonians and
Parthians. In memory of these conflicts, he afterward
built a city about seven miles from Jerusalem, on a spot
where he had been overtaken by his pursuers, and had in-
flicted a signal defeat on them. This city he called by
his own name, Herodion.
On entering Idumsea, he was joined by his brother Jo-
seph, who had collected all the adherents and retainers of
their family to the number of some thousands. At their
head Herod reached Massada, a fortress almost impregna-
• One of the disasters of the hurried flight was the overturning of the
chariot in which Herod's mother travelled, and by which she was so ter-
ribly bruised that her life was despaired of. Herod took this accident so
to heart, that he drew his sword and attempted to kill himself, but was
prevented and disarmed by some of his attendants.
276 POST-BIBLICAL HISTOBY OF THE JEWS.
ble, and where he hat! determined on placing the precious
charges under his care. But as this fortress was too small
to contain all his men, he was forced to dismiss the greater
number of them, only retaining a garrison of 800 chosen
veterans. These he stationed at Massada, under the com-
mand of his brother Joseph ; and having furnished them
abundantly with all necessaries, he himself set out for
Petra, where his father had deposited large sums of money
wi£li his friend the late King Aretas. These sums, and
as much more as he could borrow from Malchus, the son
and successor of Aretas, Herod intended to oifer as a ransom
for his brother Phasael ; and to obtain this loan, Herod
carried with him his only son, then about seven years old,
whom he intended to leave with the Arab as a pledge for
the due repayment. But before he could reach Petra,
King Malchus sent him express orders to quit his territo-
ries, pretending that he had been ordered by the Parthians
not to receive Herod. The fugitive had to retrace his
steps, and started for Egypt. Here, having received
the tidings of his brother Phasael's death, he, after many
adventures, took shipping and reached Rome.
The flight of Herod from Jerusalem was known the
morning after the return of Pacorus the cup-bearer. By
way of revenge for their disappointment, the Parthians
plundered the city and country, without, however, touch-
ing the treasury in the temple ; and, having proclaimed
Antigonus king, they put into his hands their prisoners,
Hyrcanus and Phasael, and withdrew from Judea. The
new ruler did not deem it advisable to shed the blood of
his aged uncle, Hyrcanus; but, in order legally to dis-
qualify him from ever again holding the office of high-
priest, he caused the old man's person to be mutilated by
cropping of his ears.
But, though Hyrcanus's life was spared, Phasael had
no mercy to expect. All the concentrated rancour the
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 277
younger branch of the Asmoneans had so long nourished
against Antipater and his family was now to be gratified ;
all the wrongs so often inflicted, so long endured, were
now to be revenged. The assassination of King Aristo-
bulus II., the murder of Prince Alexander, were now to
be atoned for by the painful and ignominious death of
Phasael. That unfortunate prisoner, however, determined,
by a voluntary death, to disappoint his treacherous captors,
but as the heavy chains that fettered his person did not
permit him the use of his hands, he dashed his brains out
against his prison walls. His suicide recalled to the in-
habitants of Jerusalem how greatly he had at one time
been their friend ; and as Antigonus became alarmed at
this exhibition of public feeling, he consigned his surviving
captive, Ilyrcanus, for safe-keeping, to his allies, the Par-
thians, who sent the mutilated high-priest to Seleucia on
the Tigris.
Such is the narrative of these dark doings given by Jo-
sephus, confirmed by the fourth book of Maccabees, and
which brands the name of Antigonus with cruelty and
treachery. M. Salvador [Domination Romaine en Judee,
vol. i. p. 293) endeavours to shift the guilt on the shoulders
of Herod, who had advised Phasael to put his guests, the
Parthian cup-bearer and his principal officers, to death,
and then to fall suddenly upon their troops, confounded
and rendered incapable of resistance by the loss of their
commanders, (Joseph. Bell. Judaic, lib. i. cap. xiii. ;) and
also upon the shoulders of Phasael, who, during his visit to
Barzaphernes, had sought to supplant Antigonus in the
good graces of the Parthians. It appears, however, that
M. Salvador allows himself to be biassed by his dislike of
Herod, whose advice, though given, was never carried out
by the more loyal Phasael. Nor did any attempt on the
part of this last-named personage to outbid Antigonus
justify the treachery to which he and Hyrcanus became
Vol. II. 24
278 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
victims. Herod is no favourite of ours. We know him
to have been capable of every enormity, and ready to
commit any profitable Avrong, either by craft or by the
strong hand. But Antigonus' honesty ranks but one re-
move above Herod's in our estimation, and the Parthians
were proverbial for their treacheries.
On his arrival in Rome, Herod presented himself before
his patron Antony, by whom he was warmly -welcomed,
and who introduced him to Octavius as the son of a man
who had been the valued friend of Julius Ccesar, the
adopted father of Octavius; and as the representative of a
family at all times and altogether devoted to Rome. The
object of Herod's journey to Rome was to induce the tri-
umviri to place on the throne of Judea the brother of his
betrothed Mariamne. As this young prince, Aristobulus,
was the grandson both of Hyrcanus and Aristobulus II.,
he united in his own person the claim of the elder as well
as of the younger branch of the Asmoneans, and as his
tender years did not permit him to rule in person, Herod
proposed to govern the country under him, as Antipater
had done under Hyrcanus ; but Antony suggested another
idea. He was enraged against Antigonus for having
allied himself with the Parthians, and against the Jews for
having joined Antigonus. Antony also knew how utterly
the Judeans detested Herod, and how strongly they were
attached to the Asmoneans. It therefore struck him that
the severest punishment he could inflict on the Jews was
to place over them as their king the man whom of all others
they most hated.
While Antony was thus influenced by malice, his cooler
and more calculating colleague, Octavius, was struck by the
advantage, in the approaching conflict against the Par-
thians, of placing at the head of afi'airs in Judea a man
altogether dependent on and devoted to Rome. Antony,
who saw how eagerly Heix)d embraced the startling pro-
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 279
posal, undertook, on the promise of a sum of money, to se-
cure to his protege the crown of Judea. At that time all
things were bought and sold at Rome ; and Antony, acting
as broker, by the assistance of Octavius, easily obtained
from the senate Herod's appointment as king of the Jews.
As soon as the decree was passed, Herod, walking between
Antony and Octavius, was, with great ceremony, con-
ducted to the Capitol, accompanied by the consuls and
senators. Here the usual sacrifices were brought, the de-
cree was deposited in the archives, and the proceedings
of the day terminated by a magnificent entertainment
given by Antony. Determined to lose no time, Herod de-
parted from Rome seven days after his inauguration, and
so great had been his expedition, that the entire time of
his visit to Rome and return to Judea, did not exceed three
months.
Herod landed at Ptolemais towards the end of the sum-
mer, furnished with letters to the Roman commanders in
Syria, directing them to aSbrd him every aid. During his
absence, Antigonus had closely invested Massada, and
pressed the siege with the utmost ardour. His object was
to obtain possession of the persons of Mariamne and her
brother Aristobulus, in order that he might espouse the
former, and, mutilating her brother as he had already mu-
tilated her grandfather, unite in his own person the claims
of both lines of the Asmoneans, whose sole heir, qualified
for the high-priesthood, he then would become. Joseph,
the brother of Herod, defended the fortress with great
valour and skill, and, as the garrison was abundantly sup-
plied with every thing necessary, Antigonus could make no
progress. But as the summer advanced, the besieged be-
gan to suffer from the want of water, and their distress be-
came so insupportable, that Joseph determined to make a
desperate sally in order to cut his way through the besieg-
ers. Fortunately for him, however, on the very night he
280 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
intended to sally forth, there happened a fall of rain so
heavy as to fill all the cisterns within the fortress, so that,
relieved of all their suffering, he and his veterans were
enabled to make good their defence.
Herod's first care after his return to Judea, was to raise
the siege of Massada, and to protect his beloved Mariamne
against the possibility of falling into the power of his rival.
The troops he had disbanded a few months before soon
again rallied round his standard, and his fame for valour
and generosity drew many adventurers into his ranks. He
also called upon the Romans for assistance, which, how-
ever, they took care not effectually to afford him, though
they dared not absolutely refuse ; for the Roman generals
in Syria knew that when Herod bought his crown at Rome,
he had no competitor in the market ; whereas, in the East,
Antigonus was quite as ready to pay for not being molested,
as Herod would be obliged to do for being assisted. Ac-
cordingly, these allies, although they did not venture openly
to espouse the cause of Antigonus, yet contrived clandes-
tinely to sell him their aid, by thwarting and impeding the
progress of Herod.
This double-dealing on the part of the Romans was car-
ried on by them during three years, to the great injury of
the country. Herod was detested by the great mass of the
people ; but Antigonus was by no means beloved by the
masses, for he was a Sadducee ; and poor old Hyrcanus had
many friends, who, though they disliked and would not help
Herod, fought against Antigonus to avenge the old man's
wrongs and to punish his nephew. The Judeans were thus
split up into factions and partizan bands, who preyed upon
each other, while the Romans, with impartial but insatiable
rapacity, equally plundered all parties. Many battles
were fought with alternate success, but unmitigated cruelty,
and from the time of this civil contest We begin to trace
among the Jews a ferocity of spirit, and a rancorous ani-
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 281
mosity against political opponents, that ripened into a fear-
ful system in the secret order of the zealots, and reached
its climax in the destruction of Jerusalem.
The Parthians, who had placed Antigonus on the throne,
had met with such reverses that they could afford him no
support. Ventidius, the lieutenant of Marc Antony, had
defeated and driven them out of Syria ; and in a renewed
attempt on that country, the Parthians were not only to-
tally routed, but their brave prince Pacorus was slain.
After his first victory, Ventidius approached Jerusalem
under the pretence of compelling Antigonus to raise the
siege of Massada. But on the payment of a round sum of
money, the Roman marched off; his subordinate Silo, who
remained in Judea, was too weak to interfere with the de-
signs of Antigonus. And it was not till Herod himself, at
the head of the troops he had raised since his return from
Italy, confronted Antigonus, that the latter raised the siege
of that impregnable fortress, which, during so many months,
he had closely invested.
The frequent mutinies of Herod's Roman auxiliaries, ex-
cited by connivance between their commanders and Anti-
gonus, compelled Herod to place them in winter quarters
in the most fertile districts of Judea. Early in the spring
he took the field, and directed his exertions principally
against the bands that were in arms against him in Gali-
lee, whom, as usual, he designated "robbers," and pur-
sued with fire and sword. The few that escaped were
driven across the Jordan. But no sooner had Herod
quitted that part of the country, than the "robbers" re-
turned to their old haunts, and inflicted cruel retaliation on
the people that had recognised Herod.
On the arrival of Antony in the East, Herod hastened
to pay him a visit, was well received, and obtained peremp-
tory orders to Machseras, who had succeeded Silo in the
command of the Roman auxiliaries, to exert himself efiec-
24*
282 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
tually SO as to put an end to the war. But on his return to
Judca, Herod found his affairs strangely altered for the
"worse. Ilis brother Joseph had ventured on an incursion
against Jericho, at the head of his own troops, and of five
legions of Roman auxiliaries entrusted to him by Machge-
ras. He was surprised by the troops of Antigonus, and as
the rocky ground was ill adapted for the Romans, chiefly
horse, the Herodians were defeated with great loss, and
Joseph himself slain in a hand-to-hand encounter by Pap-
pus— who commanded for Antigonus — and his head cut off
and carried in triumph before the conqueror. Pheroras,
the youngest son of Antipater, soon after redeemed the
mutilated remains of his unfortunate brother, for fifty tal-
ents, (about fifty thousand dollars.)
One consequence of this defeat was a fearful insurrec-
tion in Galilee, where the most wealthy and distinguished
of Herod's adherents were flung into Lake Tiberias. Idu-
mea, the strong-hold of Herod's party, was also on the
point of revolt, which, however, his unexpected return at the
head of a fresh army soon suppressed. Eager to revenge
the death of his brother, Herod, reinforced by Machseras,
attacked, and after an obstinate conflict, defeated Anti-
gonus. The vanquished were slaughtered with unrelenting
cruelty, and Pappus being found among the slain, Herod
caused his head to be cut off and sent it to Pheroras. This
decisive victory made Herod master of all Judea, except
Jerusalem, which, for a time, was saved by the inclemency
of the winter, that compelled Herod to put his army into
cantonments, whilst he made every preparation for a vigor-
ous siege in the spring.
During the winter he repaired to Samaria, where his
bride Mariamne, and her brother, Aristobulus, had been
residing since the raising of the siege of Massada. The
precarious condition of his affairs had hitherto prevented
Herod fi om consummating his marriage with this princess.
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 283
But, after a delay of four years, and seeing himself master
of Judea, and on the point of becoming so of Jerusalem,
he at length claimed and carried home his betrothed in the
full expectation that his love for her would be rewarded by
the success of his policy, and that during the impending
siege, many would support the husband of Mariarane, the
heiress of the Asmoneans, who would have warred to the
knife against Herod,
In the spring of the year 37 b. c. e., Herod marched
against Jerusalem at the head of thirty thousand men. He
was joined by Sosius, the lieutenant of Marc Antony, who
led to his assistance eleven Roman legions and six thou-
sand horse. Josephus tells us that at this period the Ro-
man legions did not each contain the same number of fight-
ing: men, but varied from four thousand to six thousand.
But at the lowest estimate, the army that now invested Je-
rusalem, must have greatly exceeded sixty thousand men.
Within the city parties were, as usual, divided, though,
at the beginning of the siege, the fear of Antigonus pre-
vented any public opposition on the part of the citizens.
Deprived of all help from the Parthians, Antigonus, after
his last great defeat, had contemjolated flight ; but the en-
treaties of his partizans, and their increasing numbers, as
from all parts of Judea they were driven to rally in Jeru-
salem, induced him to alter his determination, and to pre-
pare, during the whole of the winter, for a vigorous defence.
Unfortunately for himself, Antigonus was a Sadducee ;
and while his valor and abilities were not such as to com-
mand the respect or to secure the confidence of the entire
people, his religious principles alienated the vast majority
from his person, and rendered many indifferent to his
cause. Like his grandfather, Jannai, he had filled the
Sanhedrin with his own creatures; and as the Pharisees
withdrew from the supreme tribunal, and the majority of
the people had no confidence in the Sadducee assessors,
284 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
the inliabitants of Jerusalem were compelled, on every
question of importance, to consult the Bne Betlwra}'^
Between Antigonus himself and the chiefs of the San-
hedrin — PoUio and Sameas, as Josephus styles them, but
who, as we have already stated, we believe to have been
Shemmaiah and Abtallion of tradition — there existed a
private jealousy, that embittered, by personal ill-will, the
feelings of public and party diflference^^ already sufficiently
strong in themselves. And there can be no doubt, that if
'° Much difference of opinion prevails respecting these Bne Bcthera. Some
assert that there were three sons of Bethera, learned in the law, and in whom
the people had great confidence, who were consulted on all questions of
importance until the first years of Herod's reign, when the appointment of
Hillel, as president of the Sanhedrin, restored to that tribunal the confi-
dence of the people. Others will have it, that the Bne Bethera were the
ordinary judges or elders of the city of Bether, not far from Jerusalem,
whose decisions the people preferred to those of the Sadducee Sanhedrin
in Jerusalem. The last view is that adopted by most modern Talmudic
critics, especially as the question which caused Hillel to be elected presi-
dent, was one of observance, respecting which the Bne Bethera could not
avail themselves of their local experience or practice.
N The Talmud (tr. Yomah, fo. 63 B.) preserves a curious anecdote,
which goes far to prove the state of feeling of which we speak.
" Once, on the day of atonement, it happened that the high-priest, return-
ing from the temple after having completed the service of the day, was
attended by a vast concoui'se of people, who, as usual, congratulated him.
When, however, Shemmaiah and Abtallion approached, the crowds for-
sook the high-priest, to attend on, and hastened to congratulate, the chiefs
of the Sanhedrin. When the two chiefs came sufficiently near to the high-
priest to offer him the compliments of the season, that dignitaiy, enraged
at the greater attention the people had shown to the chief senators, saluted
them with the words, " Let the descendants of the Gentiles go in peace,"
an inuendo the more offensive, as Shemmaiah and Abtallion were considei*ed
as descendants of Sennacherib, king of Assyria, whoso son bad embraced
Judaism. The two chiefs of the Sanhedrin, nothing daunted, replied,
"Let those descendants of Gentiles go in peace who do the works of
Aaron, but let not those descendants of Aaron go in peace who do not ac-
cording to his works." The high-priest who met with this retort, was
Antigonus, tlic Sadducee.
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 285
Herod had been less detested, even by the friends of Ilyr-
canus, his victory would have been less dearly bought : or
that if Antigonus had not been a Sadducee, the defence
of Jerusalem would have been successful.
Even under all disadvantages, this second great siege
of Jerusalem by the Romans was far more difficult than
the first, under Pompey. It lasted double the time, and
every inch of ground the besiegers advanced, they had to
pay for with their blood. Instructed by previous and fatal
experience, the besieged maintained their defence on the
Sabbath as well as on any other day, for the Sadducees
had at length seen, that the Pharisees were righf in
placing self-preservation and the protection of human life
in the foremost rank of religious duties. At length, how-
ever, after six months of toil and combat, the numerous
breaches which the siege-artillery of the Romans had
opened in the walls of Jerusalem became practicable. It
is said that a considerable party in the city espoused the
cause of Herod, and that Pollio and Sameas exhorted the
citizens to open the gates to admit him. Jerusalem was
taken by storm on the self-same day that Pompey had
taken the temple, and twenty-six years after the first
capture of the city by the Romans.
Salvador {Domination Romaine i. 299) calls attention
to the fact, that each of the five principal epochs in the
Roman domination over Judea, is opened or terminated by
a remarkable and characteristic siege. " Thus the first inter-
vention of Rome in the affairs of Judea was inaugurated
by the storming of the temple under Pompey. The
change of dynasty was accomplished by means of the siege
and storming of Jerusalem under Sosius. The govern-
ment of Romish procurators in Judea ceased in conse-
quence of the unsuccessful siege of Jerusalem by Cestius
Gallus, who was repulsed from before its walls. The war
of independence terminated with the siege of Jerusalem
286 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OP THE JEWS.
and the destruction of the temple by Titus. And the last
efforts of Judea as a body-politic, the least known though
probably the most glorious period of its long struggle
against Rome, were crushed by the siege and capture of
Bethcr, under Hadrian."
The French historian might have added, that this fact
of the repeated great sieges, so remarkable in itself, be-
comes doubly so when we connect with it the prophecy of
Moses : " The Lord will bring up against thee a nation
from afar, from the extremity of the earth, as the eagle
rusheth down ; a nation whose tongue thou wilt not under-
stand ; a nation of fierce carriage, that will not have re-
spect for the old, nor show mercy to the young. And it
will BESIEGE thee in all thy gates until the high and strong
walls come down wherein thou trustest throughout all thy
land." (Deut. xxviii. 49, 50, 52.) These are predictions
so clear and positive in their terms, so certain not to have
been m^^e post facto, and so strictly and literally fulfilled,
that the veriest infidel can find nothing to allege against
their truth.
And that Moses did not exaggerate the fierce and mer-
ciless carriage of this "nation," the Romans, was fully
proved by the indiscriminate massacre of the inhabitants of
Jerusalem as soon as the legions of Sosius entered the
doomed city. " The Romans, having dispersed themselves
through all the quarters of the upper city, made a terrible
slaughter of the Jews, and plundered and ravaged every
place they came near, to be revenged, as they said, for the
length and fatigue of the siege. The very sanctuary was
in danger of undergoing the same fate, had not Herod
prevented it, partly by fair, partly by threatening, words,
and even by mere force. He sent at the same time a
severe message to Sosius, complaining, that if this plunder
and butchery was not stopped, the Romans would have him
king only of a barren wilderness ; and that as for himself,
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 287
he should look upon his success as the most unhappy thuig
that could befall him if it must be attended by a profana-
tion of that sacred place, the access to which was per-
mitted to none but the Jewish priests. To all this Sosius
answered, that he did not well know how to forbid his
troops the plundering of a place that^had been taken by
assault, so that Herod saw himself under a necessity of
saving both temple and city from all further devastation
by a large donation out of his own coffers." (Universal
History, vol. x. pp. 405-6.)
When all was lost, and every possibility of successful re-
sistance had ceased, Antigonus descended from the high
tower on which he had taken his station to have a view of
and to direct the defence, and surrendered to Sosius.
The partisans of Herod, who alone were the witnesses that
survived the assault, and whose interest it was to blacken
the character of the unfortunate Asmonean, relate, that
when he came into the presence of the Roman commander,
Antigonus, in the most abject manner, threw himself at
the feet of the conqueror, begging his life with many tears
and protestations ; and that altogether his conduct was so
unmanly and unbecoming, that Sosius, in derision, called
him Antigona, as though he had been a woman. M. Sal-
vador {Domination Romaine i. 300) defends the last of the
Asmoneans against this charge of cowardice, and remarks,
that if it were true that Antigonus wept, his previous life,
the battles he fought, the dangers he braved, his uncon-
quered perseverance to the last instant, prove, that at the
solemn moment which deprived him of his crown and his
liberty, he was moved not merely by the danger which
threatened his own life, but that he wept over the sacred
cause of Israel and its nationality, so gloriously upheld by
his ancestors, but now stricken down by idolaters. He
wept over the fall of that noble race of Maccabees, which,
in his own person, was irretrievably ruined by the audacity
288 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
and intrigues of their own servants — of men "whom he
himself had long before contemijtuously, but justly, de-
signated as "Idumcan barbarians."
Antigonus was carried to Antioch, where Mark Antony
at that time had taken up his residence ; and the triumvir
at first intended to carry his captive to Rome, to adorn his
projected triumph. But Herod was seized with one of
those fits of terror which embittered his future life, and
even drove him on to destroy his own children. He
dreaded lest Antigonus, captive at Rome, might escape
and return to Judea, as his father, Aristobulus, had done
before him. Herod dreaded still more, that when in Rome,
Antigonus might plead his cause before the senate, and by
that means excite an interest in favour of the legitimate
prince of Judea, or at least of his children deprived of their
birthright by an alien usurper. "And so, at the price of
a large sum of money, Herod obtained from Antony that
Antigonus be put to death." (Jos. Antiq. lib. xiv. cap. 16.)
The manner in which the unfortunate prince was exe-
cuted was so shameful, that many ancient writers, as
Plutarch, (M. Anton,) Dion, (lib. xix.) and Strabo, (apud
Jos. Antiq. XV. cap. i.) condemn it as a piece of injustice
and cruelty, never till then allowed of by the Romans to-
wards a captive king. He was tried and condemned as a
private criminal ; and though he had been promised that
his life should be spared, he was first tied to a stake and
whipped, and then his head was cut ofi", (37 B. c. E.) Thus
ignominiously perished the last prince-high-priest of that
illustrious race, one hundred and twenty-nine years after
his great ancestor, Judah the Maccabee, had taken upon
himself the government of Judea.
In the indignities which Antigonus was made to suifer,
Antony remained true to his worthless character ; for that
unfeeling debauchee who had tossed about the head of
Cicero, was not likely to pay much respect to a vanquished
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 289
"eastern prince." He listened to the' base calculating
cruelty of Herod, who expected that the disgraceful death
of Antigonus — casting a stigma on the Jews whose king
he had been — might render his memory odious to them.
But the tyrant forgot, that whenever the Jews thought with
indignation of the high-priest who survived his defeat only
to be whipped and beheaded like a vile malefactor, they
would also think with disgust and detestation on the Idu-
mean usurper, whose malice and intrigues had brought
that disgrace on the last of the Asmoneans.
Strabo (in loc : cit.) tells us that " as the Jews obsti-
nately refused to recognise Herod for their sovereign, so
that the worst of tortures could not force them to style
him their king, while all their affection and allegiance
were bound up in Antigonus, Mark Antony was persuaded
to think that the ignominy of a public execution, and thus
making him contemptible, were the only means of de-
stroying the high respect in which the captive was still
held by his people, and that, in time, the detestation in
which Herod was held would pass away." That the first
part of this speculation was not altogether unfounded, is
proved by Josephus, who himself claimed kindred with the
Asmoneans, but who closes his account of Antigonus with
the remark, " Such was the just punishment which the
COWARDICE of Antigonus deserved and brought upon him,"
Vol. II. 25
290 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
- CHAPTER XV.
Herod I. King of Judea — Opens his reign mth cruel proscriptions — Hillel
and Shammai ; their schools — High-priests removable at the king's plea-
sui'e — Aristobulus III.; intrigues of his mother, Alexandra; he is put
to death — Herod accused before Antony ; buys his acquittal — Family
feuds ; Salome ; Mariamne — Hyrcanus invited back to Jerusalem — Cleo-
patra visits Herod ; her danger ; her rapacity — War between Herod and
the Ai'abs ; he is betrayed by Cleopatra, and defeated — Earthquake, at-
tended -with immense loss of life and property, in Judea — War between
Antony and Octavius ; battle of Actium, and defeat of Antony — Herod
causes old Hyrcanus to be put to death, and then makes his peace with
the victor — Octavius, assisted by Herod, invades Egypt — Death of An-
tony and Cleopatra — Mariamne, the avenger of the Asmoneans, put to
death by Herod; his remorse— His internal administration .-curries favour
with the Romans : detested by his own people — Conspiracy to murder
him ; detected and barbarously punished — Great famine : public distress
relieved by Herod — He sends his two sons to be educated at Rome ; his
high favour with Augustus — Herod rebuilds the temple — Family dis-
sensions ; Herod's wives ; his eldest son Antipater : Herod accuses his
two sons by Mariamne, before Augustus, who causes a reconciliation —
Herod's schemes to obtain the crown of Syria ; he loses, for a time, the
favour of Augustus — Renewed bitter quarrels in Herod's family ; he
puts his two sons by Mariamne to death — His brother, Pheroras, and
his son, Antipater, conspire against him; death of Pheroras ; conspiracy
detected — Herod's last illness — Disturbances in Jerusalem ; suppressed
and cruelly punished — Antipater put to death — Herod's last atrocious
commands ; his death : his last wUl, in part, confirmed by Augustus —
Division of Herod's territories — Ai'chelaus ethnarch of Judea — Popular
discontent — The pseudo-Alexander detected by Augustus — Archelaus,
accused, deposed, and banished — Judea declared a Roman province.
From 37 b. c. e., to 6, c. e.
The end and aim of Antipater's schemes and Herod's
intrigues had thus been attained ; the last Asmonean, tho
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 291
champion of Jewish nationality, had perished miserably on
the scaffold ; the first Herodian, the slave and representa-
tive of foreign domination, had ascended the throne. That
Herod was a man of courage and ability, must be admitted ;
that he possessed many of the qualities ^^ required for an
eminent ruler, and which might have rendered him the
benefactor of Judea, cannot be denied. But unfortunately
for himself and for his people, his antecedents, as the
French call them, the means by which he had acquired and
was obliged to secure his crown, had raised between him
and the Jews a gulf which all his ability was not able to
span or bridge over, and on the opposite sides of which
their hatred and his suspicions kept jealous watch, and not
only prevented the possibility of any approximation, but
also crushed every development of popular life.
Throughout the many years that Herod reigned, Judea
and the Jews have no history. The biography of Herod,
the conflicts in his household, the intrigues of his sister,
the success of his public, the misery of his private life, fill the
canvass so entirely as to leave no room for the people, ex-
cept, indeed, for the record of his tyranny and of their suf-
ferings. Two great principles guided Herod in his admin-
istration of public afiairs — constant and unlimited servility
*2 " At the time he ascended the throne, Herod was in the thirty-seventh
year of his age. His person was tall and commanding, his featiu-es regu-
lar and pleasing, his carriage gi-aceful, and evincing great self-confidence.
His mind was extremely insinuating and pliant towards those whose fa-
vour he wished to gain, though haughty and overbearing towards all others.
His body was strong and vigorous, inured to hardships and capable of un-
dergoing every fatigue to be encountered either in war or hunting, of
which pastime he was excessively fond. An excellent rider, archer, and
swordsman, and brave in battle; he joined valour with skill, and enter-
prise with prudence. At the same time his long experience in the affairs
of civil government, and the instruction of his father, qualified him better
than any other man to secure the welfare of the Judeans." (Josephus,
Bell judaic, lib. 1, cap. xxi.)
292 rOST-BIBLICAL HISTOEY OF THE JEWS.
toward Rome, absolute and unlimited poAver over Judea.
The first required tlie possession of large sums of money :
the second rendered necessary the removal of every person
■whose past conduct, or present position, rendered him
obnoxious in any way to Herod. And the pupil of Anti-
pater, the protegd of the triumviri, belonged to a school
that never hesitated, nor ever allowed the right to interfere
with, or prevail over the expedient.
Herod's very first acts, after Sosius installed him in the
royal palace of the Asmoneans, proved that the fearful
slaughter in which the Romans had indulged at the storm-
ing of Jerusalem, had by no means quenched the new king's
thirst for blood. Most of the members of the Sanhedrin
— chiefly Sadducees, and all of them (with the exception
of two) ardent adherents of Antigonus, or of the cause of
national independence — had contrived to evade the sword
of the Roman. But Herod was determined they should
not escape ; for not only had they been the friends or par-
tisans of his enemy, but, moreover, they were rich, and
their confiscated wealth would replenish his exhausted cof-
fers. Accordingly, they, together with every member or
friend of the Asmonean family, were proscribed according
to the approved method of Rome ; and the experience ac-
quired on the larger sphere of action by the triumviri en-
abled Herod to frustrate every attempt to evade his cruelty
or his rapacity.
In his history of the civil wars of Rome, Appian, the
historian, has devoted several pages to relating the adven-
tures of many of the proscribed, who were enabled through
the love of their wives and relatives, the assistance of their
friends, or the devoted aflFection of their freedmen and
slaves, to preserve their lives, or to secure a portion of their
property from confiscation. Several other pages relate in-
stances of the most flagrant treachery, the most heinous
ingratitude, to which many of the proscribed became vie-
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 293
tims. But in Judea, the vigilance of Herod paralyzed
every eflfort of devoted love, and superseded any attempt at
treachery. Each coffin that passed through the gates of
Jerusalem was stopped and searched, lest its inmate might
prove a living man. Each wagon that quitted the city
had to be unloaded, lest it carried off some portion of that
wealth which Herod claimed as his own ; and so successful
was he in his espionage and detective police, that not one
of the proscribed escaped, while the whole of their wealth
fell into his hands, and enabled him to pay the heavy debt
he had contracted with Marc Antony when Herod bought
the crown of Judea.
Two more crowns remained to be disposed of — that of
the priesthood and that of the law. Herod's lineage did
not permit him to usurp the first crown, or to aspire to suc-
ceed Antigonus as high-priest. He therefore determined
to render that office politically insignificant ; and as most
of the distinguished Qohanim (priests,) resident in or near
Jerusalem, had been put to death as adherents of Anti-
gonus, Herod sent to Babylon for an obscure individual,
of the lineage of Aaron, whom he appointed high-priest.
This man, named Ananel, was a descendent of the ancient
high-priests, who had held office in the first temple, and
before the Babylonish captivity ; but this was the only ad-
vantage he possessed, as he was by no means gifted with
learning or wealth, and was entirely without influence or
connection in Judea.
Another native of Babylon was permitted to assume the
crown of the law which had been bestowed on him by popu-
lar election. Herod professed to be a Pharisee and an
adherent of tradition. His slaughter of the Sanhedrin he
attempted to defend, on the ground, that those he put to
death had been Sadducees, False teachers. He appealed
to the fact, that he had spared Pollio and Sameas ; though
PoUio was president or chief of the Sanhedrin, and Sameas
25*
294 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
was the senator, who, on the occasion of Herod's trial, had
attacked him most openly and vigorously. "But," said
Herod, " these two distinguished men were Pharisees ; they
were honest ; during the last siege they counselled the
people to open the gates and to receive me. They are
godly and pious men, and therefore I did not molest
them."
It appears, however, that if, as we assume, Pollio be the
Abtallion of tradition, he must have been very old, and
resigned his functions in the senate. For when, in the
first years of Herod's reign, (36-30 B. c. E.,) an important
question arose respecting the offering of the paschal sacri-
fice on the Sabbath, which the Bne Bethera could not
solve, there was no one in Jerusalem of authority sufficient
to take upon himself the decision, until Hillel, a favourite
disciple of Shemmaiah and Abtallion, was brought forward,
and on the authority of their instructions, decided, and
was obeyed by priests and people — (Talmud tr. PesaJihim
fo. 46.)
This Hillel, who, as we have already stated, was a na-
tive of Babylon, is a remarkable instance of successful per-
severance and acquisition of knowledge under difficulties.
The Talmud (^r. Yomah fo. 35 B.) relates, that when Hillel
first came to Jerusalem from Babylon, he was so poor that
he worked as a day-labourer. His small earnings he ex-
pended, partly for food to sustain nature, and partly as a
fee to the door-keeper at the hall or school where Shem-
maiah and Abtallion instructed their disciples. Once, on
a cold winter's day, Hillel had been able to find no work,
and as he could not give the door-keeper the usual fee, the
fellow would not permit him to enter the hall. But, so
eager was Hillel to hear the tAvo great teachers, that he
placed himself near the window and stood attentively lis-
tening, without deigning to notice that a heavy fall of
snow had commenced. At length his limbs, numbed with
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 295
cold, failed him, and he fell insensible, close to the win-
dow, where his body was soon covered by the fast falling
snow. As the heap thus formed before the window, greatly
obscured the light, it attracted the attention of Shemmaiah,
and when the cause came to be examined, the body of
Hillel was found under the snow, and apparently lifeless.
He was carried into the hall, his limbs were chafed, and
restoratives applied until he came to himself. Thence-
forth he was received into the school, and soon rose high
in learning, and in the estimation of his teachers. He was
a descendent of the royal family of David, through the fe-
male line ; but of so meek and retiring a disposition, that,
until forced into public notice by the necessity of the case
which rendered an appeal to him, and a decision by him,
indispensable, he does not appear to have been in anywise
engaged in public affairs.
This was precisely the chief of Sanhedrin to suit Herod
— high-born, pious, beloved by the people, but at the same
time void of ambition, unassuming, not likely to mix himself
up with politics in a manner dangerous to the royal author-
ity. Moreover, he was a stranger in Judea, and without
powerful connections ; and Herod was probably not sorry to
direct the notice of the people to the ancient royal family
of David — whose rights had been superseded by the As-
moneans — and to show that this family — the sole legitimate
heir to the sceptre of David — recognized his (Herod's)
claims, and was willing to co-operate with him. Herod was
sufficiently clear-sighted to perceive that under a presi-
dent, mild, yet much respected, like Hillel, the Sanhedrin
would prove a safety-valve, alike to king and to people.
Accordingly, the great national council was at once recon-
stituted, Hillel recognized as its president, and the Essene
Menahhem appointed vice-president.
This man not only resembled Hillel in temper, but was
venerated by the people as a prophet, and was said to have
296 rOST-BIBLICAL HISTORY- OF THE JEWS.
peculiar claims on Herod's gratitude.''^ Between these two
good men the greatest harmony prevailed ; and Herod,
ever suspicious, began to feel alarmed at the unanimity
with which the Sanhedrin acted on all occasions. He
therefore contrived to remove Menahhem from his office of
vice-president, by appointing him the king's lieutenant in
some of the provinces, which rendered it necessary that he
should reside out of Jerusalem. In his stead, Shammai
was appointed vice-president, a man of warm temper and
uncompromising principles. He was known to differ from
Hillelon several* questions of law (tradition speaks of five;)
and when he took possession of his high office, the unan-
imity, that had so greatly alarmed Herod, at once ceased.
Each of these two great teachers became the founder of a
school, bearing his name, and found numerous disciples and
adherents ; and so fully occupied were they with their own
debates, that during the whole of Herod's reign, the San-
hedrin gave him no further uneasiness.
Herod's choice of a high-priest was not so successful.
Both his wife Mariamne, and his mother-in-law Alexandra,
felt hurt that this high dignity — which of right belonged
to young Aristobulus — should have been bestowed on an
obscure Babylonian. These two women lived at daggers
>3 Josephus (Ant. xv. 13) relates that Herod, wheii a schoolboy,
passed an Essene, named Menahhem, "who gi-eeted the lad with a friendly
voice, and saluted him as future king of the Jews. The boy felt hurt that
Menahhem should thus, as he thought, ridicule him. But the Essene
tapped him on the shoulder and said, " Be assured thou wilt become king,
for such is the will of God ; therefore remember these my words, when thou
hast reached the pinnacle of greatness." When Herod, many years after-
wards, became king, he sent for Menahhem, reminded him in a friendly
manner of his prediction, and asked how long he (Herod) should reign.
To this Menahhem made no reply. Herod next asked if the period of his
reign would exceed ten years ? To which Menahhem replied, " Yes, by
more than twenty years." This also proved true, as Herod reigned thir-
ty-three years.
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 297
drawn "witli Salome, the sister of Herod, of a spirit in-
triguing and relentless like his own, and possessing great
influence over him. Mariamne, in particular, beautiful,
virtuous and accomplished, a princess born, a queen by
marriage, looked down with scorn upon the base Idumean
woman of doubtful virtue and questionable reputation, who
presumed to claim equality with her ; and the feelings she
entertained she unhesitatingly expressed.
The strife which was thus brooding within his family and
household found the first opportunity to burst forth at the
wrong done to young Aristobulus by the appointment of
Ananel. Mariamne began to complain and tease Herod ;
while Alexandra, a hot-headed, vindictive woman, even
went further, and addressed her complaints to Cleopatra.
The queen of Egypt warmly espoused her cause ; not from
any love of right or especial attachment to the Asmoneans,
but because she coveted the possession of Judea, and ex-
pected that if Herod were ruined she herself might easily
obtain a grant of that country from Antony. But, how-
ever secretly the correspondence between these two in-
triguing women was conducted, Herod's wide-spread
espionnage obtained for him some intimation of what was
going on, and convinced him that his public safety as well
as his domestic peace rendered it necessary that he should
restore his priestly inheritance to Aristobulus.
With his usual decision, Herod thereupon removed
Ananel from the office of high-priest, appointing Aristo-
bulus in his stead, and declaring to his wife and mother-
in-law that he had only employed Ananel to officiate imtil
Aristobulus should be old enough to do so. Soon after-
ward, however, a quarrel broke out between Herod and
his mother-in-law, and he not only forbade her interfering
with any public affairs, but even confined her to her palace,
and caused her to be closely watched. Alexandra, alarmed
for her own safety, now determined to accept that asylum
298 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
for herself and son, -which had been offered to them in
Egypt. She employed two faithful servants, one to hire a
ship, the other to provide two cofl5ns, in which to convey
her and Aristobulus on board.
Accidentally, the matter was spoken of by one of the
two to a third seiTant, whom he supposed likewise to be
in the secret, but who, enraged that greater confidence
should have been placed in his fellow-servants than in
himself, betrayed the whole plan to Herod. The crafty
king permitted mother and son to proceed sufficiently far to
place their design of flight beyond question, and then
caused them to be arrested and brought back. His fear
of Cleopatra's resentment, however, prevented the explo-
sion of his own ; he therefore, apparently, yielded to the
entreaties of his wife, Mariamne, and putting on the mask
of clemency, Herod pardoned the fugitives, and even al-
lowed himself to be reconciled to Alexandra.
But Herod never forgave ; when expediency did not
permit immediate revenge, he knew how to bide his time.
He fully determined to get rid of Aristobulus, who, verg-
ing toward manhood, gave promise of emulating the
spirit and abilities of the most gifted of his ancestors, and
consequently roused the worst fears of Herod; nor did
that ruffian long hesitate as to the means. At the feast
of the Tabernacles, solemnized as usual with great magni-
ficence, the young high-priest — then about seventeen years
of age — appeared at the altar in his pontifical garments
and ornaments, and officiated with such dignity and grace,
that shouts of acclamation rent the air, and temple and
city resounded with the praises and blessings that the as-
sembled multitude showered on the heir of the Asmo-
NEANS. This outburst of popular favour sealed the doom
of the unfortunate youth, and impelled Herod to the in-
stant execution of his purpose, which was to commit mur-
der, but to save appearances.
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 299
Immediately after the solemnities were over, the king
and the high-priest left Jerusalem together, for Jericho,
where the princess Alexandra had invited them to a mag-
nificent banquet. The weather was very hot, and, toward
nightfall, Aristobulus was induced to bathe in a pond or
pool of clear cold water ; several of his young friends
went into tire water and played about with him. Herod
had stationed some of his Gallic mercenaries near the
pond, who also entered the water and mixed in the sports
of the young men. Taking advantage of the rapid transi-
tion from daylight to darkness which prevails in Judea,
these hireling ruffians caught hold of the unfortunate high-
priest, forced his head under water, as if in sport, but kept
him there, unperceived by his own companions, until he
was suiTocated. Such is the account of this nefarious deed
as given by Josephus, (Antiq. lib. xv. cap. 3,) and confirmed
by all Jewish historians, except that R. Abraham ben Dior
{Dibre Mallihe Bayith Sheni, p. 13 b.) places the scene of
the murder, not in a pool, but in the river Jordan, which
flows near Jericho.
When the accident was discovered, and the corpse of
the hapless young high-priest was carried to the palace
of his mother, nothing could excel the well-played grief
of Herod, nor the magnificence with which he caused the
funeral obsequies of the heir of the Asmoneans to be per-
formed. But all his attempts to disculpate himself were
vain ; the people saw through his perfidious grimaces, and,
hated as he had been before, he now became even more
odious and detestable. But the spirit of resistance, though
not altogether crushed, was too greatly reduced and hum-
bled. People saw how hopeless must be any contest
against the minion of Rome ; they therefore submitted
with silent but ill-disguised resentment.
But Alexandra, the mother of the murdered youth,
strong in the support of Cleopatra, determined to seek and
300 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
obtain justice. Her despair had, at first, been so violent
that she was, with difficulty, prevented from suicide. But
the eager desire for revenge against the murderer at length
overcame her despair, and taught her how to assume the
outward bearing of resignation. She carried herself so
calmly, and seemed so implicitly to believe her bereave-
ment the result of accident, that Herod's vigilance was
gradually disarmed, and she at length found the much-
coveted opportunity of sending to the Queen of Egypt a
trusty messenger, the bearer of a letter in which the
wretched mother poured forth all the pent-up agony of her
heart.
Cleopatra was ready as ever, and from the same selfish
motives, to espouse her cause ; and she ceased not to im-
portune her paramour, Antony, who again had joined her,
until, overcome by her perseverance, he sent orders to
Herod to appear and clear himself of the murder before
him at Laodicea, whither Antony repaired, and where Cleo-
patra met him.
This was a summons Herod dared not disobey. He,
therefore, though unwillingly, set out to confront his ac-
cuser Cleopatra. Before his departure he intrusted his
wife, the beloved Mariamne, to the protection and guar-
dianship of his uncle Joseph. As Herod felt uneasy in
his own mind, and did not know how he would fare with
Antony, the violence of his love for Mariamne, and the
jealousy which it inspired, extorted from him the inhuman
command that, in case he himself lost his life, Joseph was
immediately to put Mariamne to death. Herod had reason
to believe that Antony was no stranger to the fame of
Mariamne's beauty, and the idea that after his own death
his widow might fall into the power of that debaucJie, so
exasperated Herod's mind that his uncle could only calm
his agony by the solemn promise that he would strictly
obey the secret command wilh which Herod had charged him.
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 301
After having completed this, and such other arrange-
ments as he deemed necessary, Herod proceeded to Lao-
dicea and presented himself before Antony. The triumvir
could not but remember that Herod had originally sought
to obtain for the murdered youth the crown he now wore
himself; and, worked upon by Cleopatra's representations,
the Roman received the king of his own creation with a
stern countenance. But the client was too well acquainted
with the character of his patron to be intimidated by a
frowning brow. Herod knew that gold was all-powerful
with the Romans ; and as he soon discovered that Antony
was not actuated by the love of justice, but set on by Cleo-
patra, who, in her turn, only sought to gratify her own cupid-
ity, Herod bribed so high, his gifts and promises were so
profusely distributed, that, as there was no direct evidence
against him, he was honourably acquitted; while the avarice
of Cleopatra was in some degree appeased by the assign-
ment to her of Coele-Syria, instead of Judea, of which she
had always been, and soon again became, covetous. (34
B. c. E.)
During Herod's absence, his uncle Joseph — the husband
of his sister Salome — deemed it his duty frequently to visit
his fair ward, Queen Mariamne ; and finding that her
mother Alexandra used her influence over the mind of her
daugbter to prejudice her against her absent husband, her
guardian, in order to counteract that influence, took every
opportunity to extol Herod's merits and his extreme love
for Mariamne. At length, in his zeal for his nephew, the
old man was so indiscreet as to disclose the fatal orders
which Herod had left with him. This, he insisted, was
the most irrefragable proof of the greatness and sincerity
of Herod's love. On the queen, however, the disclosure
produced an efi"ect quite the contrary to what Joseph in-
tended ; since she construed it into an unmistakable mani-
festation of cruel jealousy and inhuman selfishness that dis-
VoL. II, 26
302 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
gusted her, and introduced into her heart the first seeds of
a dislike to Ilerod, which in time became invincible.
While these debates were going on between her and her
guardian, a rumour suddenly began to spread over Jerusa-
lem, that Herod had been put to death by Antony. And
though the source- of this report could not be traced, it
threw the whole court into great consternation. The agony
and alarm of Mariamne, in jjarticular, appeared so uncon-
trollable, that her mother's attention was excited ; and
upon remonstrating with her daughter, Alexandra had no
difficulty in discovering the cause, which was not so much
grief at the loss of her husband, as terror at her own im-
pending fate in consequence of the orders he had left with
his uncle. Alexandra at once repaired to Joseph, and ex-
erted all her eloquence to induce him to leave Jerusalem
with her and her daughter, in order to place themselves
under the protection of the Roman eagles, as a legion was
stationed at no great distance from that city.
Joseph, who was by no means cruel, and who, moreover,
dreaded the consequence to himself of carrying out the or-
ders he had bound himself to obey, was hesitating what to
do, when their deliberations were suddenly terminated by
the opportune arrival of letters from Herod himself, an-
nouncing his being higher than ever in favour with Antony,
who was daily heaping fresh marks of his aflFection and
confidence upon him. He also informed Joseph of his ap-
proaching return to Jerusalem. These tidings, while thoy
relieved Mariamne from her terrors, completely deranged
Alexandra's plans ; but, however secretly the interviews be-
tween her and Joseph had been held, they had not altoge-
ther escaped the watchful and jealous eye of Salome. As
soon as her brother Herod returned, she informed him of
the purposed flight of his wife, accompanied by her mother
and his uncle ; and Salom^ completed her denunciations
of Herod's wife and her own husband, by accusing Mari-
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 303
amne of having been too familiar in her intercourse with
Joseph during Herod's absence.
Upon her first interview with her husband, Mariamne
easily cleared her innocence. For, though Salome's ac-
cusation had left a sting behind, Herod became at once
subdued when his Mariamne's beauty once more shone upon
him. He could only bring himself to question her gently ;
when her answers, and the conscious innocence of her man-
ner, soon satisfied him that she had been maligned. He
then began to assure her of the ardour and sincerity of his
love for her ; but she, indignant at the recollection of her
narrow escape, and ofi"ended at the tenor of his questions,
tauntingly replied, she needed no other assurance of
his love than the orders he had left with his uncle Joseph.
This most imprudent disclosure at once rekindled all
his jealousy, and goaded him into a paroxysm of rage, bor-
dering on madness, which led him to conclude that nothing
short of the criminal violation of her duty as a wife — of
which Salome indeed had accused her — could have seduced
his uncle into a betrayal of his trust. In the first burst
of his fury he was on the point of putting Mariamne to
death with his own hand ; but his love prevailed over
his resentment, and he spared her. But the unhappy
Joseph fell an instant victim to Herod's phrensy. Without
permitting his uncle to appear before him, or deigning to
hear what might be urged in his defence, the king caused
him at once to be put to death. Alexandra likewise was
made to feel the weight of his anger. For, looking upon
her as the sole cause of all this mischief, he ordered her to
be loaded with chains and confined to a close prison, under
a strong guard.
The family of the Asmoneans was now reduced to three
individuals ; two women, entirely in Herod's power, and
one decrepit old man, a prisoner at large in Parthia.
When poor old Hyrcanus was surrendered by Antigonus
804 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
for safe keeping to Barzaphernes, that general sent him to
Seleucia in chains. But when Phraates, the Parthian king,
became informed of Ilyrcanus' high birth and dignity, he
instantly freed him from his chains, and permitted him to
live at Babylon under the loose sort of surveillance which
the Parthians were'in the habit of extending to their royal
captives. The Jews of Seleucia, Babylon, and generally
on the Euphrates, ivJio toere more numerous and wealthy
than the Judeans, received Hyrcanus with the greatest
veneration as their own high-priest, and as a king of their
metropolis and nation ; and as he was treated with great
respect by the king of Parthia, Hyrcanus, in his honourable
captivity, was as happily situated and as free from care or
fears as he possibly could wish.
But Herod could not rest while one of the dreaded fa-
mily was free and beyond his reach. He therefore sent to
Hyrcanus, and invited him to come and pass the remainder
of his days in his own land, and with his own family ;
while at the same time he addressed to the king of Par-
thia the request to permit his aged prisoner-guest to return
to his own home" — a request which was readily granted.
Hyrcanus' eastern friends used every remonstrance and
entreaty to induce him to stay among them, especially
when they heard of the appointment of their obscure coun-
tryman, Ananel, to the dignity of high-priest. But Hyr-
canus loved the holy land of which he was a native, and
the temple of the Lord in which he had so long oflSciated;
he loved his daughter and his grandchildren, all of whom
were then still alive ; he loved Herod, and had great confi-
dence in his gratitude. Moreover, when Herod invited
him to come and be the partner of his grandeur and his
power, the old man thought that his presence might induce
Herod all the more readily to restore to him the dignity of
high-priest, of which Hyrcanus alone was the lawful pos-
sessor, and which, as his mutilation prevented his oflBlciat-
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 805
ing, he had a right to transfer to his grandson Aris-
tobulus. All these considerations united to induce Hyr-
canus's return to Jerusalem, Avhere he was received with
every respect and treated with great kindness by Herod,
who had already placed the young man in that high dig-
nity of which, together with his life, he was so soon de-
prived.
The king of Judea was now as prosperous as he could
ever have hoped to be. His enemies were all destroyed ;
his people, though they loved him not, obeyed his behests ;
the family, whose rights he usurped, was helpless in his
power, and on the point of becoming extinct, save in his
own branch. With his suzerain Antony and with Rome he
was in high favour ; and the avarice of Cleopatra he thought
he had gratified to its fullest extent. In this, however, he
was mistaken, for her cupidity was insatiable and bound-
less, like her influence over Antony. Possessed of Coele-
Syria, she cast a longing eye at Judea, the only territory
that separated her kingdom of Egypt from her possessions
in Syria. Accordingly, her importunities with Antony
were repeated again and again. And though he steadily
refused to sacrifice Herod to her grasping covetousness,
she had succeeded in wringing from her paramour a grant
of the fertile domains round Jericho, a plain celebrated for
its precious balm and its many palm-trees, and which
yielded a considerable annual revenue, the deprivation of
which seriously afiected the sum total of Herod's income.
In the year 33 b. c. e., Cleopatra accompanied Antony
as far as the Euphrates, on an expedition against the Par-
thians. On her way home to Alexandria, she honoured Je-
rusalem with a visit, where she was received and entertained
with the utmost magnificence. During her stay she tried
in vain every means to bring the king of Judea under the
spell of those fascinations for which, even more than for
her beauty, she was celebrated. The husband of the vir-
20*
306 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
tuous, young, and lovely Mariamne found no difficulty In
resisting the allurements of a meretricious coquette in the
decline of life; but the means the royal strumpet employed
to seduce him added disgust and contempt to the sense of
wrong which he already felt toward her, until his senti-
ments ripened into one of loathing and bitter hatred. In
the midst of the banquets and festivities to which he treated
her, the idea continually haunted him that she was entirely
in his power, and that he ought to deprive of life an enemy
who had more than once sought to destroy him. He even
went so far as to consult his friends whether it would not
be a meritorious act toward Rome, and even toward Mark
Antony, at once to get rid of that crafty woman whose
yoke weighed so heavily on the triumvir.
But his counsellors possessed not his boldness. With
them the dread of Antony's vengeance overcame every
other consideration. They therefore not only dissuaded
Herod from his design, but even prevailed upon him to glut
her avarice with costly gifts, which he did with the utmost
profuseness. On what slight threads does the destiny of
mankind sometimes appear to hang ! Had there, among
Herod's advisers, been only two, or one, bold enough to
enter into and carry out his views, what a change would
this crime, the murder of Cleopatra, have wrought in the
annals of history? How different might have been the
future fortunes of Antony, of Octavius Csesar, of Rome, of
he civilized world !
But it was not to be. Herod, who always followed his
own advice and never hesitated to shed blood, for once al-
lowed himself to be persuaded, and to abstain from a crime
that would have been the least criminal of the many he did
not scruple to commit. After having entertained Cleo-
patra with the most sedulous attention and apparent re-
spect, he conducted her with honour to Pelusium, on the
borders of her own kingdom, where they separated Avith
THE KOMANS IN JUDEA. 307
many expressions of mutual regard, seconded by magnifi-
cent parting presents from Herod to the queen. But He-
rod was not for an instant deceived by Cleopatra's profes-
sions of friendship. From the bitter hatred he entertained
against her, disguised under the semblance of affectionate
regard, he rightly concluded what her own feelings toward
him were likely to be ; for well he knew that no enmity
could be more rancorous than that of a dissolute but proud
woman, whose amorous advances had been rejected. He
was, therefore, continually on his guard against her machi-
nations. That she might have no cause of complaint
against him, he took care punctually to transmit to her the
revenues of her possessions in Judea, which he farmed for
two hundred talents, or two hundred thousand dollars, per
annum. And that he himself might have a place of refuge
in case of need, he caused the stronghold of Massada to be
still further fortified, placed in it a strong garrison of his
most trusty veterans, and furnished it with arms and pro-
visions for a force of ten thousand men.
But all his precautions proved insufficient, and the crafty
Cleopatra spread such a net for him, that all his courage
and prudence were barely able to save him. Along with
grants in Judea, Antony had also bestowed on her a con-
siderable amount of annual tribute, to be paid by the king
of the Arabs. So long as Antony's power in the East re-
mained supreme and unquestioned, King Malchus submitted
with a good grace, and paid the tribute extorted from him.
But the friendship between the East and the West, Octa-
vius Csesar and Antony, had at length been broken ; and
the two competitors for the empire of the world were mar-
shalling their forces for a decisive conflict.
Antony, indeed, by his infatuation for Cleopatra, had
done every thing to provoke Octavius. To please the queen
of Egypt, the triumvir divorced his wife, the virtuous Oc-
tavia. While he invested Cleopatra and Cesarion — her son
308 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
by Julius Caesar — with the kingdom of Egypt, such as, in
its fullest amplitude, it had been held by Ptolemy Phila-
delphus, he caused his own two sons by her to appear in
public ; the eldest, Alexander, as king of Syria, with the
cloak and cap worn by the Seleucidas, and the younger
with the Median rObe and erect tiara, worn by the great
kings of the East, as destined by his father to become king
of Central Asia. This dismembering of the dominions
of the republic in favour of a foreign queen and her adul-
terous progeny was considered an insufferable outrage on
Rome ; and the measure of Antony's offences was completed
by the publishing of certain parts of his testament, in many
clauses of which he appeared to have altogether divorced
himself of every feeling of a Roman citizen. Octavius,
with his habitual skill, availed himself of the public in-
dignation, to vindicate his private quarrel. By a decree
of the senate, Antony was deposed from his triumviral
power ; and it was enacted that war should be solemnly de-
clared, not against him, but against the queen of Egypt,
the paramour who had enthralled his soul, the sorceress
who had infatuated his understanding. To enforce this
decree, Octavius prepared to cross the Adriatic Sea, and to
invade the dominions of Antony with an army of one hun-
dred thousand men, while his fleet numbered five hundred
stout galleys. To repel this invasion, Antony concentrated
in Greece his forces, which were even more considerable
than those of Octavius. (32 b. c. e.)
This crisis in the affairs of the world King Malchus, the
Arab, looked upon as favourable for recovering his inde-
pendence, and he began by Avithholding from Cleopatra
the payment of his annual tribute. Herod had raised a
considerable force, with which he intended to join Antony's
army. But as the infatuated triumvir considered all other
matters as subordinate to the interests of Cleopatra, he
ordered Herod to turn his arms against the Arabians.
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 309
This was too good an opportunity for Cleopatra to neglect.
Her cupidity was sure to be gratified, for whichever way
victory decided between the two kings, she made sure of
seizing upon the territories of the conquered. But as she
hated Herod most, and foresaw that his military talents
and the superior character of his troops gave him great
advantages, over Malchus, she contrived a deep-laid scheme
for the utter ruin of the king of Judea. Under the pre-
tence of reinforcing his army, she caused a considerable
body of her own troops to join him. These she placed
under the command of Athenion — a general whose hatred
of Herod was equal to her own — with orders to watch his
opportunity to betray Herod and to destroy his army.
The king of Judea had not waited for the arrival of the
Egyptian auxiliaries, but with his usual celerity and suc-
cess had attacked and defeated Malchus. The Arab, how-
ever, had raised a second army, and marched into Coele-
Syria. Here Herod and Athenion encountered him at a
place called Cana, and a second battle was fought, which
the king of Judea was on the point of gaining, when the
Egyptians, who had not taken any active part in the fight,
suddenly fell upon Herod's troops before they could rally,
and, in spite of Herod's bravery and exertions, cut the
greater part of the Jews in pieces, and plundered their
camp, Herod himself, and the few survivors, escaping with
great difficulty. (Joseph. Antiq. 4ib. xv. cap. 6.)
To remedy this disaster, Herod collected around him
the garrisons from his numerous strongholds, and with
great diligence levied new forces. The fourth book of
Maccabees (ch. Ivi.) relates that Athenion had orders to
surround Herod's army and complete its utter destruction,
after he should have engaged the Arabs. But Herod,
with consummate skill, so stationed his troops that they
could not be attacked except at great disadvantage, while
he himself avoided coming to any decisive engagement ;
310 POST-BIBLICAL niSTOBT OF THE JEWS.
but contented himself Vfith making frequent and unex-
pected incursions into the Arab territories, thus harassing
the enemy, and at the same time training his own new
levies to war. But shortly after the defeat at Cana, all
Judea was visited by an earthquake, the like of which had
never before been experienced, and which destroyed many
thousands of persons, who perished amidst the ruins of
their houses. The loss of property in cattle, buildings, and
merchandise, was immense.
These repeated calamities induced Herod to sue for
peace. For, though his own troops had escaped the com-
mon ruin, by being encamped in the open fields, the loss
sustained by his kingdom did not allow him to continue
the war without altogether destroying the resources of his
people. Moreover, the treachery of the Egyptians was so
manifest that Herod justly held himself absolved from any
engagements toward their queen. He therefore sent an
embassy to King Malchus, Avith powers to negotiate peace
on any reasonable terms. But the tidings of the destruc-
tion wrought by the earthquake had preceded the embassy;
and as the accounts of Herod's losses had been greatly ex-
aggerated, the Arabs not only refused to grant him peace,
but slew his ambassadors, and hastened to invade Judea,
which they expected to find quite defenceless.
Herod had, indeed, great diflSculty to keep his troops
together, but, after having revived their courage by a bold
and eloquent address, he led them to meet the invaders ;
and the old Maccabean spirit being once more roused in
the Jews in defence of their waves, their children and their
homes, Herod defeated the Arabs at Philadelphia, or
Rabbath-Ammon, where they lost five thousand men. He
then besieged them in their fortified camp, where they
speedily were reduced to great distress for want of water.
They therefore opened a negotiation with him, offering
fifty talents (about 50,000 dollars) for permission to re-
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 311
treat, which he refused. The Arabs, during five days,
endured all the horrors of thirst, which compelled num-
bers of them to desert and to surrender to the besiegers ;
but on the sixth day, urged on by despair, and preferring
to die by the sword rather than to perish miserably for
want of water, the Arabs rushed forth to cut their way
through his lines. In this they failed ; seven thousand of
them were slain, and the survivors driven back into their
camp. They now humbly besought him to spare their
lives, offering to submit to any terms he should dictate ;
and Herod, deeming them sufficiently punished for the
murder of his ambassadors, admitted them to terms, by
which, in addition to the payment of a large sum of money,
the Arabs recognised Herod as chief ruler of their nation.
Triumphant, but still smarting under the heavy losses
which Cleopatra's vindictiveness and treachery had inflicted
upon him, Herod returned to Jerusalem, where soon after
he received the astounding intelligence of the battle of
Actium, (2d September, 31 b. c. E.) in which Octavius ob-
tained a decided victory over Antony, who fled to Egypt.
It was said that Antony's disaster had been caused by
Cleopatra, who had accompanied him to the seat of war,
but whose impatience to return to Alexandria became so
great, that she prevailed on him, contrary to the advice of
his best officers, to fight by sea. But in the midst of' the
battle Cleopatra fled, was followed by her fleet, and by
Antony himself, who thus deserted his forces. The con-
sequence was the defeat of his fleet and the surrender to
the victor of his army of nineteen legions, whom the van-
quished triumvir abandoned.
These details, so little creditable to Antony, did not at
once reach Judea, where Herod, actuated alike by his
hatred of Cleopatra and his confidence in Antony's valour
and military talents, determined to stand by the patron of
his fortunes. He, therefore, sent a special messenger to
312 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OP THE JEWS.
Antony to exhort him at once to seize upon Egypt, and to
put to death the woman who had caused his ruin, but
whose vast treasures, the proceeds of Antony's boundless
generosity, would furnish him the means of raising another
army, and enable him either to continue the war or to ob-
tain better terms orpeace than he could otherwise expect.
This, however, was advice which, infatuated as ever, An-
tony was unwilling and unable to follow. But, as he felt
the importance of preserving the support of a man so able
and powerful as Herod, Antony dispatched one of his at-
tendants, in appearance the most devoted, to Jerusalem,
to induce Herod to remain true to their alliance. But
this attendant, Alexas of Laodicea, convinced that An-
tony's cause was hopeless, betrayed his master's confidence,
and even urged Herod to submit to Octavius, and in person
to wait upon that conqueror. (Plutarch, M. Anton, §
79, 80.)
Herod having thus, contrary to the traditional policy of
the house of Antipater, endeavoured to serve a failing
cause, at length saw the necessity of taking care of him-
self and to make his peace with the victor. This, how-
ever, was a step attended with great danger and difficulty.
Hyrcanus, the last legitimate representative of the As-
moneans and the friend of Julius Cresar, had been recog-
nised sovereign of Judea, and as such been admitted to the
alliance of Rome; whereas Ilerod, the usurper, had no
other right to the crown of Judea than what the bought
patronage of the now ruined and disgraced Antony had
conferred upon him. Herod knew that his mother-in-law,
Alexandra, ambitious, intriguing, and ever watchful for
revenge, was on the alert to take advantage of the change
of affairs against him. He, therefore, determined to get
rid of Hyrcanus, and the manner in which he contrived to
do this, by sentence of law and under a semblance of jus-
tice, was a masterpiece of diabolical duplicity.
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 313
Herod had inherited from his father a thorough ac-
quaintance with Hjrcanus' weakness, and knew tliat
cowardice, fear for his life, was as strong in Hyrcanus at
the age of eighty years as it had heen at that of forty.
Herod, therefore, bribed one of Hyrcanus' confidential
attendants to work upon the old man's fears by assuring
him that Herod meant to assassinate him ; and urging him
to seek a refuge with Malchus, the enemy of Herod, and
the son of that Aretas, king of the Arabs, with whom
Hyrcanus had already once found a safe and honourable
asylum. Hyrcanus, influenced by his constitutional timi-
dity, consented, and applied to Malchus, who at once as-
sured him of his protection. A portion of this correspon-
dence, in which Alexandra became implicated, was handed
over by Hyrcanus' treacherous servant to Herod, who
thereupon summoned Hyrcanus before his council and ac-
cused him of entering into a treasonable correspondence
with the king's enemy. The old man denied, but was struck
dumb by having his own letter placed before him. Herod
caused him to be condemned and beheaded in the eightieth
year of his age. And thus this unfortunate pontiff, w^hose
weakness of character had brought ruin on his country
and family, was stung to death by the serpent he himself
had warmed into life. (Jos. Antiq. lib. xv. cap. 9 — fourth
Maccab. cap. liv. 4.)
After this preliminary step, Herod's next care was to
provide for the safety of his family. His mother, Cypros,
with his five children and his sister Salom^, he sent to the
castle of Alexandrion and committed to the care of his
brother Pheroras, who had orders, in case any misfortune
befel Herod, to endeavour to secure the crown for his
children. As his wife Mariamne and her mother Alexandra
could not live in peace with his own mother and sister, he
placed them in the stronghold of Massada, under the care
of Sohemus, a trusty Idumean, who had orders to kill them
Vol. it. 27
314 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OP THE JEWS.
Loth in case Ilcrod should be put to death by Octavlus.
And having completed these preparations, the king of Ju-
dea embarked for the island of Rhodes, where Octavius
Csesar then stayed. (30 B, c. e.)
Herod's conduct at his interview with Octavius Ceesar
oflFers the most praiseworthy page in his long history, and
speaks highly for his tact, moral courage, and just appre-
ciation of men and events. The king of Judea presented
himself before the master of the Roman world, arrayed in
his royal robes, and wearing all his royal ornaments except
his diadem. His manner was calm and self-possessed, his
voice firm and clear, and his bearing altogether that of
a man who felt that all he had hitherto done, as well as that
which he was now about to do, was right.
In his address he attempted neither to deny his attach-
ment and gratitude to Antony, nor the services and as-
sistance he had rendered that patron of his fortunes. He
even declared that he had advised Antony to put to death
Cleopatra and to seize on her kingdom, the better to be
able to carry on Avar or to obtain peace. "All this,"
said he, " I thought myself bound, in honour, gratitude, and
friendship, to do for Antony ; but since he has rejected
my last advice, he leaves me at liberty to tender my future
services to you, and if you deem them worthy your accept-
ance you shall henceforth find me as devoted and steadfast
a friend to you as hitherto I have been to him." As an
earnest of his sincerity in making this ofi"er, Herod mentioned
the timely succour he had lately given to Q. Didius, whom
Octavius had appointed governor of Syria, against the
gladiators of Antony.^^ Octavius Coesar was much pleased
" Antony had, at Cijzicus, on the Propontis, established a large school
(as it was called) of gladiators •whom he intended to exhibit in his triumphal
games at Rome. After the battle of Actium, and when all his adherents
abandoned and betrayed him, these i-uffians, the ruthless and abject tools
of Rome's inhuman amusements,' but who alone, with the ferocity of
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 315
with Herod's manly frankness, which produced an effect
all the more powerful on his mind, as it was the first in-
stance of the kind he had met with in the East. He was,
moreover, not slow to discover the importance of Herod's
alliance in his proposed invasion and conquest of Egypt.
This country, the last refuge of Antony, the stronghold
of Cleopatra, had, during a series of years, been wonder-
fully enriched at the expense of the eastern and wealthiest
division of the Roman empire, by the rapacity of a woman
alike insatiable in all her passions. These accumulated
treasures Octavius longed to possess, as they would en-
able him to reward his troops and to disband an army
by far too numerous. But the imprudent haste with
which his adopted father Julius had hurried to Egypt with
an inadequate force, and which had brought him to the
verge of destruction, taught Octavius the necessity of in-
vading that country with sufiicient power ; and this could
only be done by a march through Judea, which the friend-
ship of Herod could greatly facilitate ; while, on the other
hand, his enmity, especially if backed by the skill and
strength of Antony, might greatly, and perhaps insur-
mountably, impede the advance of Octavius.
These considerations, and a recollection of the ancient
friendship between Julius Caesar and Antipater, and of the
part he himself had taken in placing Herod on the throne,
brutes, also possessed the brute's fidelity to the hand that feeds it, re-
mained true to their master, and determined to join and support him.
For this purpose they fought their way through several provinces, until they
reached Syria, where their progress was finally stopped by the Governor
Didius, secretly assisted by Herod. For, as the latter was still considered
as the true friend of Antony, the gladiators allowed themselves to be
influenced by his directions. The consequence was, that this formida-
ble body of reckless men was first divided and then disarmed and dis-
persed— a series of measui-es that cost many of the gladiators their lives.
(Dion, p. 447.)
316 rOST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JETVS.
induced Octavius to receive Herod's overtures with plea-
sure ; and, telling him that he accepted his friendship, he
bade Herod take his diadem and wear it in his presence.
This was a significant intimation of his being confirmed bj
Octavius in the kingdom of Judea ; and as Herod, with
his habitual tact and profuseness, made rich presents to
Octavius himself, and to those who stood highest in the
imperator s friendship and confidence, the king of Judea
soon became a special favourite, and thenceforth was treated
with a degree of consideration which the haughtj Romans
seldom extended to tributary princes.
After a short sojourn at Rhodes, Herod returned to
Jerusalem, delighted with the treatment he had received,
and exulting in his own mind at the security and prosperity
which he was now certain of enjoying, and which were
all the more sweet since he could with justice ascribe them
solely to his own personal merit and good management.
But that retributive justice which, in his public career and
royal diplomacy, Herod knew so skilfully how to evade,
was to visit him all the more heavily in his private life and
domestic afiections. Mariamne and her mother, Alexan-
dra, looked upon their residence at Massada as no better
than an imprisonment ill disguised. The queen remembered
with horror the cruel orders concerning her, which, on the
occasion of his former dangerous journey, her husband had
left behind him. Assisted by her mother, she did not rest
till she had succeeded in artfully extracting from Sohemus
the confession that he himself had received similar direc-
tions from the king. This completely destroyed any rem-
nant of attachment which she yet entertained for the father
of her children.
Thenceforward she beheld in Herod only the detested
murderer of her race, the ferocious and selfish tyrant who
twice had plotted her own destruction. She recapitulated
to herself all the horrors she had witnessed, all the mental
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 317
agony she had endured since her marriage with Herod,
the servant of her grandfather, Hyrcanus. How during the
first months of her wedded life she beheld the sack of
Jerusalem, the ruthless proscription of every friend and
adherent of her family. As long as she could recollect,
the house of Antipater had exercised its baneful influence
on those that were nearest and dearest to her. King
Aristobulus II., her grandfather. Prince Alexander, her
father. King Antigonus, her father's brother, had all per-
ished untimely, hurried into their bloodstained graves by
the ambition of these destructive Idumeans. And though
the hand of Herod might not be plainly visible in the ig-
nominious execution of her uncle, yet the death of her
beloved brother under circumstances so suspicious, ceased,
in her opinion, to be accidental, since the recent judicial
assassination of her aged and venerated grandfather made
it evident that he who shed the blood of old Hyrcanus would
assuredly not permit young Aristobulus to live. When all
these cruel injuries were still further embittered by the
reflection that their ruthless perpetrator had twice laid a
snare for her own life, and only spared her to gratify his
own selfish feelings, Mariamne's energies were all roused
to resistance. Her pure and noble character guarded her
against the commission of any crime ; but, armed only
with her courage and with her beauty, she rose in the
strength of that love by which, in spite of himself, Herod
was subjugated, and took upon herself the part of an
avenging power, against the blows of which neither the
might of Herod nor the protection of Caesar could avail.
When Herod, in the pride and joy of his success, im-
mediately, on his return to Jerusalem, hastened to Massada
to gladden the heart of his beloved wife, she received him
with a haughty and stern coolness, which gradually, as his
detested presence and the recollection of her wrongs
worked on her mind, found vent in a torrent of tears and
27*
318 rOST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
reproaclics. Instructed by the fatal outbreak "whicli had
cost Joseph his life, Mariamne did not disclose her know-
ledo-e of Herod's orders to Sohemus ; but the recent exe-
cution of her grandfather, the misfortunes of her family,
and her own aversion, furnished sufficient subjects for
crimination. This reception, so unexpected and so pain-
ful, provoked the rage of Herod to the utmost. In his
anger he accused her of incontinence, and threatened her
■with instant death ; but strong in her innocence, she re-
mained unmoved at his anger, while she treated his efforts
at reconciliation with scorn.
Herod's public duties, however, compelled him for a
time to turn his attention from Mariamne to Octavius Cassar.
That conqueror, leading his troops against Egypt, passed
through Syria. Herod went to meet him as far as Ptole-
mais, the northernmost boundary of his kingdom, and ac-
companied him as far as Pelusium, the strong frontier for-
tress of Egypt, which, however, by the order of Cleopatra,
opened its gates and admitted the Roman without resistance.
At their first meeting, Herod entertained Caisar and his
army with great magnificence ; and, in addition to a pre-
sent of eight hundred talents (about 800,000 dollars) in
money, the king of Judea had taken care to store up vast
quantities of bread, wine, and other provisions, which he
placed in magazines in different parts of the deserts the
Romans had to march through ; a measure of precaution
which fully proved the value of Herod's alliance, since,
without these supplies furnished by him, the Roman army
would have run the risk of wanting both bread and water.
And so pleased was Octavius with Herod's prudence,
generosity and politeness, that he singled him out from
among the crowd of tributary princes, courted his society,
and made him ride at his side whenever the imperator
went forth to review his troops, or for any other diversion.
Octavius's campaign in Egypt was a brief one. Mark
THE EOMANS IN JUDEA. 319
Antony, deserted by his few remaining adherents, and be-
trayed by Cleopatra, died by his own hand. The queen
of Egypt, after having in vain essayed the force of those
blandishments which had overcome Julius Caesar and en-
thralled Antony, but which Octavius, like Herod, treated
with indiflFerence, preferred a voluntary death to the dis-
grace of being exhibited as a captive in Octavius's triumph
at Rome. The last of the Ptolomeans maintained her im-
perial loftiness even in death. A small wound in her ai-m
was the only mark of violence on her person, leaving it
doubtful whether she died from the bite of an asp or the
puncture of a poisoned instrument. By the assistance of
her two women, Eiros and Charmion, she reposed on a
couch of state, royally attired, and her head encircled with
a diadem. In this posture she was found lifeless by the
Roman officer who had the custody of her person. Eiros
lay dead before the couch; Charmion was on the point of
expiring, but, seeing that the diadem was about to drop
from her mistress's head, she made a last effort to fix it on
gracefully. (Strabo, lib. xvii. 795, et seq.)
By her death Octavius Caesar became master, without
any capitulation or treaty, of Alexandria and all Egypt.
He entered the market-place, and, addressing the citizens
in Greek, told them that he spared the city for the sake
of its founder, and removed all apprehension with regard
to the safety of their persons, which, by the laws of war,
the conqueror had the right to dispose of at his pleasure.
But an enormous ransom, not less than two-thirds of their
property, was exacted from the wealthy classes throughout
Egypt. And such was the influx of ready money thereby
caused in Rome, that, shortly after the reduction of that
kingdom, the value of lands doubled throughout Italy,
while the interest of money was reduced to one-third of its
former rate. (Dion, p. 459.) The kingdom of Egypt was
declared a Roman province, and thus all the possessions
820 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
and conquests of Alexander the Great, west of the Eu-
phrates, were incorporated with the vast empire of the
Caesars. On his return from Egypt, Octavius again passed
through Syria, and was once more and most magnificently
entertained by Herod, whose recent services were now
most generously rewarded. Octavius made him a present
of 4000 Gauls, who had served as Cleopatra's life-guard,
and restored to him not only the plains and revenues of
Jericho, of which Antony had deprived him, but also many
of the territories which, since the days of Pompey, had
remained separated from the kingdom of Judea, but the
possession of which now afforded a great accession of
wealth and power to Herod, who thenceforth remained
firmly established in the high favour of Caesar. (29 b. c. e.)
But all his grandeur and success could not compensate
him for the loss of Mariamne's love, a privation which, now
relieved from the anxieties of government and disposed to
enjoy the fruit of his toils, he felt most keenly. A whole
year had now passed, during which Herod had been fluctu-
ating between love and resentment ; for Mariamne, though
the mother of several children, seemed possessed by one
sentiment only, that of scornful aversion for her husband.
One purpose only seemed to actuate her, that of torment-
ing his heart by the very excess of his love for her.
Hatred, indignation, bitter irony, dictated every sentence
she deigned to address to the low-born adventurer, who, by
violence and fraud, had possessed himself of her hand ; to
the murderer of her whole family, who had sold himself as
a slave to the stranger that he might become a tyrant over
his own people. To these sallies of her detestation, Herod
alternately opposed the rage of the provoked, the excuses
of the uxorious husband, in vain ; she treated with equal
disdain his stern menaces as a king and his submissive en-
treaties as a lover.
At length Mariamne brought matters to a crisis by her
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 321
pointed refusal to receive his love, and by her upbraiding
him more virulently than ever with the murder of her
brother and grandfather. This so exasperated Herod that
he was on the point of killing her with his own hand. His
sister Salome, who during the whole of his domestic dis-
sensions had aggravated his mind, determined to make the
most of his actual exasperation. She had long before cor-
rupted the queen's cup-bearer ; and now she sent him to
Herod with a cup of poisoned wine in one hand and a bag
of money in the other, to accuse the queen of having given
him this money as a bribe to administer that cup to the
king. This new accusation so worked upon Herod's rage
that he caused the queen's favourite eunuch, who was also
her principal confidant, to be put to the rack.
But the only confession Herod's tortures could wring
from the wretched eunuch was that he believed the orders
the king had left with Sohemus, and which he had com-
municated to the queen, were the cause of her exaspera-
tion, which at all events dated from the time of that com-
munication. This confession roused Herod's jealousy.
He had reposed unlimited confidence in the oft-tried faith-
fulness of Sohemus ; he knew that this Idumean oflBcer
was not to be corrupted with gold. If then this Sohemus
had betrayed his trust, the reward of his treason could
have been nothing less than the guilty love of the peerless
Mariamne. The conviction of their criminality became
so strong in the mind of Herod, that forthwith, and with-
out deigning to hear what Sohemus' defence might offer,
he caused that unhappy favourite to be put to death.
The king next proceeded to accuse the queen of adultery,
and to place her on her trial, not before the high court of
the Sanhedrin, but before a tribunal composed of creatures
of his own. Even these judges of his own selection hesi-
tated to condemn her in the absence of all proof; but
Herod's charges against her were so vehement, that he
322 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
left the judges no choice between her condemnation and
their own ruin. Thej, therefore, declared her guilty, and
sentenced her to death. But, at the same time, they di-
rected that no execution should take place, but that the
queen should remain confined in one of the royal castles,
until the king should become more calm and have leisure
to consult with his own heart. This, however, was what
Salome dreaded above all things. Judging Mariamne's
disposition by her own, Salome apprehended that the fear
of death would overcome every other feeling in the mind
of the queen ; and that if the opportunity was afibrded
her to make submission to her husband, he would doubtless
pardon her, and she would as certainly in time recover her
ascendency over his heart, in which case it would be easy
for her to prove her innocence and to turn the tables on
her accusers. To prevent the possibility of a reconciliation,
Salome contrived to raise an emeute in Jerusalem for the
alleged purpose of liberating the queen.
It is diflBcult to decide whether popular indignation had
any, and what, share in the tumult, or whether it was alto-
gether the work of Salome's emissaries. But it was suffi-
ciently serious to enable Salome, and her mother Cypres,
to persuade Herod that all Judea was on the point of
rising to defend Mariamne, and to destroy him and his
family. Herod was a bold man : but " 'tis conscience that
makes cowards of us all ;" and, overcome by the dread
of a general insurrection in favour of Mariamne, if she
were permitted longer to live, the king at length yielded
to the importunities of his mother and sister, and signed
an order for the immediate execution of his wife.
Mariamne received the announcement of her fate with
firmness and dignity. One moment of regret, of bitter
anguish at the thought of her children, and-Hhen she pre-
pared, cheerfully, to die, since death alone could release
her from her duties as the wife of the detested Herod.
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 323
As she calmly went forth to the place of execution, she
was encountered by her mother, Alexandra. This am-
bitious and intriguing woman, greatly alarmed for her own
safety, could think of no better expedient to avert her im-
pending fate than to ingratiate herself with Herod by in-
sulting his unhappy wife. All the way Mariamne was led
along, her unnatural mother kept loading her with re-
proaches the most bitter for her ingratitude and faithless-
ness to the best of husbands. In her rage, real or assumed,
Alexandra even attempted to strike the queen, and to pull
her by the hair. A blush of shame and indignation for
an instant tinged the pale and beautiful countenance of
Mariamne; but neither by word or look did she reprove
the artifice of her mother, as base as it Avas unavailing.
With the same intrepidity that she had lived, the noble
and pious heiress of the Maccabees died; but with her
died the happiness and peace of mind of her blood-thirsty
but most miserable husband. (29 b. c. e.)
History offers many instances of queens, who, though
innocent and high-minded, have become victims to jealousy,
calumny, and intrigue ; but none of these illustrious unfor-
tunates is so truly a heroine as the Asmonean princess —
no situation is so tragical as hers. Voltaire perceived the
grandeur of his subject, when, in his preface to his tragedy,
"Mariamne," he says: "Behold a king whom mankind
designate as 'the great,' in love with the most beautiful
woman upon earth ; behold the conflict of passions in this
king, so celebrated for his talents and his crimes ; his
former cruelties and his actual remorse ; the continual and
sudden transition from love to hatred, from hatred to
love; the ambition of his sister Salome, and the intrigues
of his courtiers ; and, in the midst of all, the anguish of
a princess whose virtue and beauty still command the ad-
miration of mankind, who had seen her sire and her brother
put to death by her husband, and who, to complete her mis-
o2-4 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
fortunes, sees herself adored by the destroyer of her
family! "What a subject! What a field for a higher
genius than my own !"
It is a pity that Voltaire, who so truly appreciates the
lofty character of the situation, knew so little how to do it
justice, when he degrades the mission of retribution which
animates, and almost sanctifies, Mariamne, to the level of
an ordinary intrigue of love and jealousy. But then Vol-
taire was a Gaul, and belonged to the age of Louis XV.;
and the writer who is to do justice to the tragedy of " Mari-
amne" must be guided by principles very difi"erent from
those of Voltaire.
Herod's rage was quenched in the blood of his innocent
queen ; but his love broke out all the more fiercely, while
unceasing remorse rendered life a burden to him. In
vain he tried to forget her ; in vain he tried, by magnificent
feasts or continual attention to business, to stifle the voice
of conscience, or to calm his troubled mind. In the midst
of pleasure, as of business, the image of Mariamne still
haunted him, and left him no rest.
A pestilence, which broke out the year after her death
and swept away thousands of people, added a fresh load to
his misery, because public opinion proclaimed it a judg-
ment upon the king for all the blood he had shed, and es-
pecially for that of his injured queen. His mind was af-
fected by his remorse even to aberration ; for hours he
would carry on an imaginary conversation with her, and
urge his plea of love ; frequently he called her aloud, or
ordered his attendants to summon her into his presence.
At length his body yielded to the sufferings of his mind,
and Herod long laid in a hopeless state at Samaria. Even-
tually he rallied and recovered ; but though, thanks to the
strength of his constitution, he recovered his bodily health,
he never could regain his peace of mind. A sour, sus-
picious disposition distorted his views of men and things,
THE ROMAXS IN JUDEA. 325
and Lurried him into the perpetration of cruelties that ren-
dered him the scourge of his own family, and aggravated
his misery.
Alexandra, whose restless ambition had prompted her to
take advantage of Herod's illness, was one of his first vic-
tims. The sons of Baba ben Buta, a collateral branch of
the proscribed Asmoneans, whose father had, by Herod's
order, been deprived of his eyesight, had been protected
and sheltered by Costobares, an Idumean, the husband of
Salome. But this wicked woman, who wished to get rid
of her second husband, as she had destroyed the first, in-
formed Herod of the facts, and soon had the satisfaction
to witness the death of her husband as well as of the un-
happy sons of Baba. Dositheus, who had been Herod's in-
strument to destroy old Hyrcanus, and some others of the
king's confidential officers, were likewise put to death on
the denunciation of Salome.
After the recovery of his health, Herod married a second
Mariamne, the daughter of Simon ben Boethus, a cohen or
priest of Alexandria, whom he raised to the dignity of
high-priest, an office which Herod was systematically in-
tent of depriving of all political weight and influence in
affairs of state. As a principal means of effecting this,
Herod hit upon the device of conferring the office " during
the king's pleasure," which enabled him frequently to re-
move the functionaries, and to appoint such of his own
creatures as would be content to submit to any conditions
the king might choose to dictate. After Ananel, of Baby-
lon, who, on the death of Aristobulus III., resumed his
office, the king appointed Joshua ben Fabi — though there
seems to have been a vacancy between the two. And this
Joshua the king now removed to make room for the father
of the beautiful woman who became his wife, and in whose
society he, for a time at least, found rest from the gnawing
pangs of remorse. As a homage to her, he shortly after
Vol. II. 28
320 POST-BIELICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
his nuptials built a magnificent palace on a spot where he
had formerly repulsed the Antigonians under Pacorus, the
cup-bearer. His courtiers and friends built mansions near
him ; the principal citizens of Jerusalem, attracted by the
beauty of the locality, followed their example. The neces-
sary population of. mechanics and tradesmen was soon at-
tracted, and thus, in a brief space of time, sprung up the
flourishing city of Hcrodion, seven miles from Jerusalem.
Four years after the battle of Actium, (27 b. c. e,,) the
senate of Rome conferred on Octavius C?esar the title or
designation of Augustus, "sacred," "venerable," "divine."
That revolution in the polity of Rome which had turned the
patrician republic into an absolute empire, pointed out the
expediency of a new religious dogma — the divinity of the
Emperor. The first idea of this deification Augustus brought
with him from Egypt. The ancient Pharaohs had all been
worshipped as gods ; and the greater portion of the Egyptian
monuments, with their famous hieroglyphic inscriptions,
only served to attest the godhead and to express the mag-
nificent and divine attributes of these sovereigns. The po-
litical sagacity of Augustus appreciated the advantage of
working on the minds of the multitude by directing their at-
tention and worship to that most potent dynasty founded by
Julius Caesar, which not only held the highest rank among
men, but whose supreme and irresistible power made its
chief a god on earth. Accordingly, the emperor constituted
himself vicar-general of the gods of Olmypus and of the
Capitol; he was at once their supreme pontiff" and their re-
presentative, partaking of their nature. Augustus adored
the gods ; but Rome and all its wide-spread dominions were
bound to adore Augustus.
In every part of the empire temples arose consecrated
to the worship of the new man-god ; and among the re-
proaches which Tacitus has recorded against Octavius Cae-
sar Augustus, the one that " he sought to deprive the gods
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 327
of their honours, and that he caused himself to be wor-
shipped in temples, and by the ministry of flamines and
priests," (Annal., lib. i. § xi.) is assuredly not the least.
Among the many temples raised to the new god, Strabo
(lib. iv. p. 292) especially mentions the one at Bibracte, an
ancient city situated at the confluence of the rivers Rhone
and Saone, in Gaul, (France,) which thenceforth assumed
the name of Augustodunum, still preserved in its abbrevi-
ation Autun. In this temple the images of sixty local
gods, or city-deities, worshipped the supreme divinity of
Augustus, and proclaimed the sway of the man-god even
unto the shores of the ocean. (12 b. c. e.)
Among the foremost to second the adulation of the Ro-
man senate, and to worship the all-powerful Augustus, was
the king of Judea. As Herod had now totally extirpated
the Asmoneans, and felt perfectly secure in the protection
of Rome, he no longer scrupled to offend the Jews by show-
ing that his religion was subservient to his policy. So that
while in Jerusalem he professed to be a Jew, and to join
in the declaration, "Hear, 0 Israel, the Lord our God, the
Lord is One," beyond the confines of Judea he became a
heathen, and ready to embrace any worship that would
best maintain him in the good graces of his great Roman
patron.
The ancient city of Samaria, which some thirty years be-
fore had been raised from its ruins and partly rebuilt by
the Roman pro-consul Gabinius, had assumed the name of
its restorer, and was called Gabiniana. It had, however,
made but slow progress, and was in fact nothing more than
a considerable village when Herod determined once more
to restore its importance as a city, and to dedicate it to
Augustus. Accordingly, the name was changed into Se-
baste, the Greek translation of the word Augustus ; so that
in the heart of Herod's possessions we find the model of
Augustodunum and of its temple eleven years before the
328 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
French city received that name. A vast and gorgeoug
marble structure, erected in the principal square or public
place of Sebaste, was consecrated as a temple to Augustus,
where his colossal statue was worshipped, and offerings were
brought on his altar. The city itself was strongly fortified,
and assigned as a Tesidence to six thousand Greek and
Syrian colonists, whom Herod invited and enriched with
houses and lands. (23 B. c. E.)
Another similar colony Herod located at the place near
the sea between Dora and Joppa, anciently called Stratons
Tower, but where Herod built a seaport town, which, in
honour of the reigning imperial family and its founder, he
called Cesarea. Here the man-god was worshipped, re-
presented by a colossal statue, fashioned after the model
of the Olympian Jupiter ; while at his side his divine
spouse, Rome, had her statue after that of the Argivian
Juno. These temples and statues, which plainly showed
that Herod intended Cesarea for a heathen, not a Jewish
city, subsequently led to disputes that eventuated in the
destruction of Jerusalem and its temple.
These structures were raised beyond the confines of Ju-
dea proper, within which Herod did not venture to intro-
duce the worship of idols. He, however, went as far as he
dared ; for, though he did not presume to interfere with
the religion of the Jews, he attempted to effect a species of
fusion between Jewish and Roman manners and civiliza-
tion, and for that purpose he renewed the schemes and
measures of the high-priest Jason, who, a century and a
half earlier, had laboured to effect a Judeo-Grecian fusion.
As Jason had erected a Greek gymnasium at Jerusalem,
Herod built a magnificent theatre in that city and a spa-
cious amphitheatre in the suburbs. He also instituted games
in honour of Augustus, to be celebrated every fifth year.
Whatever was most characteristic of Roman manners — gla-
diatorial conflicts, combats between wild beasts, and between
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 329
beasts and men — were introduced ; and, in order to secure
a large concourse of visitors, the games were proclaimed
throughout Herod's kingdom as well as in neighbouring
and distant countries. Gladiators, wrestlers, and musicians
were invited from all parts of the world, and prizes of great
value were to reward the victors. Everywhere Roman
trophies and triumphal inscriptions in characters of gold
and silver met the eye, and Herod exhausted all his magnifi-
cence on shows most distasteful to his people. Those cruel
conflicts between men and beasts, which delighted the fero-
cious Roman, disgusted the God-fearing Jew, who condemned
them as unlawful ; and the trophies with which every public
place was adorned were abominated as idolatrous images.
A general outcry arose that the king had profaned the holy
city, and that the setting up of such idols within its pre-
cincts was not to be endured. In order to silence the
clamours of the people, Herod led some of the principal
men among them to the trophies, and, causing the armour
with which they were covered to be removed, convinced
them that there was nothing beneath but a bare post. This
produced a laugh, and calmed the extreme agitation of the
people ; but the amphitheatre, with its horrors, still remained
to exasperate the public mind.
At length ten of the most zealous malcontents — one of
whom was blind — formed a conspiracy to assassinate Herod
as he entered the theatre. They had worked up their
minds to that degree as to become perfectly indifferent to
the result, fully convinced that even in case of failure their
death would stimulate the people to a general rising against
the tyrant. But the signal good fortune which attended
Herod in his public life did not desert him. The con-
spiracy was betrayed. As the conspirators assembled,
they were seized ; daggers were found concealed under
their garments ; and, as they did not attempt to deny their
design, they wei*e put to death with many cruel tortures.
28*
330 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
The people manifested their sympathy -with the suflferers
and their hatred of Herod in a manner not less ferocious
than his own. They seized on the informer who had de-
nounced the conspiracy, literally tore him to pieces, and
threw his flesh to the dogs. This was an insult that exas-
perated Herod to- the utmost, and roused all the fiend
within him. By means of his spies he discovered that
some women had expressed a knowledge of the perpetra-
tors of the horrid act of vengeance. Herod immediately
seized these women and subjected them to the rack until
they disclosed the names of several of the ringleaders, all
of whom were hurried off to instant death, together with
their innocent families.
This crowning act of savage ferocity raised the public
exasperation to the highest degree ; and doubtless, had a
proper leader presented himself, the whole of Judea would
have risen in a general revolt. Herod fully expected and
prepared to meet such a rising. He built new fortresses
throughout the land to bridle the people, and strengthened
those that already existed.
In addition to Sebaste and Cassarea, he built Gaba,
Heshbon, Antipatris, Cypron, Phasaelis, (the three last
named after his father, mother, and eldest brother,) and
other smaller towns, in most of which he planted colonies
of foreign soldiers to hold the country in subjection. In
his buildings and fortifications he " did more than the oc-
casion required ; for Herod was a man of taste, and had
quite a passion for building and for improvements, so that
in the course of his long reign the country assumed a
greatly-improved appearance through the number of fine
towns and magnificent public works and buildings which
he erected. In this respect there had been no king like
him since Solomon." — Kitto, Palestine, i. 733.
Building operations, so numerous and extensive, and all
carried on at the same time, could not fail to drain Herod's
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 331
treasury in the same proportion as they gave employment
to the superabundant labour of the country. But just as
the exhaustion of his exchequer was on the point of cir-
cumscribing Herod's building enterprises, an awful cala-
mity that visited the land compelled the king, for a time
at least, altogether to suspend them. Judea was visited
with a grievous drought, which brought on a famine, and
that again led to a raging pestilence, as multitudes died
for want of proper care and sustenance.
As the general distress was greatly augmented by the
suspension of Herod's public works, the king, whose trea-
sury was empty, did not hesitate to melt down all his plate,
and to send it to Egypt, to be there sold, and the proceeds
applied to the purchase of provisions, of which his famished
and perishing subjects so greatly stood in need. And as
the drought had likewise made great havoc among their
cattle, especially among their flocks of sheep, so as to
leave them little or no wool, Herod also took care to pro-
cure a supply of winter clothing. In these beneficent
endeavours he was warmly assisted by his friend Petronius,
the Roman prefect of Egypt, then, as in the days of
Joseph, the great granary of Syria and of Palestine. This
Roman oflScer was from all parts of Western Asia impor-
tuned for assistance ; but the high favour in which Herod
was known to stand with Augustus secured the king of
Judea an immediate and ample supply. All^that he re-
ceived he caused, without loss of time, to be distributed
among his subjects generally, in such manner, however,
that the first preference was accorded to the Jews — an act
of generosity that, for a time at least, reconciled them to
their ruler. In order to confirm them in this good feel-
ing, he even went so far as to remit one-third of their
annual taxes, in order that they might all the sooner re-
cover from the heavy losses inflicted on them by the
drought. But as his desire to stand foremost in the good
832 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
graces of Augustus led Herod to acts of adulation -whicli
the Jews looked upon as idolatrous, their indignation
was soon again aroused, and with greater virulence than
ever.
Herod sent his two sons by Mariamne to Rome, that
thej might there be educated under the emperor's eye —
an act highly offensive to the Jews, but so pleasing to
Augustus that he assigned them apartments in his own
palace ; and while he added several provinces to the king-
dom of Judea,^^ he also gave to Herod full power to ap-
point, at his own pleasure, one of his sons to succeed him.
Subsequently Augustus visited Syria in person, where
several enemies of Herod appeared before the emperor,
accusing the king of Judea of many and heinous crimes.
Augustus directed an investigation to be instituted, and
summoned Herod before his tribunal ; but before the day
of trial the emperor so publicly and greatly manifested
his favour and partiality to Herod, that the accusers, des-
pairing of justice, and fearful of being handed over to
Herod for punishment — as had happened to a former depu-
'5 These provinces, Traclionitis, Auranitis, and Batanites, situated be-
tween Libanus and Perea, beyond Jordan, formed a part of the principality
of one Zenodorus, a tetrarch. The inhabitants, who lived chiefly in rocks
and caverns, made frequent inroads into the adjoining provinces, plunder-
ing towns and villages. This Zenodorus permitted them to do with im-
punity, so that he became suspected of being leagued with the robbers,
and of sharing their spoils. Augustus, therefore, ordered that these
troublesome pi'ovinces should be given to Herod, who, with his usual
vigour and success, soon ferretted out the plunderers, and cleared the coun-
try of them.
Zenodorus frequently, both at Rome and in Syria, headed deputations
to accuse Ilerod of tyranny and oppression before the tribunal of Augus-
tus. The emperor, however, repeatedly refused to hear Zenodorus ; and
eventually, when he did consent to investigate, he treated Zenodorus with
Euch marked disfavour that the accuser and his friends were driven to com-
mit suicide even before Herod's trial commenced, as related in the text.
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 333
tation of Gadarenes, who had accused him — committed sui-
cide. This Augustus chose to construe into a convincing
proof of Herod's innocence and merit, and, therefore, not
only confirmed all his former grants, but also appointed
him his procurator or representative in Syria, without
whose knowledge and advice the Roman governors of that
province were to do nothing of importance. And on Phe-
roras, the younger brother of Herod, the emperor gra-
ciously, and at the request of his friend, the king of
Judea, bestowed a tetrarchy or principality beyond Jordan.
When Augustus left the East, Herod accompanied him
to the seaport at which he embarked, and then, as an ex-
pression of his gratitude toward his great patron and
benefactor, the king of Judea built, at Panias, (Banias,)
near the source of the Jordan, a temple of white marble,
which he dedicated to the man-god Augustus. As, from
the position of this temple, the adjacent heathens began to
worship Augustus as the tutelary god of the river, the Jews
took offence, and their meetings and denunciations became
extremely violent. Herod's liberal remission of taxes
proved powerless to stem the torrent of public feeling.
He was, therefore, obliged to issue an edict forbid-
ding, under severest penalties, all public and private
assemblies, whether on account of feasts or any other
pretence.
This severe edict did but little good ; for Herod's spies,
whose wakeful eyes nothing could escape, soon brought
him proof abundant that the meetings of the people con-
tinued secretly, and therefore all the more dangerously ;
and Herod himself, who often, in disguise, mixed among
the populace, became convinced that some great act, on
his part, of a decidedly religious character, could alone
allay the ferment which his worship of Augustus had called
forth. And he soon hit upon an expedient not only
to remove the ill-will and apprehension of the actual
334 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OP THE JEWS.
generation, but also to entitle him to the gratitude of
posterity.
At the great annual festival of Passover, (19 B. c.
E.,) Herod addressed the assembled multitudes of Israel,
and, with his usual eloquence, dwelt on the goodness of
God, who not onlj-granted them peace, and whose blessing
had amply compensated them for their losses by the
drought, but who further secured to them a continuation
of prosperity through the friendship of the great em-
peror of Rome. He then spoke of his own zeal for the
religion of Israel, and called their attention to the condi-
tion and size of the temple, so greatly inferior to the sacred
structure erected by Solomon ; that this inferiority arose,
not from want of zeal on the part of those who returned
from Babylon and built the temple, but from want of
means and ability on their part. But since he, by the
grace of God, possessed both the zeal and the means, he
declared his determination to rebuild the temple in all its
pristine grandeur, as an offering of gratitude to the Lord
God of Israel for the manifold blessings vouchsafed unto
him and his kingdom, and as such acceptable to God and
to the people.
The assembly was taken by surprise and greatly startled.
All recognised the grandeur of the offer, the importance
of the undertaking, and the need and benefit of its being
carried out. But they had no confidence in Herod's pro-
fessions of zeal ; the difficulty and expensiveness of such
a work, and the length of time it would require, alarmed
them ; and the ajiprehension became general, that after
the king had taken down the old temple he might prove
unable — some whispered unwilling — to build the new one.
To calm their fears, and to remove their objections, Herod
solemnly promised that he would not begin to demolish the
old temple until all the materials required for the new one
were prepared and collected together on the spot ; and on
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 335
this condition his offer was accepted with as much satis-
faction as the Jews were capable of deriving from any
act of the Idumean usurper.
The Talmud [tr.- Baba hathra, fo. 3, b.) ascribes the re-
building of the temple to Herod's remorse. That, inces-
santly tormented by the pangs of conscience, Herod had
applied to the sole survivor of the Asmonean collaterals,
Baba, the son of Butah, an aged man, whom he himself
had deprived of his eyesight, and whose sons he had put
to death. This aged and pious senator the king consulted
as to the possibility of expiating his guilt in shedding the
blood of the entire Sanhedrin, and of so many priests of
the Lord. " As thou hast quenched the light of the world
by putting to death the teachers and expounders of the
holy law, be active and advance the light of the world by
restoring the holy temple !" was the reply. But, whatever
was the motive which induced him to build, Herod faith-
fully kept his promise to the people. Two years were de-
voted to preparations ; ten thousand artificers, under the
direction of one thousand priests, were taken into the
king's pay ; one thousand carts were employed in the car-
rying of the materials ; and when every thing was ready,
the old edifice began to be taken down, and the new one
to be raised with equal celerity. The holy place, properly
so called, was finished in a year and a half; and the legend
tells us that, in proof of the divine approval, during the
whole of this period no rain fell by day to interrupt the
work, but only at night. It took eight years so far to
complete the structure as to fit it for divine worship for
Jews and Gentiles ; but the building was carried on for
many years, both by Herod himself and long after his
death ; and shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem no
less than eighteen thousand men were employed and at
work on the temple.
The stones were white marble ; each stone twenty-five
336 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OP THE JEWS.
cubits long, twelve cubits high, and nine cubits broad, all
■wrought and polished with exquisite beauty. The temple,
or holy place, was but sixty cubits in breadth ; but a wing
on each side projected twenty cubits more. The entrance
to the holy place was through an open gateway (without
doors) seventy cubits high, and twenty wide, so that the
temple presented a facade of" one hundred and twenty cu-
bits. This was the loftiest part of the whole structure on
the summit of the temple-mount, and was on all sides sur-
rounded by a succession of piazzas or porticoes, and ter-
races, rising above each other, and enclosing a multitude
of courts and buildings. The first of these enclosures,
nearest the city, was surrounded by a strong and lofty wall
of large stones well cemented ; and on the side toward
the temple had a piazza, supported by columns of such
size that three men, with arms extended, could barely em-
brace one, which is equal to twenty-seven feet in circum-
ference. Of these columns there were one hundred and
sixty-two, supporting a flat cedar ceiling. No sculpture
or painting interrupted its simple but uniform beauty. A
flight of five wide marble steps led into the second enclo-
sure, called the Aazarah, or "court of the Gentiles," be-
cause open to all visitors. Stately columns, equidistant,
had inscriptions engraved on them, in Greek and in Latin,
admonishing strangers, and such Jews as were not purified,
(those, namely, who had contracted some defilement pro-
hibited by the law,) against proceeding beyond the marble
rails surrounding the court, under pain of death. The
third enclosure, raised above the second by fourteen marble
steps, formed the Aazarah, or court of the Hebrews, (Is-
raelites,) which contained the altar of burnt-ofi"cring, parted
off" from the larger court by a low marble screen, Avhich
formed the court of the priests. A separate court, with
distinct entrances, and divided from the men by a low wall
or partition, was appropriated to the women ; so that we
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 337
Bce the complete separation of the sexes, which is still
kept up in the synagogue, dates from thS temple.
The whole structure, with its terraces rising in succes-
sion, was visible at a great distance, and equally strong
and splendid. Its white marble walls, in many places in-
laid with gold, towering above the city, reflected the blind-
ing rays of the sun, and, after sunset, gave to the moun-
tain the appearance as if perpetual snow rested on its
summit. And so solid was the masonry, that even yet,
after a lapse of near two thousand years, and spite of the
rage of man, that exerted every effort in order that not
one stone should be left on the other, but all be thrown
down, the whole of the foundation, and the basement of
the temple, still remain entire and uninjured ; while a
portion of the western wall, erect, and attesting its
strength, is visited by Jewish pilgrims from every part of
the world, whose streaming eyes are raised to Heaven with
prayers for Israel's restoration.
The inauguration of this temple was a solemnity at
which the presence of his sons was deemed necessary by
Herod ; and in order to pay his respects to Augustus, and
in person to thank him for his kindness to the two young
princes, the king of Judea repaired to Rome. His recep-
tion by the emperor of Home was very gracious, his enter-
tainment most sumptuous, and the presents by which he
evinced his gratitude, right royal. After a short stay at
Rome, he returned with his two sons to Jerusalem, where,
on their first appearance in public, they were received with
the loudest acclamation by the people, who admired their
majestic port and polite demeanour ; for these two young
men, and especially Alexander the elder, combined within
themselves all the personal advantages of their gifted pa-
rents, the noble-looking Herod and the beauteous Mari-
amne, the first striking effects of which were still further
heightened and improved by the excellent education they
Vol. it. 29
oyy rOST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
received in Italy. Indeed, on their first return home, He-
rod's paternal pritle, gratified by their appearance and ac-
complishments even beyond his expectations, rendered him
more happy than for years he had been. Soon after their
return he obtained for them suitable wives — Glaphyra, the
daughter of Archelaus, King of Cappadocia, for the eldest,
prince Alexander ; and Berenice, the daughter of his sis-
ter Salome, for the younger, Aristobulus. Herod now
looked forward to long years of peace and happiness ; but
the seed his crimes, and those of his family, had sown, was
sure to produce its bitter fruits ; and the demon of domestic
discord, which for a time had been laid in his family, began
to rage with renewed fierceness.
The two young princes had not forgotten their mother's
wrongs ; her innocent blood called for justice; and her sons
did not conceal their aversion for the authors of her death.
Salome and Pheroras, the brother and sister of Herod, be-
came alarmed at the bitter feelings their two nephews
evinced, and in self-defence made common cause against
them. The old feud between the Asmoneans and the house
of Antipater once more revived ; and while the young
princes, strong in their innocence, uttered many an impru-
dent speech, and sometimes committed incautious acts,
their enemies, practised and experienced in the school of
intrigue, knew how to extract venom and accusations even
from the most harmless words and gestures. Salomd
abused her influence over her daughter Berenice, so that
the most secret thoughts of Aristobulus, which in the
confidence of connubial privacy he communicated to his
wife, were by her betrayed to his bitterest enemies ; and
the sons of Mariamne were accused of implacable hatred
of their father as the murderer of their mother, and of a
conspiracy to hasten his death and to seize upon his crown.
Herod, by nature and a long course of crime, was prone
to be suspicious. The long illness that afflicted him after
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 339
the death of Mariamne had not only affected his mind, but
had left behind the germs of a slow, but incurable disease,
which, continually threatening his days, rendered his dispo-
sition gloomy, and liable to violent irritation at the least
excitement. When he was informed that his sons had de-
^clared that, as soon as he was dead, they would sweep all
the " Idumeans" out of the palace, that they would compel
Salome to spin for her living, and reduce Herod's sons, by
other wives, to the condition of village scribes, his indigna-
tion was aroused. (Joseph. Bell Judaic, lib. i. cap. 24.)
When he was reminded of the popular affection for the late
dynasty, and that the people called the sons of Mariamne
the Asmonean princes, he became alarmed for his own
safety. Salome was at hand to take advantage of his irri-
tation and fears, and she soon induced him to adopt mea-
sures hostile to the objects of his fear, and of her hatred.
Before his marriage with Mariamne, Herod had espoused
a young woman of humbler birth, named Doris or Do-
sithea, by whom he had a son, Antipater. This wife of
his young affections Herod had divorced previous to his
royal espousal of Mariamne, and Doris, with her son, had
lived in great retirement. After the execution of his
queen he had, as we have already related, married a second
Mariamne, by whom he had a son named like himself.
This second Mariamne did not long preserve an undivided
ascendancy over his affections, and availing himself largely
of the privilege of polygamy, he married seven more wives,
by whom he had a numerous family of sons and daughters.
But as all these were yet in their childhood, Salome pre-
vailed on Herod to recall Doris and her son Antipater.
This young man was worthy of the name he bore — supple,
selfish, astute like his paternal grandfather, not his equal in
point of talent or courage, though to the full as unscrupu-
lous and destitute of good principles. In him Salom^ ob-
tained a powerful ally, who made it his chief study to in-
S40 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
gratiate himself with his father and indirectly to ruin his
brothers, though he himself took care never to speak a
word against them. Herod, as if to atone for the neglect
with which he had so long treated his eldest son, now began
to overwhelm him with favours and marks of distinction.
He sent him to Rome to be presented to Augustus by
Agrippa, and caused him everywhere to be spoken of as
his successor. This conduct of Herod's had the effect on
the sons of Mariamne which Salome intended it to produce.
The expressions of their resentment became more impru-
dent, their complaints more loud, and in their behaviour to
their father they showed but little affection or tenderness.
And as Antipater also — fearful lest, during his absence in
Rome, they should supplant him and regain the favour of
their father — in his letters and by means of his agents in
Jerusa,lem, brought heavy charges against them, Herod at
length became so exasperated that he directed his two sons,
Alexander and Aristobulus, to accompany him to Rome,
that their conduct might be investigated by Augustus him-
self. (13 B. c. E.)
The king of Judea and his sons found the emperor at
Aquileia, and on being admitted to an audience, Herod ve-
hemently accused his sons as parricides in intention and
guilty of high treason. His language was so strong and
pathetic as greatly to move all persons present, and to draw
from his sons a flood of tears. When he had exhausted
his list of grievances, Alexander began to plead his own
and his brother's cause with such becoming modesty and
such truthful simplicity, as convinced the emperor and his
council of the innocence of the two princes. Augustus,
taking upon himself the office of peace-maker, gently re-
proached Herod for his too rash belief in the criminality
of his sons, and exhorted the young men to honour their
father and love their brothers and sisters, to which they
replied with tears and protestations of duty and affection.
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 341
Herod at length was prevailed upon to embrace his sons,
and he returned with them to Jerusalem, to all appearance
perfectly reconciled.
But Herod was too jealous, the young princess too in-
discreet, Salome and Antipater too cunning and too inde-
fatigable, to permit this peace long to continue. As
Herod could not bring himself to repose full confidence in
any one of his elder sons, he devised a plan of succession
by which he intended the son of Doris and the sons of
Mariamne to be mutual checks upon each other. With
the consent of Augustus, Herod declared, in an assembly
of the people, that he designed his three eldest sons to suc-
ceed him in the order of their birth : — first, Antipater,
then Alexander, and lastly Aristobulus. But this was an
arrangement which satisfied no one. Antipater was dis-
contented at having a barren sceptre placed in his hand,
no son of his succeeding. The sons of Mariamne, born in
the purple, were indignant that they, the ofispring of a
royal mother, should, even for a time, be set aside for the
child of a low-born plebeian. The mass of the people pre-
ferred the sons of Mariamne as the sole surviving re-
presentatives of a venerated royal and sacerdotal line ;
and the two princes insensibly came to be regarded as the
heads of the Asmonean party, which, notwithstanding all
Herod's proscriptions, was still sufficiently powerful in
the country to be an object of dread to him and to all who
derived their claims to royalty solely from him. (11 b. c. e.)
While thus suspicion and wild intrigue were busy to
make the most of the materials furnished by youthful in-
discretion, Herod's great work at Cesarea was completed.
Here he had made the safest and most convenient port to
be found on all the coast of Phoenicia and Palestine, by
running out a vast semicircular mole, or breakwater, of
great depth and extent, into the sea, so as to form a spa-
cious and secure harbour against the stormy winds from
29*
S42 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
the south and west. This great enterprise, "which gives us
some idea of the largeness of Herod's views, he inaugurated,
■when finished, with the utmost pomp and splendour, and
appointed games to be performed in it with great solem-
nity every fifth year. The Empress Livia, the wife of
Augustus — whom -Josephus always calls Julia — was so
pleased with Herod's liberality and devotion to her dy-
nasty, that she contributed five hundred talents (half a
million of dollars) out of her own coffers to maintain the
splendour of these sports. And Augustus himself — who
was not displeased at tributary kings spending their wealth
in deifying the Caesars — was heard to remark, " that Herod's
soul was too great for his kingdom, and that he deserved
to be king of all Syria and even of Egypt."
These words were repeated to Herod, and became a
fresh stimulus to his ambition. Augustus had already be-
stowed upon him territories far more extensive than those
which had been under the sway of the Asmonean kings of
Judea ; the emperor had made him a present of half the
revenue of the rich mines in the isle of Cyprus, and had
appointed him overseer of the other half; moreover, Au-
gustus had nominated him procurator of Syria, without
whose consent nothing of importance was to be undertaken
in that province. And if Augustus deemed him worthy
of such an extension of confidence and power, who could
prevent the son of Antipater from being seated on the
throne of the Selucidse? All that was needful was to con-
firm Augustus in his favourable intentions ; and to attain
this great object Herod spared no expense. To obtain the
good word of Romans, Greeks, and Syro-Grecks, Herod
exhausted the wealth of Judea. When in Jerusalem he
raised a strong and splendid fortified palace — on the site
of the original fortress of Jehus, and of the once formi-
dable heathen castle of Acra — in the Grecian style of ar-
chitecture, he called the two most sumptuous apartments
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 343
in it Cesareum in honour of Augustus, and Agrippeura in
honour of Agrippa, the emperor's favourite and son-in-law.
His liberality out of Judea Avas boundless. xA-t his ex-
pense the cities of Ptolemais, of Damascus, and of Tripolis,
each obtained a costly gymnasium for the training of their
youth ; Berytus and Tyre, each a forum, a temple and vast
granaries ; Ascalon, public baths and porticos ; Sidon, a
theatre ; and Laodicea, an aqueduct. He caused ramparts
to be erected at Byblos, and the great public square of
Antioch to be paved with marble and to be enclosed within
porticos, where the people could walk sheltered against sun
and rain. His largess enabled the Rhodians to repair
their temple of Apollo, and to refit their ships ; nay, the
king of Judea went so far as to grant a large sum of money
to keep up the splendour of the Olympian games.
Wherever his unexpected and undeserved bounty raised
its costly monuments, Romans and Greeks, Europeans and
Asiatics, extolled Herod's munificence, and could not com-
prehend how any people should be so unreasonable, so per-
verse, so rude and obstinate, as to treat so excellent a ruler
with a rancour bordering on open rebellion, as the Jews
did Herod. But the awful exactions through which Herod
wrung from the industry of his people the means to gratify
his ambitious generosity — exactions which fully justified
the detestation of his people — were not known out of
Judea.
His rapacity increased with his expenditure, and at
length, after having extorted from the living all that under
any pretence he could wrest from them, he invaded the
sanctuary of the dead. We have already related how, at
a moment of great public distress and danger, Jochanan
Hyrcanus I. had been relieved by a sum of money found
in the tombs of the ancient kings of Judah. Herod de-
termined to try whether he likewise might there meet with
those funds of which he so greatly stood in need. At-
344 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
tended by some trusty followers, Herod secretly at night
visited the tombs. He found neither gold nor silver coin.
A few rich vessels of curious workmanship, which he car-
ried off, only served to whet his appetite, and, goaded on
by his avarice, he ordered the coflQns of the dead monarchs
to be broken open:. Josephus (Antiq. xvi. cap. 7) relates
the legend, that as his followers were about to open the
coffins of David and Solomon, flames of fire suddenly burst
forth and destroyed two of his companions, while Herod
and the others, terror-stricken, saved themselves by flight.
The historian goes on to state that, so disturbed was the
mind of Herod by this supernatural manifestation, in order
to make some atonement for his sacrilege, he caused a pillar
of white marble to be erected near the entrance of the
Sepulchre, which the people, however, justly regarded more
as a monument of, than as an expiation for, his guilt.
In the midst of all these schemes of ambition and of
avarice, the war of intrigue which Salome, Pheroras, and
Antipater waged against the sons of Mariamne, was un-
ceasingly carried on. At one time their machinations
were so thoroughly exposed, that Herod banished his brother
and sister from his court ; and he himself undertook his
last journey to Rome, to recall, in person, the many and
grievous complaints he had there preferred against the sons
of Mariamne. But all these groundless criminations and
sudden reconciliations between father and sons injured
Herod in the good opinion of the calm and even-tempered
Augustus. And when, on his return from Rome, Herod
had found it necessary, in order to suppress the inroads
of Trachonitish robbers, to obtain redress sword in hand
and to invade Arabia, the emperor felt so offended that,
notwithstanding Herod had acted with the consent of the
prefects of Syria, Augustus wrote to rebuke him with
great asperity, telling him " that he had hitherto treated
him as a friend, but that henceforth he should treat him
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 345
as a subject." Herod sent two embassies to explain mat-
ters ; but Augustus refused to see either of them, and for
a time Herod was forced to submit to all the ill effects of
the emperor's disfavour.
The mind of Herod was greatly agitated by the loss of
this friendship of nearly thirty years' standing, and which
involved the ruin of all those ambitious schemes and hopes
that had caused him such vast expense, and the sole foun-
dation of which had been the favour and good opinion of
Augustus. The king of Judea, ever prone to suspicion,
and rendered doubly gloomy and mistrustful by his malady,
which again was the more strongly excited by the danger-
ous position of his affairs, became a greater object of ter-
ror to his people and his court than he had ever been be-
fore. His frame of mind was taken advantage of by Sa-
lome, who had contrived again to make her peace with
Herod, and who now, backed by Antipater, charged the
sons of Mariamne with conspiring to poison their father.
Herod at once caused them to be thrown into prison,
whence Alexander, exasperated at being continually ex-
posed to the groundless suspicions and anger of his father,
wrote to the king to confess that the accusation was true,
that he himself was guilty, but that Salome, Pheroras, and
several of the king's confidential friends, were his accom-
plices. The ferocious Herod raged like a tiger unchained,
and several of the tools of his tyranny became his victims,
though he hesitated to lay hands on his brother and sister.
In the interim his third embassy to Rome had, by the
dexterous management of his friend and historian Nicholas
Damascenus, restored Herod to the good graces of Augus-
tus, and obtained the emperor's permission to have the
sons of Mariamne tried by a high court, assembled at
Berytus, composed of Roman officers and other dignitaries
of the East. Herod would not allow the two unfortunate
princes to appear or to offer any defence ; while he himself
346 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
accused tlicm vclicmently of the most heinous crimes.
As the commissioners could not believe it possible that a
father would lightly or falsely accuse his own sons, the
two princes were declared guilty of high treason and sen-
tenced to death ; but the execution of the sentence was
left to Herod's discretion. Salome, however, had known,
once before and under similar circumstances, how to goad
Herod on to destroy the idol of his heart, Mariamne ; and
intrigues not altogether dissimilar, and which cost the lives
of several leading men of Judea, induced the unfortunate
king to have the sons of Mariamne privately put to death.
(b.c.e.6.)
As in the case of Mariamne, when too late, Herod bit-
terly repented of his cruelty ; and as each of his unfortu-
nate sons had left sons, he caused them to be carefully edu-
cated, and expressed his solicitude to have them prosper-
ously settled in life. But Antipater, who had shrunk at no
crime to remove the hated offspring of Mariamne, was de-
termined that Herod should not raise his grandchildren
into rival claimants of the throne ; and as the old king
lived too long for his impatience, he conspired with Phe-
roras to remove Herod by poison. In order not to be sus-
pected, Antipater contrived to have himself sent to Rome
to attend on Augustus, while Pheroras left Jerusalem on
some pretence of offence taken, and swore never to return
while Herod lived. Thus these two crafty principals took
care to screen themselves, while their tools were at work
for them. But as Salome remained true to Herod, the
death of Pheroras disconcerted their schemes, and eventu-
ally led to the discovery of the entire plot, proving the
guilt of Antipater, and of the innocence of Herod's two
unfortunate sons — the victims of false accusations.
This discovery deprived Herod of any feeling of humanity
that yet might have dwelt in his breast. His wife, the se-
cond Mariamne, having been involved in the charge against
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 347
Antipater, though nothing was proved against her, was
banished, her son Herod disinherited, and her father de-
posed from the high-priesthood. Doris was stripped of all
her ornaments, and compelled to quit the court. Anti-
pater was recalled from Rome, and no sooner arrived at
Jerusalem than arrested, tried and convicted, before Q.
Varus, the Roman governor of Syria, whom Herod had re-
quested to preside as judge. His execution was only de-
layed until Augustus should confirm the sentence.
It is during this period, and immediately preceding An-
tipater's return from Rome, that the events related in the
first two chapters of Matthew are placed by biblical his-
torians. We are well aware of the fact that the authen-
ticity of those two chapters has been denied, not by Jews
only, but by Christians. (Vide Priestly's Early Opinions,
&c., vol. i. to iv.) Macrobius, a Avriter of the fifth century,
related the massacre of infants, ordered by Herod at Beth-
lehem, with the addition that Herod himself had a son there
at nurse, who was slaughtered among the rest ; and that upon
this occasion, Augustus remarked, "that it was better to
be Herod's hog than his son." (Saturn, lib. ii. c. 4.) But
it seems probable that this bitter witticism of the emperor's,
if ever it was uttered at all, applied to the fate of Anti-
pater and of his two brothers, the sons of Mariamne. For
at the age of seventy, worn out with disease, furious pas-
sions, and corroding cares, it is not probable that Herod
was the father of an infant under two years old. Josephus
— who is by no means sparing of details when any of He-
rod's enormities are to be related — says nothing at all
about this afi"air at Bethlehem. We do not feel ourselves
called upon to decide between the narrative of the Evange-
list and the silence of the historian. Were any other man
or monarch in question, the massacre of the innocents
would appear perfectly incredible ; but Herod's whole life
was nothing else but a massacre of innocents, and he who
Si8 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
did not spare his own sons was not likely to show much
mercy for the children of others.
The malady to which Herod so long had been a victim,
now in his sixty-ninth year, broke out with such malevolent
virulence, that while no hopes were left of his recovery,
Josephus does not 'hesitate to designate the foul incurable
diseases that tormented the king of Judea, "a judicial
dispensation of Providence."^^ When the news of his hope-
less condition spread among the people, two Pharisee teach-
ers, of considerable eminence, instigated their pupils to pull
down and destroy a golden eagle of large size and exqui-
site workmanship, which Herod, on becoming reconciled to
Augustus, had placed over one of the gates of the temple.
The tumult, thus excited, was soon suppressed, and the two
teachers, with some forty of their disciples, were seized,
and carried prisoners to Jericho, where Herod at that time
had taken up his abode, and where — under pretence that
the eagle had been dedicated to the Lord, and that, conse-
quently, the prisoners who had destroyed it had been
guilty of sacrilege — he ordered them to be burnt alive. At
the same time he caused the heads of all the leading fami-
lies in Judea to be thrown into prison.
The arrival of a courier from Rome brought Herod the
expected authorization to proceed to extremities against
Antipater. Herod, however, Avas just then so awfully tor-
tured by his disease, that he attempted to commit suicide.
This he was prevented from doing ; but the attempt had
caused such affliction among his young children, that nothing
'S His disease, as cruel as it is rare, w«is the phtiriasis, which also caused
the death of Sylla, the dictator, and Philip II. King of Spain, tyrants
like Herod, steeped in human blood like him, and victims like him, of a
malady in which the whole human body becomes covered with sores that
belcli forth countless swarms of the most loathsome vermin, until the suf-
ferer is literally eaten up alive by the tormenting insect, (the pediculus.)
See " Maladies de la peau par Alibert, 1806 "
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 349
but weeping and lamentation was heard throughout the pa-
lace. Antipater in his prison heard the wailing sounds,
knew what they meant, and offered his guard a large bribe
to permit him to escape. But so universally detested was
he as the destroyer of his brothers, that the guard not only
disdainfully rejected his offer, but caused it to be reported
to Herod, with the addition that the tidings of his father's
death had filled Antipater with extravagant joy. When
the old tyrant heard this he was seized with such uncon-
trollable rage that he sent one of his body-guards to the
prison, with orders to put Antipater to death, which was
instantly done.
Five days after the execution of his eldest son, Herod
was summoned before the dread tribunal of the Supreme
Judge. His last act was in keeping with his whole life.
Summoning his sister Salome and her husband Alexis to
bis bedside, he made them swear most solemnly that they
would obey his last dying command. He then told them
that he knew the Jews would rejoice at his death, but he
was determined that they should mourn ; that for this pur-
pose he had thrown all the leading men of Judea into pri-
son ; and his last command was that the instant he Avas
dead, Salome should cause all these prisoners to be slaugh-
tered; "and then," said he, "the mourning through the
land will be general."
With this diabolical injunction Herod breathed his last,
in the seventieth year of his age, after a reign of thirty-
seven years, during which, as a monarch, he had been in-
variably successful, while in all the relations of private life
he had — and that by his own fault — been the most miserable
of men. His contemporaries called him "the great," and
posterity has not deprived iim of the distinction. For if
success, daring, ability, and munificence, constitute a right
to be called "great," then Herod is fully entitled to the
designation; but if cruelty, avarice, lust, duplicity, and mis-
VoL. II. 30
350 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OP THE JEWS.
trust, all in tlie highest degree and combined together, ren-
der a man infamous, then few men that ever lived were
more truly infamous than Herod.
By his final will Herod divided between three of his
sons the territories under his sway. The principal portion,
consisting of Judca, Samaria, and Idumea, producing an
annual revenue of six hundred talents, (about six hundred
thousand dollars,) with the title of king, he bequeathed to
Archelaus, the eldest of his sons surviving and not disin-
herited. Antipas, he appointed Tetrarch of Galilee and
Perea, yielding two hundred talents (two hundred thousand
dollars) of annual income; and to Philip, with a similar
title, he bequeathed the districts of Trachonitis, Gaulonitis,
Batanea, and Paneas, producing one hundred talents an-
nually, (one hundred thousand dollars.) To his sister Sa-
lome he left a large sum in money and the three cities of
Jamnia, Azotus, and Phasaelis. To each of his other rela-
tions considerable legacies. To Augustus and his wife
Livia large sums of money were bequeathed, and, as a last
act of homage to the emperor, Herod sent him his seal-
ring, which he had used to authenticate his public acts,
and closed his will with the proviso that his testamentary
dispositions should be of no force or validity until confirmed
by Augustus. **
His last command to Salome that princess had neither
the courage nor the cruelty to carry out ; on the contrary,
as soon as Herod was dead, but before his demise was
made public, she ordered the doors of the Hippodrome —
where his intended victims were confined — to be thrown
open, and informed the captives that the king commanded
each of them immediately to return home, as he had no
further occasion for their presence — a command which they
at once gladly hastened to obey. The death of the king
and his last will were then made public ; and as the empe-
ror's confirmation was tak.en for granted, Archelaus was
THE ROMANS IX JUDEA. 351
then and there hailed as king. The funeral of Herod was
then performed with great splendour, and his remains de-
posited at his favourite castle of Serodion^ as he had
directed.
Herod's motive for dividing his territories — an act with-
out precedent either under the ancient kings of Judah or
the Asmoneans — was the fear, which subsequent events
proved to be well founded, that Augustus would not permit
lands so considerable and wealthy to remain united in one
hand, and might be tempted to seize upon the whole. The
emperor, however, who had always professed to be the
friend of Herod, after some delay, confirmed his testament-
ary dispositions, with the single exception that he refused
to accept the legacy of fifteen hundred talents which He-
rod had left him, but which he distributed among the heirs ;
nor would he grant any higher title than that of ethnarch,
or prince, to Archelaus, until he should show himself worthy
to be a king. This he never did ; but the Jews, who had
acknowledged him as king, and who were accustomed so
to style their rulers, continued to give him the regal title.
After the funeral of his father, Archelaus returned to
Jerusalem, and, having completed the customary seven days
of close mourning, he began his reign by giving the people
a magnificent banquet. He then, arrayed in white gar-
ments, went to the temple, and taking his seat on his fa-
ther's throne, in a prepared oration, thanked them for
their zeal and promised them that his chief study should
be to render his reign more easy and happy than his fa-
ther's had been. To confirm his promise he granted what-
ever petitions in that propitious hour were presented to
him. But the hatred which the Jews had so long nursed
and pent up against Herod was not to be overcome by a
few smooth words or gracious acts of his son.
Scarcely had the cheers ceased with which his promises
were received, when a procession in mourning advanced to
352 POST-BIBLICAL HISTOEY OF THE JEWS.
demand that justice should be done to the families of those
pious men -^vho had been put to a cruel death for destroy-
ing the golden eagle. Archelaus sent one of his principal
oflBcers to order the procession to disperse. The command
was answered by a volley of stones. The new king was
loth to stain the first days of his reign with bloodshed, and
sent repeated messengers to remonstrate with the rioters,
but in vain. In the meantime the festival of Passover
brought the rural population in vast numbers to Jerusalem,
many of whom joined in the clamorous cries for justice
raised by the original malcontents ; and the tumult became
so threatening that Archelaus was induced to send some of
his guards to disperse the mob, which, however, stood at
bay, attacked and killed most of the soldiers, while the offi-
cer in command was dangerously wounded, and, together
with the other survivors of the onslaught, had the utmost
difficulty to escape with life. This popular outbreak, and
open defiance of the king and his authority, called for in-
stant suppression, and Archelaus promptly sent the royal
guard and all his mercenaries aganist the rioters. After
an obstinate conflict between the populace and the soldiery,
the latter prevailed, and the tumult was put down ; but
three thousand of the people had been killed, and Arche-
laus, by proclamation, compelled all non-residents to quit
Jerusalem without delay, so that the Paschal solemnities
for that year were abruptly closed.
After these rigid measures, Archelaus departed for
Rome, where the entire family of Herod — to whom the last
will of that monarch was become the apple of discord-^
was assembled, and the preference given to Archelaus was
strongly contested by Herod's son Antipas. But there
also appeared a deputation from the leading pontifical and
senatorial families of Judea, who sought to take advantage
of the disputes that divided the Herodian family to get rid
of this detested dynasty, and to obtain the incorporation
THE EOMANS IN JUDEA. 353
of Judea with the Roman empire. Their application was,
for the present, rejected. Herod's will was confirmed, and
Archelaus — though only as ethnarch — returned to Jerusa-
lem and resumed the government. During his absence
Judea had been in a continual state of confusion and blood-
shed, caused partly by the rapacity of Sabinus, the Roman
intendant of Syria, which provoked a fearful outburst of
popular indignation at Jerusalem- — and partly by the ge-
neral detestation in which Herod and all his family were
held by the people, and which, in the absence at Rome of
all the members of that family, led to desperate attempts
to throw off their yoke.
Several pretenders to royalty started up in different
parts of the country, and found supporters. Among these,
the most considerable was Judah, the son of Hezekiah, the
chief whose execution, without trial or condemnation, had
been one of the first acts of Herod's public life. This Ju-
dah— supposed to be the Theudas mentioned in Acts v. 36
— seized on some of the royal arsenals, and, having fully
"S/rmed his adherents, carried on a regular war against the
royalists and the Romans. Tacitus (Histor., lib. v. § 9)
mentions one Simon, an ex-officer of the late king, who as-
sumed the royal dignity in Jericho ; and Josephus speaks
of a shepherd, Athronges, whose claims to royalty were
founded on his gigantic size and strength, and who inflicted
great loss on the Romans. He also speaks of two thou-
sand veterans who had served under Herod, but were dis-
charged by Archelaus, and who now lent powerful assistance
to the insurgents in the south of Judea. (Antiq., lib. xvii.
c. 10.)
Varus, at that time Roman governor of Syria — the same
who subsequently was defeated by Hermann or Arminius
in the forests of Germany, a defeat which secured the inde-
pendence of the warlike Germans, and wrung from the
grief-stricken Augustus the exclamation: "Varus, give me
30*
854 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OP THE JEWS.
back my legions" — was compelled to hasten to Judea, to
rescue Sabinus, who was besieged by a mob in the palace
of the Asmoneans, in Jerusalem, and to encounter in the
field the mushroom aspirants to royalty, whom, one after
the other, he attacked and overthrew. This it was easy
for him to do, since the leaders and their bands of follow-
ers remained isolated, and even at enmity, so that Varus,
who might have been destroyed had their forces united,
remained much superior to each of them singly.
On his return to Jerusalem, Archelaus attempted to go-
vern on the same system as his father. The same heavy
amount of taxation ground down the people ; the same yoke
of despotism crushed the higher classes; the same irrespon-
sible tyranny shed the blood of every one who gave um-
brage to the king. Archelaus even went so far as to
marry Glaphyra, the widow of his brother Alexander III.,
the murdered son of the murdered Asmonean Mariamne.
This marriage was one with a deceased brother's wife,
within the forbidden degrees of consanguinity, and only
permitted where the deceased had left no children. But
as Alexander had left two sons, the marriage of his widow
with his brother. King Archelaus, was detested by the
people as a heinous sin against the law of God, and a
grievous insult to the memory of the dead.
In their detestation of the king, and their strong at-
tachment to the Asmonean princes, the people — to whose
recollection this action on the part of Archelaus had served
Strongly to recall their former favourites, the sons of Ma-
riamne— with surprise and joy began to listen to a rumour
which spread abroad that these beloved princes were not
dead : that the unnatural cruelty of their father had been
foiled by those to whom he had intrusted the execution of
their sentence ; that during the reign of Herod the two
princes had remained concealed in a safe and impenetrable
retreat, but that they were now about to emerge, to ap-
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 355
pear, and to reclaim their rights. Some even asserted
that they had seen and spoken to Prince Alexander ; and
this, at least to the best of their knowledge, and as they be-
lieved, was no fiction.
A Jew, native of or educated in Sidon, bore so striking
a resemblance, in features, person, voice, and carriage, to
that unfortunate prince, as to deceive even his most inti-
mate friends. A servant of Herod, perfectly initiated in
all the secrets and intrigues of the latter half of his reign,
thought that by means of this resemblance he himself
might rise to importance and wealth ; and finding the Si-
donian apt at instruction, he supplied him with every ne-
cessary information, and so indoctrinated him that he was
able to personate Alexander, with but little risk of detec-
tion. The whole circumstance strongly reminds one of
the two sons of Edward IV., king of England, murdered
in the Tower of London by their uncle, crookbacked
Richard III., of the rumour of their escape, of the impostors
who tried to personate them, and particularly of Perkin
"Warbeck, who was trained by the Duchess Dowager of
Burgundy — a sister of Edward IV. — to personate the
younger son, the Duke of York.
The pseudo-Alexander and his confident, not deeming
themselves safe in the East, visited the isles of Greece,
where the resident Jews received them with respectful af-
fection and supplied them with considerable sums of money.
Encouraged by this success, they even ventured to repair
to Rome, where not only the Jews of that city, but num-
bers of Romans who had been intimate with the young
princes during their sojourn in that metropolis, readily
recognised the impostor as Alexander, and marvelled, even
while they rejoiced, at his preservation. Augustus — who
had known Herod too well to suppose that he would allow
himself to be deceived in a matter of such vast importance
as the death of his two sons — all along suspected an impo-
356 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
sition, and commissioned one of his attendants, ■who had
formerly been the companion of the two Judean princes,
to detect the impostor. But this officer — named Celarus —
"Was as easily imposed on as all others ; and having re-
ported accordingly to the emperor, Avas ordered to bring
the pretender into his presence.
The keen observation of Augustus, sharpened by suspi-
cion, and stimulated by the ambition of detecting a decep-
tion impervious to every other eye, soon noticed that the
hands of this new Alexander were not such as beseemed a
prince so daintily reared as the son of Herod. They were
coarse, and exhibited callosities — the proof of many years,
hard labour — which no process of the toilet could remove.
Still further to convince himself, Augustus entered into
familiar conversation with his guest, asking him what was
become of his brother, and why Aristobulus did not ac-
company him ? The ready reply was that Aristobulus had
remained at Cyprus to await the issue of this journey, so
that if the one brother met any mishap the other might
still survive to preserve the name and race of Asmoneans.
In the course of this conversation, however, the emperor
soon detected in the pretender a want of that purity of
language and elegance of manners which characterized
Prince Alexander, and were to be expected from a youth
of intelligence, who, in the days of Virgil and Horace, had
been educated under the care of Augustus. Unwilling to
waste more time on so worthless an object, the. emperor
now took the young man aside, taxed him with his imposi-
tion, and, partly by threats, partly by the promise of
sparing his life, succeeded in obtaining from him an ample
confession. The tutor, who had been the first to plan the
personation, was hanged, and the wretched impostor him-
self was sent to prison and hard labour for life. Those
dupes who had backed the pretensions of the imposture by
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 357
advances of money, the emperor considered as sufficiently
punished by their loss and disappointment.
But though Augustus had thus lent his assistance to se-
cure Archelaus against a vagabond pretender, he could
not, or rather he would not, any longer uphold the ruler
of Judea against the complaints of his own people, for
these complaints were both just and incessant. Herod
had governed on a system very different from that of Au-
gustus ; for while the emperor, the father of his country,
made it his chief care to blot the proscriptions of the tri-
umvir from the memory of men, Herod began his reign
with bloodshed, carried it on ferociously, and could scarcely
be prevented by death from closing it with atrocity. But
so long as he lived, Herod, by his energy and talents, was
equal to the maintaining of that system of terror on which
he leaned for support. Accordingly, the people respected
even while they hated him ; they acknowledged his abilities
and dreaded his influence, even while they abhorred his
person and detested his sway.
In the case of Archelaus, however, the violent indigna-
tion of the people was tempered or neutralized by no feel-
ings of respect or even of fear. For though Archelaus
dared to set public opinion at defiance at Jerusalem, he
trembled at the displeasure of any Boman official — and the
people knew it. Herod had been hated ; Archelaus was
both hated and despised. The leading families in the me-
tropolis, who, from their prominence and proximity, were
the most exposed to witness as well as to suffer from, the
weakness and vices of their ruler, were unwearied in their
efforts to get rid of a useless and most expensive pageant
of royalty, that possessed not the slightest shadow of inde-
pendence either at home or abroad. In Borne it licked
the dust before the throne of Caesar ; in Jerusalem it was
the obsequious slave of every emissary or delegate of Au-
gustus. The vast expense of the court and establishment,
858 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
together "with the pay of the numerous mercenaries, im-
poverished Judca for the maintenance of an authority the
people detested, and which, all-powerful through the sup-
port of the foreigner against its OAvn people, was all-pow-
erless to protect that people against the insolence and ra-
pacity of foreign extortion. Accordingly the petitions of
the Judeans that they might he freed from the tyranny of
Archelaus, and governed by the paternal power of Augus-
tus himself, were numerous and continuous ; and at length
they were granted.
Archelaus was summoned to Rome to defend himself;
and so little had he expected to be interfered with, that
the messenger of Augustus found him absorbed in the
pleasures of a great banquet. The complaints against him
were investigated, probably with the predetermination to
find him guilty. He was convicted of misgovernment, his
sovereignty was declared forfeited, his property confiscated,
and his person banished to Vienne, in modern France,
whence he never returned. Judea was incorporated into
the Roman province of Syria ; but as this had been done
at the request of the Judeans and in order to improve their
condition, the imperial decree of annexation secured to
the Judeans the right of being governed within their own
land by their own laws. What Rome considered as most
important in the countries subject to her sway, was the
exclusive possession of all military force, and the absolute
disposal of the public property and revenue. So long as
its sovereignty in these, its two principal features, remained
undisputed, that is to say, so long as Rome could at its
pleasure extort the last dollar and the last able-bodied man
from every country dependent on her, the minor points
(for so the emperors generally considered them) of religion,
manners, laws, prejudices, and internal government, were
treated with much indulgence, though the tyranny of na-
tion over nation continued in full force. Not only every
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 359
Roman official, but every Roman, however low his degree
and abject his position, looked upon himself and exacted
the acknowledgment that he was, intrinsically and in-
alienably, superior to the most eminent provincial, whose
property was only held in trust to satisfy the exactions
and exigencies of his Roman dominators.
3G0 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
- CHAPTER XVI.
Judea a Eoman province governed by a procurator — State of parties
and sects — The association of Zealots: their principles — The four
first procurators : traffic with the high-priestly office — Pontius Pilate :
his oppressive administration — Christianity — Condition of the Jews in
Rome— Pilate disgraced — Caligula emperor : orders his statue to be
worshipped in the temple of Jerusalem : the Jews refuse to obey —
Herod Agrippa : his singular changes of fortune ; his high favour
with Caligula : his visit to Alexandria — Riots and massacre of Jews
throughout Egypt — Philo the Jew : his mission to Caligula — Death of
the Emperor — H. Agrippa active in raising Claudius to the imperial
throne — The kingdom of Judea re-established in favour of Agrippa :
his short reign and death : Judea agaia a Roman province — The
seven last procurators : their rapacity — Claudius succeeded by Nero —
Famine in Judea — Conversion to Judaism of Isates King of Adiebene
and his family — Disturbances in Judea : brutality of the Roman soldiery :
exasperation of the people : iniiuence of the Zealots : the Sicaeei —
War with the Partliians — Jews disfranchied at Cesarea: riots in Je-
rusalem provoked by Gessius Florus, the last procui'ator: the people
overpower and slaughter the Roman garrison — Cestius GaUus and the
Romans repulsed with great loss : retreat from Judea — General rising
of the Judeans: War op Independence — Ananus president of the
general council — Josephus governor of Galilee — Flavins Vespasian and
his son Titus invade Galilee : siege and captirreof Jotapatha — Josephus
submits to the Romans — Their successful campaign and atrocities in
Galilee — Civil war in Jerusalem ; triumph of the Zealots — Civil war in
Rome : rapid succession of emperors ; election and final triumph of
Vespasian — His son Titus lays siege to Jerusalem : obstinate defence :
destruction of the temple and city — Total conquest and devastation of
Judea : wretched condition of the Jewish people. — From the year 6 till
70 c. E.
The artful system under which Augustus governed, and
which consisted in disguising or concealing his imperial
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 361
despotism by upholding the forms of the Roman republic,
left to the senate a semblance of its former authority and
influence, without any real power. In accordance with this
system, all the provinces of the empire were divided into
imperial, governed by Augustus directly, and senatorial,
governed by the senate under the supreme authority of
the emperor. All the frontier provinces, which required
military protection, were imperial. Syria was a frontier
province ; and as Judea was incorporated Vfith. Syria, it
became burdened with all the grievous weight of military
exactions, free quarters, and a licentious soldiery. The
internal administration was left in the hands of the great
Sanhedrin, at whose side stood a Roman officer by the
title of procurator, whose duty it was to watch over the
internal peace of the province, to collect the taxes, and
who, under the control of the pro-consul of Syria, was to
represent the supremacy of Rome.
In the imperial provinces, the pro-consul was the imme-
diate representative of Augustus, and his powers were not
unlike those of a Turkish pacha, in the most despotic
times. Though he administered justice and was chief of
the civil government, the spirit of his office and functions
was essentially military, and he acknowledged no superior
but the emperor. The powers of the procurator were far
more limited, as in reality he was nothing more than a
treasury-agent. But the besetting sin of the Roman sys-
tem of provincial administration was that the native popu-
lation of conquered provinces never ceased to remain ob-
jects of distrust to Rome ; and this circumstance enabled
any Roman official, however limited his lawful powers
might be, to become de facto an unrestricted dictator. The
slightest apprehension of public disturbance, the merest
pretext of resistance to the collection of taxes, which any
provincial procurator chose to feign or to create, authorized
him to employ an armed force ; and when once the soldiers
Vol. II. ?A
£62 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JETTS.
were let loose, their commander became the unrestrained
master of the lives and property of the unfortunate pro-
vincials. Hence it became the private and personal in-
terest of evei'y commander that the province in which he
bore sway should be not at peace, but disturbed, so as to
entitle him to wield the discretionary power of the sword,
in order to enrich himself and his followers. The only
check to his rapacity arose from the personal character of
the emperor, or from the dread of rivals, who, by denounc-
ing his malversations at Rome, might supplant him in his
oflSce.
Thirteen such procurators administered the affairs of
Judea during the sixty years that intervened between the
period of her becoming a Roman province and the war of
independence : and the career of these oflScials proves to
what degree they were influenced by the character and
conduct of the sovereigns they represented. Unfortunately
for mankind and for Judea, these sovereigns were Tiberius,
Caligula, Claudius, Nero — tyrants, madmen, fools, mon-
sters, the most detestable the world had ever seen.
We have already stated that the internal administration,
according to the old laws, was left in the hands of the San-
hedrin, so that something like a shadow of nationality was
still permitted to exist. Its attendant was, unfortunately,
the spirit of sectarianism, which had already been so fatal
to Judea. During the reign of Herod, the Sadducees —
identified with the house of Aristobulus II. and the last
Asmonean — were oppressed and persecuted. With the
fall of the Herod dynasty the Sadducees revived ; indeed,
it was chiefly owing to their incessant denunciations
and complaints that Archelaus had been deprived of his
kingdom.
The Pharisees, whose tenets Herod had professed to
favour, had never been able to reconcile themselves to that
Idumean, half-heathen usurper, with whom they had come
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 363
in collision on more occasions than one.^" And though
their antipathy to the Sadducces and their tenets remained
as strong as ever, yet their hatred of the Herodians over-
came their dislike of the Sadducees, with whom they joined
hand and heart in getting rid of Archelaus. For the
leaders of both parties, the chiefs of those great senatorial
and sacerdotal families, to whom Augustus confided the
internal administration, felt that, under the new arrange-
ment, they would possess and enjoy a far greater degree
of security and power than had fallen to their share under
the Asmonean or Herodian^" kings ; and indifferent them-
selves to the dreams of patriotism, or to the phantom of
national independence, they fully expected that the people
were equally indifferent. But the very first act of the Ro-
man administration in Judea was sufficient to dispel their
illusion on this subject, and lighted the sparks of popular
discontent, which eventually, fanned by Roman oppression,
'6 Besides the disturbance caused by the destruction of the golden eagle,
and which was the work of Pharisees, Herod, on two occasions, met with
serious opposition from the leaders of that sect. The first was in the
seventeenth year of his reign, (b. c. e. 20,) when, in consequence of the nu-
merous secret conspiracies at work against him, he required the people to
take an oath of fidelity to his person ; an exaction that was so strenuously
resisted by the Pharisees, who, on this occasion, were joined by the Es-
senes, that Herod was forced to renounce his design. The second was to-
ward the end of his reign, (b. c. e. 5,) when Herod issued a decree that
the Judeans should take an oath of fidelity to Augustus and himself.
Seven thousand Pharisee heads of families refused obedience, as the decree
was contrary to the law of Moses. (Deut. xvii. 15.) They were condemned
to pay a heavy fine, which, however, the wife of Herod's brother, Phe-
roras, paid for them.
" This designation which we find several times in the historical books
of the Christian scriptures, (Matthew ii. 16; Mark iii. 6; xii. 13,) does
not designate a religious sect, but a political party, adherents of the Hero-
dian family, and intent to restore the royalty of Judea in that dynasty, but
subject to the supremacy of Rome.
364 POST-BIBLICAL IIISTOnY OF THE JEWS.
exactions, and superciliousness, burst fortli into a flame
that devoured temple, city, and people.
In order to ascertain the exact capabilities of a province,
the amount of its M"ealth and the number of its inhabitants,
the Romans compelled every man to present himself and
all the members of his family, or household, before the
taxing officer, and at the same time to exhibit a minute
and detailed description and account of his property.
Now, the Jews considered the numbering or counting of
the people as unlawful. The memory of the pestilence
that had followed on the census taken in the reign of King
David — and which was declared to have been the punish-
ment of that sinful act — had ever since then always acted
on the fears of the people, who now were ready to rise, as
one man, to resist the numbering. Moreover, the Jews
looked upon the compulsory disclosure of their private
aflftiirs and possessions as the worst badge of slavery, to
which they never would submit. The eloquence and pru-
dence of Joazar, the high-priest, however, assisted by the
influence of the Sanhedrin, succeeded in preventing a
general outbreak.
But the more ardent spirits among the Jews, those who
were most averse to foreign domination and most fervent in
religious enthusiasm, bade defiance to all the efforts of the
pacific conservatives, and determined to fight out the quar-
rel between Judea and Rome. Under the guidance and
direction of Judah of Galilee — whom we have already
spoken of as a pretender to royalty and a son of that
Hezekiah whose murder had been the first-fruit of Herod's
public life — and of Zadock, a learned Pharisee, who pos-
sessed great influence over the minds of the common people,
the malcontents formed a political association, which they
designated as that of "the Zealots." Old Mattathias, the
father of the Maccabees, had used that word when, on his
death-bed, he blessed and exhorted his sons, telling them,
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 365
"Be ye zealots for the law, and sacrifice your lives for it,"
The veneration in which his memory was held gave a de-
gree of authority and even of sanctity to the word which
he had used, and which, identifying his name with that of
the new association, seemed to bestow his sanction on the
purposes and principles of those who proclaimed themselves
ready to carry out his dying injunction.
The members of the association were bound together by
a fearful oath, and pledged themselves : — 1. To acknowledge
God as the sole king of the Jews and sovereign of their
land. 2. Every temporal authority must be rejected, de-
spised, and resisted. 3. All means are lawful that can be
employed to destroy the usurped domination of Rome. 4.
Every member of the association binds himself readily and
cheerfully to lay down his own life, and to sacrifice the
lives of all those who are dependent on him, in order to
recover the liberty of the people, and to re-establish the su-
premacy of the Law of Moses. 5. No peace or truce shall
ever be made with the Romans, or with those unworthy
Jews who uphold the detestable domination of Rome. (Jo-
sephus, Antiq., lib. xviii. cap. 1.)
The first seat of this formidable association was Galilee,
at that time governed by the tetrarch Herod Antipas,
a son of Herod the Great. There, dwelling in caverns
amidst inaccessible rocks, this band of outlaws, too feeble
to wage open war against Rome, sought and found shelter.
Thence, whenever a favourable opportunity ofiered, they
sallied forth to plunder the possessions of Rome, and of the
friends of Rome. Wherever the people felt aggrieved by
Roman rapacity or oppression, the Zealots were ready to
fan the excitement into riot, and to hurry on the furious
multitude to havoc and slaughter. Indifi"erent to the loss
of life, intent solely on keeping alive the spirit of nation-
ality and of hatred to foreign domination, the association
of the Zealots bade defiance to the power of Rome ; and,
31*
866 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
Strong in the popular discontent, it grew with its growth,
until thousands and tens of thousands were bound by the
fearful oath of membership.
The first Roman procurators in Judca, Coponius, Marcus
Ambivius, and Annius Ruffus, restrained by the vigilant
eye of Augustus, governed with prudence and moderation.
Tiberius, the successor of Augustus, though an execrable
tyrant, was a man of ability and experience. However
cruelly the rigour of his despotism afflicted Rome and the
Senate, however astute and ferocious his conduct was to
all whom he saw cause to suspect, he was too wise to per-
mit or to sanction crimes from which he derived no ad-
vantage. The governors he appointed to command in the
provinces knew that they were watched by the open eye
of a severe master, whom no one could deceive ; and until
the rise of his infamous favourite and minister, Sejanus,
the provinces had no particular cause to complain of op-
pression.
Tiberius, according to the testimony of Tacitus, (Annal.,
lib. i. § Ixxx.,) was averse to the frequent change of officers
in the provincial administrations. Suetonius (in Tib :
§ xxxii.) tells us that the emperor Tiberius used to instruct
his lieutenants in the provinces to be like good shepherds,
"who shear their sheep, but do not skin them." His mo-
tive for not frequently changing his officers is preserved by
Josephus, who relates that Tiberius used to compare the
provinces administered by Roman governors to a, man that
had been wounded and stunned, and on whose bleeding
wound a swarm of flies had settled. " If," said the emperor,
" these flies, who have sucked their fill, be driverf'away from
the prostrate and defenceless body, they will infallibly be
followed by a second swarm equally numerous, but far
more greedy and tormenting, because impelled by hunger."
Accordingly, during the twenty-three years that Tiberius
reigned, not more than two procurators succeeded each
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 307
other in Judea. The first of these, Valerius Gratus, held
office thirteen years, and the greatest eulogium on his ad-
ministration is, that history records no popular outbreak in
Judea while he remained at the head of afi'airs.
Gratus seems, indeed, to have directed his attention
chiefly to the carrying on a lucrative traflSc with the dig-
nity of high-priest, which he bestowed and resumed with-
out cause, and in apparently the most capricious manner,
though in reality his own interest was the guide whom in-
variably he consulted. The precedent established by He-
rod, of conferring the high-priesthood during the king's
pleasure, was likewise acted upon by Archelaus. And as
the Roman procurators succeeded to the executive preroga-
tives of the Herodian kings, they soon discovered that the
discretionary disposal of this high, lucrative, and much
coveted ofiice placed in their hands a means of quietly en-
riching themselves, while, at the same time, they secured
the support and good word of the chief Jewish dignitary
for the time being. This traflic at last grew so shameless
that the Talmud relates how Martha, the daughter of Boe-
thos, gave King Agrippa II. two large measures full of golden
denars., in order to procure the high-priesthood for her be-
trothed, Joshua ben Gamla.^^
These removable high-priests of the last period of the
second temple, the corruption by means of which they ob-
is Martha was a -widow, and as such could not be lawfully espoused by
the high-priest. (Levit. xxi. 14.) In the case of Joshua ben Gamla, how-
ever, his marriage with a widow — the first of the kind ever contracted by
a high-priest — was held to be valid, as he had been betrothed to her pre-
vious to his appointment to the highest sacerdotal dignity. His predeces-
sor in the office, Jeshuang ben Damnai, irritated at being supplanted by
Martha's gold, refused, because of this marriage, to recognise the validity
of Joshua's appointment. The consequence was, that a sort of civil war
was for a time carried on within the streets of Jeriisalem, by the retain-
ers of the rival high-priests supported by hired bullies and ruffians, until
the party of ben Gamla prevailed.
368 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
tained office, the cringing meanness and supple sycophancy
to which they stooped in order to hold it, provoke the ut-
most indignation of the Talmud, which preserves several
interesting anecdotes, respecting the eager competition
with which rival candidates outbid each other. In one
sweeping expression of condemnation (Yerushalmi tr. Yo-
mah, fo. 1) the Talmud contrasts these pontiffs of the second
temple with their predecessors in the first, or Solomon's
temple, applying to them respectively the two halves of
Proverbs x. 27 : " The fear of the Lord prolongeth days."
" These are the high-priests of the first temple, where the
son invariably succeeded his father, and eighteen digni-
taries only held office from the consecration to the destruc-
tion of the temple." "But the days of the wicked are
shortened." "These are the high-priests of the second
temple, in number above eighty,^'-* of whom many did not
hold office a whole year, because they bought the dignity
for money."
The high-priestly robes and ornaments were deposited
under locks and bolts in a fire-proof vault of the castle
Antonia, garrisoned by the Romans. And seven days be-
fore each one of the great annual festivals, the procurator
caused these precious insignia of office to be carried to that
pontiff, whom he thereby invested with the dignity of high-
priest. The period immediately preceding the investiture
19 "This number of eighty seems somewhat exaggerated. For, deduction
made of the fourteen pre-Asmonean high-priests, of whom only three were
illegitimate, and of the nine Asmoneans who preserved the succession in
its pui'ity, there will remain fifty-seven for the century from the accession
of Herod to the throne till the destruction of the temple. Nevertheless,
this number given by the Talmud approximates nearer to the truth than
that of twenty-eight given bj' Josephus, who, however, does not enter into
particulars ; and who, notwithstanding the endeavour to be very exact,
leaves many an hiatus that plainly indicates a much greater number of
functionaries than he gives." — Frankel Monatsschrift, December, 1852,
p. 588.
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 369
was one of busy intriguGj in which rival candidates raised the
price against each other. While one sent his son to the pro-
curator with a large measure full of silver coin, another sent
a similar measure full of gold pieces ; and as the success-
ful buyer knew on what terms he had obtained the dignity,
and how brief his tenure was likely to prove, he lost no
time in making the most of his purchase, appointing his
sons and nephews to the various subordinate but very lu-
crative oflSces in the temple administration, and sending his
servants and bondmen to scour the country, burst open
the granaries, and forcibly take possession of the tithes, in
the name of the high-priest.
Thus, the inferior priests were robbed of their income,
and the land-owners were deprived of their right to bestow
their tithes on any priest they chose. So unpopular did
these practices render these high-priests, not only with
the people, but even with the inferior priests, that the Tal-
mud, embodying the traditions of public opinion, only men-
tions two of the high-priests in terms of praise. One of
them was the Joshua ben Gamla of whom we have already
spoken, and who exerted himself greatly in promoting edu-
cation by establishing schools throughout the country.
The se(fond was Elisha ben Fabi, who stood up for the
rights of the land-owners, and of the inferior priests, and
by that means became so beloved that at his nomination
the people chaunted the 7th verse of the 24th Psalm, with
the variation, " Lift up your heads, 0 ye gates, that Elisha
ben Fabi may enter."
This, however, happened long after the removal of Gratus,
the wholesale dealer in high-priesthoods, who, in fact, and
notwithstanding the caprice and arbitrary selfishness with
which he disposed of the office, seems to have introduced
the practice of confining the choice within five principal sa-
cerdotal families, probably those best able to pay. These
were: 1, the house of Fabi; 2, the house of Boethos;
370 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
3, the house of Kantheras ; ~'^ 4, the house of Kamyth ;
and 5, the house of Anan, a member of which, according
to Josephus, had not only in his own person held the office
of high-priest for a considerable period, but also enjoyed
the rare good fortune that his five sons, successively, were
appointed to the same dignity.
The general characteristics of four of these houses, and
the manner in which they administered the affairs of the
temple, is briefly, but most strikingly, expressed in the
Talmud, tr. Pesahhim, fol. 57 : " Concerning them and the
like of them," Abba Saul said, in the name of Joseph ben
Chanin, " I am grieved at the house of Boethos with its
bludgeons ; I am grieved at the house of Anan with its
whispered denunciations ; I am grieved at the house of
Kantheras with its libels ; I am grieved at the house of
Fabi with its fists. The high-priests appoint their sons
treasurers, and their sons-in-law captains of the temple,
while their servants ill use the people and treat it to club-
law."
That conduct such as here ascribed to the high-priestly
families must eventually have rendered these dignitaries not
only unpopular in Jerusalem, but hateful to the landed pro-
prietors and country people generally, is proved by the fact
that during the war of independence the rage of the people
was equally implacable against those three powers whose
aggressions had become unbearable: — the Romans, who
robbed the people of their freedom ; the house of Herod,
^ Accoi'ding to Josephus, (Antiq., xx. 8, 11,) the house of Kantheras was
also known by the name Kabi. Fraukel (in Loc. Cit. p. 592) suggests
that the Caiaphas (Josej^h Ben Caiaphas) of the Christian Scriptures be-
longed to this family. According to the Talmud, (tr. Yomah, fol. 50,) tho
house of Kamyth derived its name from a pious matron, whose seven sons
successively wore the insignia of the high-priesthood. This house is not
named in Abba Saul's reproof, and only two of its members are known by
name : Simon, celebrated for the immense size of his hand, and Joseph,
who was appointed and deposed by Herod the Tetrarch.
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 371
•who robbed tlie nation of its honour ; and the sacerdotal
aristocracy, that robbed religion of its sanctity. The choice
of a high-priest, which in the last days of the temple fell
on an obscure stonecutter, Simon of Chabta, was a so-
lemn protest pronounced by the moral feeling and indigna-
tion of the people against the twofold desecration by
which ambition and corruption degraded an office that
should be most sacred.
Gratus, whose wholesale traffic was quietly conducted,
was recalled to make room for a procurator of a very dif-
ferent dispostion. When, by the unlimited favour of the
emperor, Sejanus rose to power, his policy induced him to
place in office throughout the provinces creatures of his
own, and altogether dependent on him. Such was Pontius
Pilate, during ten years procurator of Judea, (27 to 37
C. E,,) a man who has gained for himself a dreadful im-
mortality, and whom Jewish and Christian history alike
brand with undying infamy. He was the first among the
procurators who made the Judeans feel the full bitterness
of Roman supremacy, whose acts of oppression goaded
them on to exasperation, and who then punished their ex-
asperation by fresh acts of cruelty and oppression.
Some derive his origin from Pontus, the kingdom of the
great Mithridates, whence his name Pontius ; his surname,
Pilatus, was probably derived from his skill in throwing
the spear, pilum or pila. He is said to have been a native
of Rome or Italy ; the legends of the Middle Ages made
him a native of Gaul, (modern France,) and name Vienne,
on the Rhone, as his birthplace. In that town and its
environs they long showed, and perhaps still point out, the
ruins of a tower and pleasure-house, said to have been his
patrimony. (Salvador, Domination Romaine, vol. i. p. 428.)
The very first act of his administration was an earnest
to the Judeans of what they had to expect at his hands. The
Jews, in their abhorrence of idolatry, permitted no images
372 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
of any kind, -whetlicr sculptured or painted, to be exhibited
to public view and admiration. The Roman standards
were adorned with portraits of the reigning emperor ; but
as the procurators knew with what horror the Jews would
look upon these portraits, planted in the city of the temple,
the predecessors of Pontius had hitherto respected the feel-
ings and the prejudices of the people, and never introduced
other than plain white standards in Jerusalem. Pilate,
however, had come to Judea with the determination to
create troubles as a means of acquiring riches. He there-
fore ordered the embroidered standards to be, furtively
and by night, marched into Jerusalem.
The sight of the imperial image in the holy city caused
the greatest rage and consternation among the people ;
while some wept over the profanation and insult to their
religion., others stormed at this open violation of their
rights and outrage on their feelings. Crowds of Jews
hurried to Cesarea, the procurator's official residence, and
urged him to remove the oifensive images. Seven days he
resisted their entreaties, and at length, growing tired of
their importunities, he ordered all the Jews to assemble
on the race-course. There he caused them to be sur-
rounded by his troops, and then, mounting a rostrum, he
told them that unless they instantly returned to Jerusa-
lem, he would order his cohorts to charge and cut them
down. But to these Jews death was less terrible than
what they deemed idolatry — not one stirred from the spot.
Throwing themselves prostrate on the ground, they bared
their breasts, and exclaimed they would rather die than
return to witness the desecration of the holy city. This
was a degree of passive resistance which Pilate was not
prepared to encounter. Stern and Roman as he was, he
dared not carry out his threat. Fortunately, some dele-
gates from the leading families of Jerusalem, bearers of a
considerable sum of money, made their way to him at this
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 373
moment of suspense ; and, as he thus had gained his ob-
ject, money, he appeared to relent, and, in pity for the
obstinate prejudices of the people, he ordered the offensive
standards to be removed from Jerusalem.
On this occasion no blood was shed ; but some time
afterward the procurator began to construct an aqueduct,
the cost of which he determined to defray out of the tem-
ple treasury ; and as he himself formed all the estimates
and rendered account to no one, the people not only ac-
cused him of peculation, but some of the mob burst out
in bitter invectives against him, as he was seated on his
tribunal. Pilate must have expected some such outbreak,
for he had ordered a number of his soldiers, armed, but
wearing the garb of peaceful civilians, to mix among the
crowd. At a preconcerted signal his ferocious legionaries
began to butcher the people right and left. The innocent
were cut down with the guilty, and some hundreds of
lives were lost.
Such scenes became of frequent occurrence ; Josephus
and the Talmud enumerate several. Luke (xiii. 1, 2)
speaks of a tumult in which some Galileans were pursued
by the Romans into the very courts of the temple and
slaughtered round the altar, so that their blood mixed
with that of the sacrifices. In all these tumults the Gali-
leans acted a conspicuous part, for their country was the
stronghold of the Zealots. The ruler of Galilee, the te-
trarch Herod Antipas, was altogether unable to curb or
restrain his exasperated subjects. The procurator Pilate,
therefore, took upon himself to exercise his authority in
Galilee, which led to much ill-will between the two
grandees.
It was during the administration of Pontius Pilate that
the events related in the historical books of the Christian
Scriptures are said to have occurred, and it was from be-
fore his tribunal that the founder of the Christian faith
Vol. II. 32
374 POST-BIBLICAL HLSTORY OP THE JEWS.
vv'as led forth to execution. We do not feci called upon
to enter into this subject, for, at its origin, and during its
infancy, Christianity has no churn on the attention of the
Jewish historian. It is in its day of power, -when, full-
grown, it chooses to abuse its strength and to emulate the
■worst deeds of those varnished Pharisees whom its founder
so justly condemns. It is then that Christianity enforces its
painful claim on the reluctant notice of him who relates the
tear-bedewed and blood-stained events of the Jewish history.
In his vexatious and cruel administration, Pilate ap-
pears to have relied on the support — promised or implied
— of Sejanus ; nor was it till after the fall of his patron
that the procurator of Judea lost his office. Sejanus bit-
terly hated the Jews. Until he rose to power, Judaism
enjoyed the special protection of the Caesars, and the Jews
at Rome formed a flourishing community, numbering eight
thousand souls, chiefly residing in the suburb of Janiculum,
across the Tiber. Some historians assert that Jews were
first brought to that metropolis by Pompey after his con-
quest of Jerusalem. But it does not appear that, in ad-
dition to the family of Aristobulus II., Pompey carried
with him to Rome any number of Jews sufficiently great
to account for the "multitude" complained of by Cicero,
in his defence of Flaccus, three years after Pompey's re-
turn ; especially as these clamorous Jews, so busy in the
public assemblies, must have been freemen, and may have
been residents of Rome. We have, however, already (vol.
i. p. 394) stated the reason for assuming that, probably,
Jews were first brought to Rome by the Silician pirates
full seventy years before Pompey's triumph ; a space of
time more likely to produce a multitude, than the couple
of years between Pompey's return and Cicero's speech.
This Jewish community in Rome contained men who
appear to have lived on a footing of intimacy with the
celebrities of the Augustan age. Horace himself (lib. i.
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 375
sat. 7) has immortalized his quickwitted but tantalizing
friend, Fuscus the Jew. M. Salvador justly remarks that
the familiar manner in which Horace alludes to Jewish ob-
servances proves that these observances must have been well
known to the Romans. (Domination Romaine, vol, i. 378.)
The religion of Rome was intimately connected with
the state, and "part and parcel of the law of the land."
It viewed with no friendly eye the worship of the many
new and intrusive divinities W'ith which the conquered
provinces inundated the great metropolis. The law which
declared unlawful meetings — " collegia illicita' — to be trea-
sonable, was applied, and its penalties enforced, against
all public foreign worship. Judaism formed the sole
and honourable exception. Josephus (Antiq., lib. xiv. cap.
10) quotes from a decree of the Dictator, Julius Cffisar,
that " though the consul, Caius Caesar, had strictly pro-
hibited religious conventicles in the city, (Rome,) the Jews
alone had been exempted by name from that decree."
Augustus confirmed this important right to them. He
also caused them to be included in the public distribution
of money and provisions which at certain seasons he be-
stowed on the people : and directed that whenever the day
of distribution fell on their Sabbaths, the Jews were to
receive their share on the day following.
Of all these rights and privileges they were deprived by
Sejanus, who forbade their public worship in Rome, ban-
ished numbers of them from the city, and sent four thou-
sand of their young men to perish in the isle of Sardinia,
where the climate in summer was considered pestilential.
After his death the persecution ceased; and Tiberius, by
special decree, restored all their rights. (Philo., Legat., ad
Cajum, p. 101, c.)
The closing act of Pilate's administration in Judea was
in keeping with the whole of his previous conduct. Super-
stitious Samaritans having been persuaded by an imposter
876 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
that Moses had formerly buried sacred vessels on the holy
mountain of Gerizim, a number of them met with the in-
tention of ascending the mountain to dig for these vessels.
They had committed no breach of the peace ; but as they
had assembled without permission, and were armed, Pilate
chose to consider their meeting as a riotous or dangerous
assembly, and caused their bivouac, near the village of
Tirathaba, to be attacked by horse and foot. A great
number were killed, many more were made prisoners.
Among these, Pilate selected every man of note and pro-
perty, and ordered them to be beheaded, without mercy or
delay, and their possessions, as well as those of the other
prisoners, and of the slain in the attack, to be confiscated.
The Samaritans complained of this massacre to the pro-
consul of Syria, Vitellius — the father of the glutton who
subsequently became emperor. This officer, Pilate's su-
perior, had the year before (35 c. e.) visited Jerusalem,
and gained the good-will of the people, not only by a re-
mission of taxes, but even in a higher degree by confiding
the custody of the pontifical garments — which till then had
been intrusted to the Roman garrison in the castle of An-
tonia — to the high-priest, Jonathan ben Anan, whom he
had appointed after removing Caiaphas from that high
dignity.
Vitellius examined the complaint of the Samaritans, and,
as he had become convinced of the rapacity and misrule of
Pilate, he appointed Marcellus to the office of procurator,
and ordered Pilate forthwith to repair to Rome to defend
his conduct. Pilate had held office during ten years of
great popular discontent and disturbance. On his arrival
in Italy he found the Emperor Tiberius dead, and his grand-
nephew, Caius, surnamed Caligula, seated on the throne.
The cause against Pilate was never publicly tried ; but it
is said that he was sent into banishment to Vienne, in
France, by some said to have been the place of his nativity,
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 377
and that there he committed suicide. In the environs of
Lucerne, a town in Switzerland, a lake and mountain bear
the name of Pilate ; and a legend of the Middle Ages relates
how the ex-procurator of Judea, after having lived some
time as a hermit on the mountain, sought a grave beneath
the waters of the lake.
The Emperor Caius, better known as Caligula — a name
branded with the never-ceasing abhorrence of mankind —
ascended the throne from which assassination had removed
his predecessor, and w'hich he himself occupied as a mad-
man. The immense power possessed by a Roman emperor,
the weight of moral responsibility resulting from that pos-
session, and the unceasing danger by Avhich it was attended,
proved too great a burden for most minds. The reign of
Caligula opened with the most auspicious expectations.
His father, Germanicus, had been the favourite of the Ro-
man world ; his son was beloved as his representative. Sue-
tonius relates that the public joy was evidenced by upward
of one hundred and sixty thousand animals being sacrificed
in the various temples as ofierings for his prosperity, and
in thanksgiving for his accession ; and, during the first few
months, Caligula seemed to deserve the love of his people.
But gradually his mind became depraved and diseased to
that degree, that on one occasion, when in the theatre, the
spectators did not share his opinion, he was heard, in a
transport of rage, to exclaim : " Would to heaven that the
Roman people had but one head, that I might cut it off
at one blow." (Suetonius, in Caium CaliguL, § 29.)
The predominating idea in his mind was to carry out to
the fullest extent the new worship introduced by Augustus,
that of the reigning emperor, the man-god. Tiberius had
modestly resigned his divine honours to his predecessor,
Augustus ; but, nevertheless, the principle that the em-
peror had the right to be worshipped as a god was solemnly
confirmed during his reign. Eleven citizens in Asia ap-
32*
378 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
peared before the senate in eager competition for the privi-
lege of erecting a temple to Tiberius. Two of these cities,
Ephesus and Miletus, were at once excluded from the com-
petition, because the worship of Diana in the first-named
city, and of Apollo in the second one, were too renowned
and absorbing to allow of due veneration for the godhead
of Tiberius. (Tacitus, Annal., lib. iv. § 55.)
This circumstance had produced a strong impression on
the memory of Caligula, who determined that the supre-
macy of his worship should supersede every other religion.
As emperor, he took precedence of all monarchs and rulers
of the known world ; as god, he insisted on enjoying the
like precedence in every temple throughout his empire.
Accordingly, he compelled the Greeks to send him the
most beautiful and celebrated statues of the greater gods,
and, among them, the Olympian Jupiter. From all these
masterpieces of art the emperor removed the heads, and
placed his own bust upon the mutilated statues. Through-
out the wide extent of the Roman world the orders of the
man-god were enforced with all the fear and trepidation
which arose from the ungovernable rage into which, as was
well known, the emperor was thrown by the slightest resist-
ance offered to his divine supremacy.
To most of the Gentile nations a divinity more or less
made no great difference. While numerous cities rivalled
each other in the excessive zeal of their adulation, men of
mind — whether they laughed at the folly or regretted the
impiety of the emperor — never attempted to dispute or to
disobey the imperial command. In Jerusalem, however,
Caligula's claim to divine honours caused the greatest con-
sternation ; for, to the Jews, it was a question of life or
death. If Jerusalem had permitted a godhead of flesh
and blood to invade its temple, under any pretext whatever,
it would at once have renounced its most sacred mission.
Had the Jews quailed before the imperial madman-god,
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 379
they would have betrayed alike their ancestors and their
posterity ; they would have proved faithless alike to the
one God of heaven and of earth, and to the future desti-
nies of all mankind.
When Caligula's mandate, requiring his image to be
placed in the temple, reached Jerusalem, Yitellius had
already resigned his functions as governor of Syria. His
successor, Petronius, a kind-hearted and clear-headed man,
soon perceived how difficult it would be to obtain obe-
dience from the Jews, even if force were employed against
them. Throughout the whole of Judea every species of
labour and occupation ceased — the imminence of the danger
absorbed every other consideration. Crowds repaired to
Ptolemais, where the governor sojourned, to entreat him,
prostrate and with streaming eyes, not to persevere in a
design which must lead to the utter destruction of Judea ;
while others declared that it was only on streams of blood
that the imperial image could be brought to the temple.
Petronius hesitated ; he saw the danger of driving to ex-
tremities a people so widely spread, so powerful, and, on
this question, so unanimous and determined, as were the
Jews ; he, therefore, delayed from week to week, and
from month to month, to carry out the orders he had
received.
But such was not the case in Alexandria. Already, the
year before, a dangerous conflict had been on the point of
breaking out between the Jewish and Gentile inhabitants
of that city. The ill-will between the two was not yet ex-
tinct. The heathens knew to a certainty that the Jews
would not submit to have the image of the emperor intro-
duced into their places of worship. They were equally
certain that the emperor would uphold those who upheld
his godhead. An attack on the Jewish quarters was the
consequence ; pillage and massacre went hand-in-haud ;
880 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
■while the Eoman governor, Avilius Flaccus,^^ already out
of favour with the emperor, did not dare to incur his fur-
ther displeasure hj checking the zeal of his worshippers.
The spirit of Antiochus Epiphanes seemed once more to
stalk abroad, so fearful were the atrocities committed
against the Jews hj the mob of Alexandria, which were
not speedily forgotten, and which, after a lapse of time,
were as fearfully avenged.
The Jews of Egypt who escaped or survived the mas-
sacre hastened to send a delegation to the emperor to im-
plore his clemency and protection. At the head of the
deputation they placed one of the great luminaries of the
learning and of the religious and moral philosophy of that
epoch, the celebrated Philo, whose writings have so often
been put into requisition by the fathers of the Christian
Church. He has left an account of this audience which
Caligula granted to the Egypto-Jewish deputation, interest-
ing, because of the particulars into M'hich it enters, and
which show us how imbecile and ridiculous was the dreaded
emperor of Rome. After a lengthened interview, during
which the emperor ran from one apartment to another,
gave a multitude of orders to his attendants, and asked
questions without deigning to hear the replies, he at length
dismissed the trembling delegates with the remark, "These
people are less wicked than unhappy and senseless in that
they do not believe in my divine nature." Though Cali-
gula thus seemed to relent, it is certain that he resumed
"' At Tentyra, in Egypt, a monument lias lately been discovered upon
■which the name of Aldus Avilius Flaccus has been defaced, apparently by
the violence of popular indignation. (Letronnc, Recueil d'inscriplions
Grecques ct LatiiKs cTEijiipte, p. 88.) M. Salvador is of opinion that this
fact attests the vengeance the Jews inflicted on the memory of a man -who,
both actively and by his inactivity, had caused them much hai'm, and
"whose misconduct as governor of Egypt was punished, first, with banish-
ment and confiscation of the riches he had so rapaciously accumulated,
and, finally, after due investigation, with death.
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 881
the intention of placing his image in the temple at Jeru-
salem ; and so exasperated was he against Petronius for
presuming to hesitate, that he sent an order to that gover-
nor to despatch himself. Fortunately, Caligula himself
was despatched in time to prevent either of his mischievous
orders from taking effect.
The madman Caius was succeeded by his uncle Claudius,
the fool. Among those who, after, the destruction of Ca-
ligula, were most active in securing the throne to Claudius,
was Herod Agrippa, a son of Aristobulus, and grandson
of Herod the Great by the Asmonean Mariamne. This
prince had met wuth vicissitudes so strange, and had ex-
perienced so many changes of fortune, that the events of
his life would furnish materials for an interesting romance.
Educated at Rome, and on terms of intimacy with the
princes of the imperial family, he had been a favourite and
companion of Drusus, the son of the Emperor Tiberius.
Profuse in his expenditure, and vain of his royal lineage,
Agrippa soon exhausted his slender patrimony, and had
contracted debts to an enormous amount, when the un-
timely death of Drusus induced his father Tiberius to re-
move from Rome all the companions of the deceased whose
presence only reminded him of his loss. Agrippa returned
to Judea a ruined man, shut himself up for a time in a
dilapidated old castle in Idumea, where he suffered the
extreme of distress, became a dependent on the charity of
his family, and when he could no longer endure the humi-
liations with which they accompanied their gifts, a hanger-
on of the Roman governor of Syria.
Weary of eating the bread of poverty and dependence,
he once more repaired to Rome, was kindly received by
Tiberius, renewed his former intimacy with Caligula, and,
on the strength of his supposed favour at court, once more
found credit with the usurers of Rome. One day, how-
ever, as Agrippa was taking a ride with Caligula, he ut-
382 rOST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
tercd tlie very natural wish that the old emperor would
die and make room for his friend. Ilis words were over-
heard by the charioteer, who denounced him, and Agrippa
was thrown into prison, where he remained six months,
uncertain as to what might be his fate. When Tiberius
was taken ill, it soon became known in Rome, and his ra-
pidly increasing debility left no doubt of his speedy dis-
solution. But no one dared to speak of his illness, lest an
unguarded word might attract the attention of his numerous
spies. One day, while Agrippa was conversing with the
keeper of the prison, a freedman of the Herodian prince
suddenly entered, and with an air of mystery told him in
Hebrew, "the lion is dead." Agrippa involuntarily burst
out into an exclamation of joy, and when the keeper as-
certained the cause, he complimented the prince on his
impending change of fortune.
The keeper, anxious to gain the favour of his prisoner,
even went so far as to invite him to dinner in his own
private apartment. But while they were at table, intelli-
gence arrived that Tiberius was recovered from his syncope
and on his way to Rome. The vile time-serving jailer be-
came alarmed, and, rushing on Agrippa, he taxed him with
falsehood and treason, hurried him away from the table,
and caused him to be loaded with heavy chains. Fortu-
nately for Agrippa, the accession of Caligula was not de-
layed, for though the old emperor, after being reported
dead, had rallied, recovered his speech, and called for food,
he was not permitted to live. Alarmed for his own safety,
and for that of all those who had hailed Caius Caligula as
emperor, the chief of the Pretorian guards. Macron,
adopted a sudden resolution, and caused the old tyrant to
be stifled.
One of the first acts of Caligula, as emperor, was to re-
lease his friend Agrippa from prison. Exchanging the
chains of iron, with which that prince had been loaded,
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 383
for others of equal weight in gold, Caligula clothed him in
purple, placed a diadem on his head, and, proclaiming him
King, bestowed on him the tetrarchies north of Judea as
far as the Lebanon. It was the presence of Agrippa at
Alexandria, on his return from Rome to his kingdom, which
had caused the first tumult in that city, the Egyptians being
envious that the Jews should have a king and semblance of
independence while they themselves had none ; and blood-
shed was only prevented by Agrippa's hurried departure.
On his next visit to Rome the Hebrew king had ex-
erted all his influence with Caligula to induce him to
forego his design of placing his image in the temple, and
had even for a time succeeded. But the capricious
Caligula soon resumed his purpose, and Agrippa was in
danger of the imperial displeasure, when Caligula perished.
The senate for an instant felt the revival of its pristine
spirit, and began to talk of restoring the ancient republic
and its form of government. But the day of freedom was
forever gone for these degenerate Romans ; and chiefly
through the influence and diplomacy of Agrippa, his old
crony, Claudius, was recognised emperor. To reward him
for his really important services, Claudius reconstructed
and bestowed upon him the kingdom of Judea, such as with
all its dependencies it had been possessed by his grand-
father, Herod the Great, and enlarged by the tetrarchy
of Abilene. (41 c. e.) Claudius entered into a solemn
alliance with the new king, issued several decrees in favour
of the Jews, and at the request of Agrippa bestowed the
kingdom of Chalcis on his brother Herod. Agrippa even
obtained the honours of the consulship, and his brother
was appointed prsetor, which entitled both to a seat in the
senate — a dignity at that time still revered as the highest
on earth, next to the emperor.
On his return to Judea, Agrippa was well received by
his new subjects; for, though the representative of the
384 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
liatcd house of Herod, he was also a descendant of the
honoured and cherished Asmonean race. Agrippa was
sincerely attached to his religion, and anxious for the wel-
fare of his country and people. lie enlarged Jerusalem
by building a new quarter on the north side of the city,
which he called Bezetha, and which, having fortified, he
wished to join to the old city by surrounding the whole
with a strong wall, which, added to the fortifications
already erected, would have rendered Jerusalem impreg-
nable. This wall, hoAvever, he could not erect without per-
mission obtained from Rome, which, accordingly, he soli-
cited ; but the governor of Syria so forcibly represented
the danger to Roman supremacy of this undertaking, which
had already proceeded to some extent, that peremptory
orders were given to desist from the work. Agrippa did
not long survive this disappointment, but died at Cesarea,
after having reigned over the tetrarchies seven, and over
all Judea three years. (44 c. e.)
His death was bitterly lamented by the Jews, who un-
der his government had enjoyed peace and prosperity, and
been freed from the onerous presence of Roman ofiicials
and licentious legionaries. This last circumstance will
probably explain why the Roman garrison at Cesarea in-
dulged in extravagant demonstrations of joy at his death.
Indeed, so brutal and outrageously indecent had been the
conduct of the legionaries, that the emperor Claudius de-
termined to remove them out of the country — a determina-
tion which that weak-minded emperor, unfortunately for
Judea, allowed himself to be dissuaded from carrying into
efi'ect. The Greek inhabitants of Cesarea and Sebaste,
unwilling to be the subjects of a Jewish king, also publicly
testified their joy at the demise of King Agrippa. Clau-
dius had promised him that his son should succeed to his
kingdom ; but as that prince, Agrippa II., was only seven-
teen years of age, he was deemed too young for so import-
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 385
ant a trust. The eiiaperor, therefore, restored the state
of things that had existed in Judea previous to the reign
of Agrippa I., and appointed Cuspius Fadus procurator,
while Herod, King of Chalcis, was placed over the temple
and treasury, with power to appoint high-priests.
During the short administration of Fadus, Judea was
visited with a severe famine, and the sufferings of the peo-
ple were extreme. They were, however, liberally assisted
by Isates, King of Adiabene, and his mother, Helena, both
proselytes to Judaism. This king, a feudatory of the
great Parthian empire, reigned over territories situated on
the river Tigris, and which contained a numerous Jewish
population. He had lately been induced by the teaching
of Ananias — said to have been a travelling merchant — to
embrace Judaism. His mother and his brothers — one of
whom, Monbazes II., succeeded him on the throne — had
joined him in his new faith. The family built a splendid
palace at Jerusalem, where some of them occasionally re-
sided. Their donations to the temple, and gifts to the peo-
ple, were very considerable ; and by their means the ancient
friendship between Judeans and Parthians was revived.
Cuspius Fadus was succeeded in his office by Tiberius
Alexander, an apostate Jew, and nephew of the celebrated
Philo of Alexandria. He held office two years, during
which King Herod of Chalcis died. The emperor Clau-
dius bestowed his kingdom, together with the inspectorship
of the temple, on his nephew Agrippa II., while Judea was
definitively, and to the great discontent of the people, in-
corporated with the Roman empire. Under the next pro-
curator, Ventidius Cumanus, the troubles began which
eventually destoyed Jerusalem and its temple. The legion
that had been stationed at Cesarea, and which Claudius had
neglected to remove from Judea, was now quartered at Je-
rusalem, and seized every opportunity to insult and exas-
perate the people. Roman soldiers indecently exposed
Vol. II. 83
'oSQ POST-EIELSCAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
their persons on the temple-mount in presence of the
multitude assembled for divine worship on the Passover.
(48 c. E.) Roman soldiers tore copies of the Pentateuch
to pieces before the people with words of blasphemy and
insult. The Jews were not a people tamely to endure
either ; and, had they even been inclined to submit, " The
Zealots" — whose association daily acquired greater strength
and consistency — were always at hand, ready to promote
tumult and bloodshed. The procurators who successively
held office in Judea were men of the most vile and rapa-
cious disposition. During the reign of Claudius, the pro-
vinces of the Roman world were given up to the domination
of freedmen ; slaves who had been emancipated by the
favour of the emperor, or of his grandees, and whose ser-
vices, often of such a nature that we blush even to hint at
them, were rewarded with the government of extensive
provinces. Solomon, in his wisdom, declared that one of
the things which disturb the earth is " a slave who governs,"
(Prov. XXX. 22,) and the experience of Judea fully bore
him out. Felix — a brother of Pallas, the freedman and
favourite of Claudius — who succeeded Cumanus, governed
Judea during ten years (50-60 C. e.) with all the tyranny
ascribed to the worst Oriental despots, so that neither life
nor property were safe. In the early part of his administra-
tion the emperor Claudius died, (54 c. e.) poisoned by his
fourth wife, Agrippina, the mother of Nero. But Felix
was not removed till six years after the accession of Nero,
when his misgovernment was become so intolerable, that,
notwithstanding the influence of his brother Pallas with
the emperor, the Jews sent a deputation to Rome, which
obtained his recall.
Festus, his successor, though not so worthless as he, was
not able to restore quiet to the country, or to remedy the
evil that had taken root under his predecessor. For the
Zealots were become conscious of their strength ; their
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 387
bands, armed and organized, frequently fought the Romans,
and not always unsuccessfully. The people, exasperated
by oppression, became ferocious. Professed assassins were
equally ready to use their dagger in their own quarrel, or
in that of others who hired them. These banditti were
called Sicarri, from their using daggers curved like the
Roman sicce. These they concealed under their garments,
and, mingling with the crowd, they watched their opportu-
nity until, unseen, they could strike their victim, who fell,
singled out by invisible hands from surrounding multi-
tudes, none of whom had seen the blow struck.
Festus died in office, and was succeeded by Albinus, in the
year 62, and he was succeeded by Gessius Florus, the last
of the Roman procurators in Judea ; both men of character
and conduct so detestable, that even Felix came to be re-
gretted by the Jews. Tacitus bears witness to the extreme
tyranny in which these two bad men indulged, and to the
patience with which the Jews bore many a provocation,
until a quarrel between the Jews and Greeks, at Cesarea,
respecting the ownership of that city, led to a general
rising throughout Judea.
The oppression and rapacity which during so many
years bore sway in the intei'nal administration of Judea —
which were upheld by the base servility of the Herodian
family, and could not be restrained by the authority of the
high-priesthood, in the appointment to which corruption so
notoriously prevailed — were rendered still more fatal to the
morals and public spirit of the people by the divisions and
subdivisions in the Sanhedrin. Not only did the old sects
of Pharisees and Sadducees carry on their long-standing
and irreconcilable strife, but the Pharisees had been split
into two contending schools, those of Hillel and of Sham-
mai, who on points of observance and on principles of in-
terpretation were more strongly opposed to each other than
their founders had ever been. As all matters before the
388 POST-BIBLICAL IIISTOEY OF THE JEWS.
SanhcJrin had to be decided by a majority, and as neither
of the i^avties into ■which that bod}- was divided could ever
make sure of a plurality of votes, the Sanhedrin became
averse to take upon itself the decision of questions of im-
portance, especially -where human life was concerned.
Forty years before .the destruction of the temple, the San-
hedrin voluntarily renounced the jus gladium — the right to
condemn and put criminals to death. (Talmud, tr. Abodah
Sarah, fo. 8, B ; Sanhedrin, fo. 41, a ; conf. John xviii. 31.—)
And as the local judges throughout the land were not per-
mitted to exercise a right which the great Sanhedrin had
renounced, the criminal justice of Judea was de facto handed
over to the Romans. One consequence of this dereliction
of duty on the part of the Sanhedrin was that the peo-
ple, who identified their natural judges with the Law of
God which these judges administered, were deprived of
that salutary fear which till then had rendered the Jews
pre-eminently a law-abiding people. Whereas thenceforth
the insidious influence of the Zealots taught the people to
look upon every capital execution by the Romans as an
act not of justice, but of murder, to be resisted, resented,
and revenged. Accordingly assassination — chiefly of Ro-
mans and their adherents — became, as we have already
stated, an every-day occurrence: and the sicarri enjoyed
complete impunity, protected by the hatred which the peo-
ple nursed against the Romans and their jurisprudence.
" The Talmud, (tr. Abodah Sarah, in loc. cit.,) in rigid adherence to the
letter of the Law, "the place which the Lord thy God shall choose,"
(Deut. x\'ii. 8, 10,) lays down the rule that the jus gladium is inseparable
from the temple of the Lord ; and that if the judges sit in any other lo-
cality they have not the right to sentence and execute a culprit. The
Sanhedi'in usually held its sittings in the Lishkath Hagazis, "stone portico,"
within the precincts of the temple; and to divest themselves of the duty of
competing capitally, the members of the Sanhedrin had but to remove their
sitting to some locality not forming part of the temple. This will explain
the conversation between Pilate and the Jews in John xviii. 31.
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 389
Nor was it only the security of person -u'liicli was thus
violated ; the security of property suffered almost in an
equal degree. From the Mishna (tr. Kilaim, ch. vii. § 6)
we learn that Roman officials throughout Judea were in
the habit of forcibly seizing houses and lands, which they
occupied, and even rented out to others, and that this for-
cible occupation continued so long as the Roman intruder
remained stationed in that place. Sometimes these in-
truders sold the possessions they had usurped to others,
whose title could not be disputed so long as the despoiler
was present to support his sale, but whose ejection by the
original owner gave rise to bitter litigation, and increased
the ill-feeling which already to so great an extent pre-
vailed among the people.
Another fatal consequence of the Roman sway, and the
manner in which it was carried on, was the neglect of edu-
cation. From the days of Ezra downward, it appears that
the religious and general instruction of children had been
an object of public solicitude, and that funds were appro-
priated for that special purpose. During the persecution
by Antiochus Epiphanes the schools had greatly suffered ;
during and after the civil wars under King Jannai they
also fell into decay ; but on the accession of Queen Alex-
andra, Simon the son of Shetahh reopened and greatly
patronized the primary schools. During the Roman do-
minion the rapacity of the procurators diverted the school-
funds to their own private use. Throughout the provinces
of Judea the children were left untaught, and ignorance
prevailed to so general and frightful a degree that it be-
came necessary to make provision for the case occuri'ing
of a high-priest who was unable or not accustomed to
read the Scriptures, (Mishna, tr. Yomah, ch. i. § 6,) as such
illiterate pontiffs were not a few. AVe have already related
that Joshua ben Gamla merited and obtained the good
opinion of the people by his energetic efforts to establish
* 63*
890 rOST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
schools and to promote education. But as he did not ac-
quire the high-priestliood till the year 64 C. E., his insti-
tutiojis had not time to take root. In the provinces they
were soon ruined hy the war; and though in Jerusalem
they seem to have been more successful, (Talmud, tr. Gittin,
fo. 57, B,) yet an eminent Rabbi, Ilamnuna, does not hesitate
to name "the neglect of education" as one of the principal
causes that led to the destruction of that city. (Ibid, tr.
Sabbath, fo. 119, B.)
There were doubtless many men of profound erudition
and extensive general knoAvledge in Judea ; the talents,
political, military, and administrative, so abundantly mani-
fested in the earlier periods of the war, prove beyond a
doubt that the learning of educated Judeans was, at least,
on a par with that of the East and of the West. But this
was an advantage not shared by the masses, and the con-
sequences Avere fatal to the Jewish nation. Oppression
had goaded the people into a restless desire and expecta-
tion of change. Every one knew that the Scriptures
abound with prophecies which promise to Israel glory,
power, and prosperity. The impatience and ignorance
of the people rendered them liable to be misled by every
propounder of false doctrine, whether knave or fanatic.
Provided he could assume the outward guise of sanctimo-
niousness, and knew how to quote Scripture fluently, right
or wrong, he was sure to find followers who listened with
veneration to his expositions of prophecy, and were
ready to embrace his claims, of whatever nature these were.
When to this frame of mind among the people generally
we add the incessant incitations of the Zealots, we cannot
feel surprised that, notwithstanding the overwhelming
power of Rome, the masses in Judea should have rushed
on a struggle which, in the ordinary course of events, could
only lead to their destruction.
Agrippa — the son of that Herod Agrippa whom the em-
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 391
peror Claudius had appointed king of Judea, and -who at
the death of his father had been deemed too young to suc-
ceed him in the kingdom — had now grown up to man's
estate. In addition to the tetrarchy of Chalcis, the em-
peror Claudius bestowed on him Gaulonitis, the territory for-
merly held by his grand-uncle Philip, together with a por-
tion of Galilee near the lake, and containing the towns of
Tiberias, Tarichsea, and Julias, with fourteen villages.
These possessions yielded a considerable revenue to Agrippa
II., who, having obtained the title of king, formed for him-
self a small army of mercenaries, and indulged his love of
building by extensive erections in the cities of Cesarea-
Philippi and Berytus, Claudius had also appointed him
governor of the temple, in which capacity he continued the
traffic in the high-priesthood, removing from and appoint-
ing to that high office as his interest or his caprice dictated.
In order at all times to know what was doing in the tem-
ple, Agrippa raised his palace to such a height that his
upper rooms overlooked the whole of the temple-mount.
At this the priests took umbrage, and erected a wall on
the western side of the mount sufficiently high to close the
view against Agrippa. He disputed their right of build-
ing on the temple-mount, and it was found necessary by
the priests to send a deputation to Rome, at the head of
which they placed the public-spirited and popular high-
priest Ishmael ben Fabi. King Agrippa, however, had
interest sufficient at Rome to cause the head of the depu-
tation to be detained as a hostage until the dispute should
be decided. He then deposed the absent pontiff, and
in his stead appointed Anan, a Sadducee, who began his
ministry by convening a Sanhedrin, and resuming the
jus gladium, which so long had Iain in abeyance. Seve-
ral offenders were tried, convicted, and, with the usual
rigour of the Sadducees, put to death. These executions
took place without the knowledge or consent of the procu-
392 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
rator ; and as the people placed Sadducce and Roman jus-
tice on a par, and equally detested both, the public dis-
content became so a.larming that King Agrippa was com-
pelled to dismiss Anan from his high office.
Another cause of public offence was given by the im-
proper and debauched conduct of the king himself and of
his two sisters, Berenice and Drusilla. Both of them were
married, Berenice first to her uncle, Herod, Prince of Chalcis,
and after his death to Polemon, King of Cilicia, and Dru-
silla to Aziz, King of Emesa, suitors who, in order to ob-
tain their hands, had embraced Judaism. These women
quitted their husbands, and led a life that provoked public
indignation. Drusilla, the younger, became the wife of
Felix, the procurator of Judea, by whom she had a son,
Agrippa, who with his wife perished in the great eruption
of Mount Vesuvius which destroyed the cities of Pompeii
and Herculaneum. (79 c. E.) Berenice was accused of
conduct still more flagrant, and of which Josephus declares
her not guilty ; but if even the worst charge against her
and her brother the king be a calumny, still Berenice, the
subsequent paramour of Titus, was as immoral as she was
beautiful and accomplished. The example publicly set by
this royal family was consequently most pernicious, and
in a great measure justified the execration with which the
Zealots loaded the house of Agrippa.^
In the Christian Scriptures (Acts xxiv. 24) we find men-
tion made of the singular marriage between a Jewish
princess and a pagan governor. We also find that the
procurator had his seat at Cesarea. But his presence did
^ Agrippa had a third sister, Mariamne, •who, after the example of the
other two, also deserted her first husband, Archelaus ben Chelkias, an
officer of high rank in the service of her father, and became the wife of
Demetrius Alexander, alabarch or chief of the Jewish community in
Alexandria, a man of immense wealth, nephew of Philo, and brother to
Tiberius Alexander the apostate, procurator of Judca.
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 393
not check or even prevent tlie outbreak of the rancorous
feeling which animated the mixed population in that city,
and which at length led to a civil war in its streets. Jews
and Syro-Greeks fought for the exclusive right of appoint-
ing magistrates. Fortune favoured the Jews, who probably
were the most numerous, but Felix caused the Roman
garrison to attack the victors ; many were slain, and the
dispute was eventually carried before the tribunal of Nero
at Rome.
• Coeval with these appeals from Judea was a war in the
East between the Romans and Parthians. In the vast
territories possessed by the latter, the Jews were both nu-
merous and wealthy ; the far greater part of the metropo-
litan cities of Nisibis and Nehardea belonged to them.
Their prosperity in the Parthian empire was for a time in-
terrupted by the ill-feeling provoked by two brothers,
Asinai and Anilai, weavers by trade, who renounced their
occupation and placed themselves at the head of a gang
of robbers that infested the eastern shores of the Euphrates.
Their devastations called forth the satrap of Babylon, who
attacked them, but was defeated with great loss. Artaban,
King: of Parthia, an indolent monarch, deemed it most ex-
pedient to take the valorous and successful robber-chiefs
into his own service, and, having called Asinai to court,
appointed him governor of Mesopotamia. This appoint-
ment Asinai held with great renown during fifteen years,
when he was murdered by his own brother. Anilai be-
came enamoured of the wife of a Parthian general, put the
husband to death, and married the widow. But this wo-
man, who was an idolatress, carried her idols with her into
her new husband's house; and when Asinai reproached him
for these foul proceedings, and urged him to renounce a
connection hateful alike in the sight of God and of man,
she prevailed on Anilai to poison and thus forever to
silence the importunate monitor.
394 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
After the death of Asinai, the fratricide assumed the
government of Mesopotamia. At the same time he recom-
menced his plundering inroads into the adjoining satrapies.
The king's son-in-law, Mithridates, took up arms against
the robber, but was defeated, taken prisoner, and disgrace-
fully treated by Anilai, who caused his captive to be led
into his camp naked, and mounted on an ass. When Mith-
ridates recovered his liberty, by the payment of a heavy
ransom, his wife, a daughter of the king of Parthia, not
only urged him to revenge his disgrace, but used her in-
fluence to raise an overwhelming force, by which Anilai
was defeated and slain, and his gang totally exterminated.
But, not satisfied with these acts of justice, the populace,
exasperated against the Jews because of Anilai, attacked,
plundered, and slaughtered the peaceful Jewish communi-
ties throughout Mesopotamia. After much suffering and
great loss of life, the Jews found a temporary refuge at
Seleucia, whence, after a time, they returned to their for-
mer habitations in Nehardea and Nisibis. During all
these commotions, attended with so much bloodshed. King
Artaban remained an unconcerned spectator in his new
city of Ktesiphon. Popular indignation, however, drove
him from the tKrone, and, in order to save his life, he fled
on foot and disguised toward Adiabene. Here he was re-
cognised by Isates, King of Adiabene, who at the time of
their meeting, and according to the general custom of Par-
thia, was on horseback, but instantly dismounted and
offered his horse, and with it his own services, to his sove-
reign. By the assistance of Isates, King Artaban reco-
vered the throne of Parthia, and rewarded his auxiliary
with many royal privileges, and with the gift of the city
and territory of Nisibis. As Isates had become a con-
vert to Judaism, the Jews, under his powerful protection,
soon regained their former prosperous condition, though
he himself was exposed to great danger from the discon-
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 6\)b
tent of his heathen subjects in Acliabene. After a long
and glorious reign, Isates, at his death, left his crown to his
brother, Monbaz II., who caused the bodies of Isates and
of his mother Helena to be carried to Jerusalem, where
they were interred in a mausoleum constructed by her, and
where his nephews carried on their studies and possessed
a noble mansion.
Vologeses, the third successor of Artaban on the throne
of Parthia, became involved in war against Rome, in con-
sequence of both empires claiming supremacy over the
kingdoms of Greater and Lesser Armenia. To the vassal
thrones of these countries the emperor Nero appointed
two princes connected with the families of the Asmoneans
and of Herod the Great. Tigranes, of Greater Armenia,
was a descendant of Alexander III. and Glaphyra; and
Aristobulus, of Lesser Armenia, was a son by his first wife
of Herod, late Prince of Chalcis, the brother of Agrippa I.
Both these princes, however, were expelled by Vologeses,
who appointed his own brother, Tiridates, king of all Ar-
menia, and altogether repudiated the rights of Rome. The
consequence was a war, which began in the year 58, and
continued with alternate success till the year 63. The
Romans were commanded by Quadratus, governor of Syria,
and by Corbulo, a leader renowned alike as a warrior and
a diplomatist. The eastern provinces of Rome, and all
the tributary princes, had to furnish their contingents to
the Roman armies, and thus the troops of King Agrippa
II. and the Jews came to take part in the war. The
divided authority, however, and disputes between the two
generals, paralyzed the progress of the Roman arms; and
it Avas not till the death of Quadratus left to Corbulo the
sole command that the war became active, by the inva-
sion of Armenia. The king of Parthia had found occupa-
tion in the eastern territories of his empire, where civil
commotions of a serious nature had to be suppressed. To
396 POST-BIBLTCAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
these the intrigues of Rome were probably no strangers,
while the turbulent and inconstant disposition of the Par-
thians was of itself sufficiently prone to rebellion. As
Tiridatcs of Armenia by these means was reduced to his
own force, which consisted chiefly of cavalry, he took care
not to fight any pitched battles, but contented himself with
harassing the Romans by continual skirmishes. Corbulo,
however, was too great a master of the art of war to be
checked in his advance by any army that Tiridates, alone
and unsupported, could bring against him. He therefore
marched directly upon Artaxata, the capital of Armenia.
This city, it was at that time said and generally believed,
had been planned by the Carthagenian Hannibal. Forced
to flee from the court of Antiochus III. of Syria, the great
adversary of Rome had sought refuge with Artaxias, King
of Armenia, whom he persuaded to build a city that in case
of need might serve as a bulwark against the western con-
querors. Hannibal himself fixed upon the site and traced
the fortifications of this new capital, to which the king
gave his own name, and the importance of which is attested
by Plutarch, who, (in vit. Lucull.) designates Artaxata as
the Carthage of Armenia. This strong city, however,
King Tiridates with his cavalry felt himself unable eflFec-
tually to defend. He therefore withdrew his garrison, and
generously left the citizens at liberty to open their gates
to the Romans. In so doing he certainly did not and
could not foresee what would be the doom of the city
inflicted by victors who branded all other nations as
barbarous.
Corbulo took possession of the undefended city; he
then ordered the entire population to be removed, set fire
to the houses, and caused the fortifications to be razed to
the ground. The progress of the war did not call for so
terrible an example. But the policy of Rome in Asia was
intent on destroying all. those strongholds within which
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 397
the activity and defensive force of nations could be cen-
tralized, and which thus might become serious obstacles to
the spread of her power. Within twelve years after the
destruction of Artaxata the same legions that had set fire
to the Armenian Carthage lighted the flames which con-
sumed Jerusalem ; and though Josephus tries hard to make
us believe that Titus wished to save the capital of Judea,
there can be no doubt that the same policy dictated both
destructions.
The arms of Rome thus seated Tigranes on the throne
of Armenia, while Corbulo was appointed pro-consul of
Syria — an office vacant by the death of Quadratus. But
the nominee of Rome did not long remain in possession of
his kingdom. Tigranes provoked the military pride of the
Parthians by the invasion of Adiabene. A national coun-
cil was summoned, and King Vologeses once more was in-
duced to lead an army against the Romans. He had with
some difficulty mastered the rebellion in East Parthia, and
at the same time convinced himself that his personal
safety and the stability of his throne would be better in-
sured by an alliance with Rome than by a war against that
powerful empire. It was therefore reluctantly, and urged
on by the unanimous will of his great feudatories, that ho
again entered Armenia, drove out the Romans and their
vassal, and reinstated his brother Tiridates, while a nume-
rous army of Parthians threatened the western shores of
the Euphrates.
The command of the Roman forces had again been di-
vided. While Corbulo, at the head of one army, was
charged with the defence of Syria, a second army, under
Petus, marched into Armenia. The emperor Nero, with
the suspicion inseparable from tyranny, feared to trust too
much to Corbulo. And though Tacitus (Annal., lib. v.
§ 4) assumes that the appointment of a colleague, especially
charged with the command in Armenia, was at the request
Vol. II. ;)[
398 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
of Corbulo himself, it is certain that Petus was appointed
as a rival, "wlio would share the fame and divide the power
over the army in the East which Corbulo was likely to ac-
quire. But Pctus was more of a courtier than a general.
His measures in Armenia were so badly calculated, and his
forces so widely scattered, that his campaign proved a dis-
graceful failure. At the very time that his messengers
arrived in Rome announcing his rapid advance and suc-
cess, he himself was besieged in his camp by the king of
Parthia. And though the Koman suffered from no want
of provisions, and had solicited aid from Corbulo, yet, as
the arrival of that aid was delayed beyond his expectations,
he consented to capitulate. The Romans engaged to
evacuate Armenia, and to surrender to the Parthian king
all the fortresses with their munitions of war which they
held in that country; and so anxious was Petus to get be-
yond the reach of the Parthians, that he marched forty
miles in one day, and left all his wounded behind him.
Corbulo had made no very great haste to succour his
rival; at length, however, he marched, and soon came in
sight of his colleague, with his fugitive legions. When the
two armies met, the misery and humiliation of the van-
quished were so intense as to cause their comrades to shed
tears. The defeated army Avas followed by Parthian nego-
tiators, who proceeded to Rome with the offer of peace.
But the ancient traditions of the mistress of the West
forbade any coming to terms with a victorious enemy.
Rome felt shocked and irritated at the disgrace of her
arms. The capitulation was compared with the Caudiniau
forks, and all the might of Rome was put into requisition
to revenge the insult and to punish the insolent Parthian.
Corbulo was appointed sole commander throughout the
East, with powers but little inferior to those formerly held
by Pompey. All tributary kings, tetrarchs, and gover-
nors, were directed to pay implicit obedience to the em-
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 399
peror's lieutenant in the East. His army was strongly
reinforced, and Corbulo, at the head of a large force, once
more invaded Armenia. His policy — the policy of Rome —
on that occasion was exactly like that adopted by the
British after their reverses in Afghanistan in 1842. They
sent a strong force into the country to punish the victo-
rious chiefs, and having thus vindicated the power and re-
established the terror of their arms, they restored to the
throne the selfsame monarch whom they themselves had dis-
possessed and carried to prison. A similar line of con-
duct was adopted by Corbulo. On his advance in Armenia,
he everywhere expelled the chiefs who had taken up arms
against Rome, stormed and took such strongholds as laid
in his way, aijd spread fear and consternation over the
plains as well as over the hill-country. (Tacitus, Annal.,
lib. XV. § 27.) While he was thus intent on restoring
the terror of the Roman arms, he was equally active in
negotiating a peace with Vologeses. For Corbulo was
prudent as well as bold, and a skilful diplomatist as well
as an able general. The terms of the peace concluded
left the substantial advantage with the Parthians, as
Tigranes, the nominee of Nero, had to renounce the crown
of Armenia ; but it saved the honour of Rome, inasmuch
as Tiridates, the brother of the king of Parthia, had to ac-
knowledge that he received that crown as a gift of the
Roman emperor. The intercourse between the Roman
commander and the Parthian king enabled the former to
dive into the secret thoughts and desires of the latter.
Corbulo therefore offered to Vologeses the alliance of Rome,
as a means not only of preserving amity and peace between
the two empires, but as the most efficient support which
the king of Parthia could obtain against the fickle and re-
bellious disposition of his own subjects. Vologeses entered
fully into Corbulo's views, and thenceforth remained deaf
to every appeal. When, a few years later, the power of
400 POST-BIBLICAL HISTOKY OF THE JEWS.
Rome tottered throughout the East — "when the insurrection
in Judea gave occupation to sixty thousand Roman vete-
rans, while Gauls, Britons, and Spaniards rose in the West,
and the crown of the Ccesars, fallen from the head of the
tyrant Nero, was disposed of in rapid succession by con-
tending armies — during the whole of these stirring times
Vologeses and his mighty empire took no part in the ge-
neral movement. And when, after the death of Nero,
ambassadors from Parthia arrived in Rome to renew the
alliance, they were specially instructed to demand that
the memory of that odious emperor should be restored to
all honour.
But this feeling of the Parthian monarch in favour of
Rome was not generally known, while the wound inflicted
on the prestige of Roman supremacy by the events of the
war, as well as by the peace which gave Armenia to a Par-
thian, was felt far and near, but nowhere more strongly
than in Judea. In that country — where the mal-adminis-
tration of Felix and Festus, of Albinus and Florus, kept
the public mind in a state of continual ferment — the dis-
grace of Petus, the success of the Parthians, were hailed
with demonstrations of joy but ill concealed. The Zealots
became bolder in their enterprises, and on every occasion
reminded the people that the Parthians had been the
ancient allies of Judea against Rome, and would be
glad again to become such. When peace was concluded,
the general opinion was that Vologeses would not rest
satisfied with the advantages he had already obtained ;
that the peace was therefore only a truce. When the
fears of the tyrant Nero caused Corbulo to be put to death,
the report spread that he had outstepped his powers, that
Rome repudiated the peace he had concluded, and that the
war was about to recommence. In either case the Par-
thians were considered as the certain allies and auxiliaries
of Judea. Monbaz 11., King of Adiabene, who Avith his
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 401
brothers had greatly contributed to the capitulation of
Petus, professed the Jewish religion, and was looked upon
as sure to afford assistance. His influence with Vologeses
was exaggerated, and his kinsmen were known to be
friendly to the Zealots and their cause.
Josephus relates (Antiq., lib. xx. cap. 8) that in the midst
of this public agitation the building of the temple, that for
many years had been carried on, was completed, and
eighteen thousand hands, that till then had been paid
every week with great regularity, were at once thrown out
of work. The Sanhedrin, apprehensive that this multitude
— idle and therefore dissatisfied — might cause some public
disturbance, proposed to King Agrippa to take down, and
then rebuild, an ancient gallery adjoining the temple,
which was in a dilapidated condition. But the magnitude
of the work, (the gallery in question was a stately structure
of considerable extent, and four hundred cubits high,) and
the consequent expense, seem to have alarmed the king, so
that he refused to consent, under the pretext that, as this
gallery was connected with the fortifications of the temple-
mount, the Romans would not permit its being rebuilt.
By way of compromise, he proposed to employ the idle
hands on the work of paving Jerusalem with white flag-
stones. This measure did not meet with the full concur-
rence of the Sanhedrin, and could only be partially carried
out, so that but a small portion of the workmen found em-
ployment. The far greater number, rendered desperate
by the fear of starvation, joined the bands of Zealots that
infested the open country, and whose enterprises this great
accession of numbers rendered more formidable than ever.
The collision between the oppressive arrogance and ra-
pacity of Rome and the popular indignation of down-
trodden Judea, which it had taken all the skill and pru-
dence of the Sanhedrin to avert, became inevitable when
Gessius Florus was appointed to govern Judea. Josephus
o4*
402 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OP THE JEWS.
seems at a loss for words strong or bad enough to describe
the horrid character and monstrous proceedings of this
ruffian, who was even in league with the banditti, and whom
the Jews looked upon as a robber and assassin come to
plunder and butcher, rather than as a magistrate sent to
govern them. The ^governor of Syria, Cestius Gallus, hap-
pened to visit Jerusalem during the passover of the year
66, and was besought by the Judeans from all parts of the
country to pity their wretched condition, and to remove a
tyrannous officer, whose cruel administration was the ruin
of their prosperity. Florus, who was present when these
complaints were preferred against him, laughed, and made
a jest of them ; and the governor Gallus, a weak-minded
man, contented himself with assuring the Jews that Florus
should behave better for the future, a promise which pro-
voked the derision of that truculent procurator. The
Jews, finding that all redress was denied to them, grew
desperate. The Zealots, who watched the signs of the
times, saw that the moment for decision and united action
was come, and prepared to take advantage of the very next
outbreak of popular indignation. Nor did the injustice
of Rome leave them long to wait for the desired occasion.
Cesarea had been built by Herod the Great, the cost
having been defrayed by the Jews, and the ground on which
it stood having from time immemorial belonged to Judea.
The Jews, therefore, claimed the city as their own. But
the Syro-Greeks, whom Herod had located in Cesarea,
contended that this city was to be considered as Grecian, in
proof of which they pointed to the temples and images,
which were not found in any Jewish city; and on the
strength of this plea they excluded the Jews from the
rights of citizenship and all participation in the municipal
government. The dispute had caused a lawsuit, which
was carried before the emperor Nero, at Rome. A large
bribe induced the imperial tribunal to decide in favour of
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 403
the Syro-Greeks, and to decree that in a city built on their
ground, and for their money, by their king, the Jews were
thenceforth to be, not citizens, but aliens, residing there
by sufferance, without any rights whatever. When this
iniquitous decision became known at Jerusalem, it caused
great excitement ; and fierce debates arose between those
Jews who wished to attack and expel the Romans and
those who dreaded their vengeance and therefore recom-
mended submission and peace at any price. In the midst
of these contentions, the procurator Florus visited Jerusa-
lem, (66 c. E.,) and finding that the majority of the populace
indulged in cries hostile to Rome and its domination, he de-
termined to make the most of the opportunity. Accord-
ingly, he ordered his legionaries to attack and plunder the
great market, and three thousand five hundred Jews were
slaughtered. But the patience of that people had reached
its utmost limits. Pursued by the ferocious soldiers,
trampled down by the horses, and cut down by the riders,
the populace made a stand, and faced their assailants. The
events of the three days of July, 1830, in Paris, were a
repetition of what occurred in Jerusalem. Pent up within
the narrow streets of that city, attacked in front and rear
by an exasperated multitude, overwhelmed by stones and
heavy pieces of furniture thrown on them from the house-
tops, the Roman troops suffered immensely, and had the
greatest difficulty in fighting their way through the dense
and furious crowds that beset them. Florus, too cowardly
to confront the tempest he had raised, fled from Jerusalem
to Cesarea, leaving the Roman garrison in a most perilous
situation, and sending messenger after messenger to Ces-
tius Gallus, the governor of Syria, to implore speedy as-
sistance.
The utmost agitation prevailed in Jerusalem. The San-
hedrin and chief-priests, in mourning garments, implored
the people not to provoke the resentment of irresistible
404 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEW^.
Rome. King Agrippa II. — accompanied by his sister
Berenice, who was become very popular, having greatly
though unsuccessfully exerted herself with the brutal
riorus to prevent or to stop the slaughter of the people —
addressed the multitude, and was patiently listened to
when he spoke of -paying the usual tribute to Rome, and
until he proposed that a deputation be sent to Cesarea to
make submission to the procurator and invite his return to
Jerusalem. Popular indignation burst forth with a violence
which nothing could restrain. Agrippa and his attendants
were driven from the city. Menahem, a grandson of Judah
the Galilean, and hereditary chief of the Zealots, stormed
the strong fortress Antonia, put the Roman garrison to the
sword, and obtained an immense supply of arms, which he
distributed among his followers ; whilst Eleazar, the son
of Ananias the high-priest, another leader of the Zealots,
caused the sacrifices for the prosperity of the emperor to
be withheld,^* which was tantamount to a formal declara-
^-i The Talmud (tr. Gittin, fo. 55, b) ascribes the refusal to offer sacri-
fice for the emperor to one R' Zachariah ben Abikulos, and that, though
construed as a declaration of war and rebellion, it was not intended to be
such. The legend relates that a wealthy citizen of Jerusalem, whose name
is not given, had an intimate friend, named Kamza, and a mortal enemy,
named Bar-Kamza. On the occasion of some family-rejoicing, this un-
named citizen invited all the elite of Jerusalem to a banquet; but the
messenger who carried out the invitations made a mistake, and called on
Bar-Kamza instead of on Kamza. When the guests assembled, Bar-Kamza,
who had accepted the invitation as a token of reconciliation offered by his
adversary, also presented himself, and entered the hall where the members
of the Sanhedrin were already seated. The master of the feast, however,
no sooner saw his enemy than he ordered the waiters to turn him out.
Bar-Kamza in vain remonstrated, and pleaded that he had come because he
had been invited ; he offered to bear half or even the whole of the expense
of the banquet, rather than publicly be put to shame before the chief men
of Jerusalem. But the master of the feast remained implacable, and drove
him out with great insult. During this altercation the Rabbins present
hid remained silent, and had not attempted to interfere in any way to
THE ROJIANS IN JUDEA. 405
tlon of war. The other fortified posts at Jerusalem held
by the Romans were in succession taken by the Jews, and
the main body of the garrison so closely pent up in the
castle that at length they were obliged to capitulate, on the
solemn assurance that their lives should be spared. But
this garrison was composed of the legion from Cesarea, that
had so long exasperated the people of Jerusalem. Not a
man among that legion but was known as a blasphemer, a
robber, a murderer, a ravisher, — and they were now to
march ofl" unpunished ! Great was the rage of the mob ;
the Zealots, ready as ever for slaughter, took the lead, and
as soon as the unfortunate garrison marched out from the
citadel, the populace rushed upon them and destroyed
them to a man, to the great grief and indignation of the
well-intentioned, who in this foul act of perjury and mur-
der beheld a presage of the ruin of Judea. Alarmed in the
highest degree at finding the populace so utterly ungo-
vernable, the chief priests and Sanhedrin sent a de-
putation to the governor of Syria to hasten his arrival.
This fact became known, and the rage of the mob was di-
rected against the magnates of Jerusalem. They fled; but
intercede for Bar-Kamza, who in his rage looked upon their non-interven-
tion as a tacit sanction of the indignities to which in their presence he had
been exposed. Burning for revenge against them all, he denounced them
as rebels against Caesar. When asked for proofs of their rebellion, he
asserted that they refused to sacrifice for the prosperity of the emperor.
To bring this assertion to the test, a three-year-old calf was sent to the
temple, with directions to ofi"er it for the welfare of the emperor. On the
road to the temple Bar-Kamza contrived to give the calf a scratch on the
lip or in the eye, and thus to inflict a blemish, which, though slight and
not recognised as fatal by the Roman pontiffs, still under the Levitical Law
disqualified the animal fi-om being offered. (Levit. xxii. 20, 22-25.) The
Rabbins, however, out of respect to the emperor, were willing to ofi"er
the animal, though blemished : but R' Zachariah ben Abikulos succeeded
in having it rejected and sent back, lest it should establish a precedent for
bringing offerings of faulty animals.
406 rOST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
two of the chief men, Ananias, the high-priest, and his
hrother Ilezckiah, together with several members of the
SaiiheJrin, and some of their friends, were discovered con-
cealed in an aqueduct, carried before Menahem, and by his
orders at once put to death; and the palaces of King
Agrippa, of the high-priest, of public records, in which all
bonds for debts were filed, and several other public buildings
and private mansions, 'were destroyed by fire. But all these
deeds of violence, committed with so high a hand by the
Zealots, wrought a reaction in the minds of the citizens of
Jerusalem. Eleazar, a son of the murdered high-priest,
and himself a chief of the Zealots, accused Menahem of
tyranny. He, with his lieutenant, Absalon, and several
of his leading adherents, were tried, condemned, and
executed.
While these struggles and slaughters took place in Je-
rusalem, the rest of Judea likewise beheld sanguinary con-
flicts between the Jews and the Romans, and their auxiliaries
the Syro-Greeks. At Cesarea, to which city the procurator
Florus had fled from Jerusalem, he excited the non-
Israelite population suddenly to fall upon and exterminate
the Jews, of whom twenty thousand are said to have perished.
At Ptoleraais, two thousand were slain in a wild riot.
Scythopolis was besieged by the insurgent Jews ; those
resident in the city came forward and ofi"ered to assist in
the defence. Until then the most perfect good feeling had
for centuries subsisted between all the inhabitants of that
city. But the ruthless spirit of discord also infested the
Scythopolians, and thirteen thousand Jews fell victims to
the suspicion and rage of their fellow-citizens. At Alex-
andria, in Egypt, a collision at a public meeting, at which
some Jews were insulted, led to a fearful conflict, in which
the Jews, victorious over the populace, invested the amphi-
theatre, with the intention of burning it down, but were in
their turn attacked and slaughtered by the Roman garrison
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 407
under Tiberius Alexander, himself an apostate Jew. Fifty
thousand Jevr'S are said to have lost their lives during the
tumult, in which their houses were plundered and property
to an immense amount destroyed. The pages of Jose-
phus (Bell. Jud., lib. ii.) are filled with particulars of the
war of extermination that raged throughout the provinces
adjoining Judea, and of the horrid retaliation which the
Jews inflicted on their enemies wherever they proved the
stronger party.
At length Cestius Gallus had completed his tardy pre-
parations, and entered Judea at the head of an army of
Romans and auxiliaries, numbering nearly thirty thousand
combatants, of whom full five thousand were horse. He
was accompanied by King Agrippa, who had joined him
with one thousand foot and three thousand horse. The
aristocrats of Jerusalem, who had invited and even urged
his coming, expected that he would act as a pacificator, and
that, while he crushed the furious Zealots, he would protect
the peaceably disposed population. But they were mis-
taken. On his march Cestius Gallus burned towns and vil-
lages, and slaughtered every Jew he met with, until he
reached Gibeon, about seven miles south of Jerusalem,
where he encamped. The tidings of his approach, and of
the bloodshed and devastation that marked his road, reached
the metropolis during the festival of Tabernacles, at which
the greater part of the male population of Judea were as-
sembled for worship at the temple. But so exasperated
did the people become at the intelligence, that, though it
arrived on a Sabbath, neither the sanctity of the day or
of the festival could deter them, but, taking up arms, they
sallied forth, and at once attacked the Romans. Such
was the fury and success of their onslaught, that the first
ranks of the legionaries were broken, the entire body of
foot began to give way, and would have been routed, if it
had not been for the succour afforded by the large body of
408 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
horse, whose threatened charge compelled the Jews to de-
sist from pursuing the advantage they had already ob-
tained. As it was, more than five hundred Romans were
slain in this first encounter, while the Jews only lost
twenty-two men. (Jos., Bell. Jud., lib. ii., cap. 20, et seq.)
Throughout the whole of this war, the want of cavalry
was severely felt by the Jews. Unlike the Parthians and
Arabs, who chiefly fought on horseback, the Jewish peo-
ple, from the rocky nature of their country, possessed but
few horses; and it was only when their kings purchased
these animals from the adjoining countries that the Jews
could bring any considerable bodies of cavalry into the
field ; whereas, in the insurrections of the people and their
risings against foreign oppressors, the Hebrews had to
take the field destitute of that powerful arm. As foot-
soldiers, however, and in equal numbers, they were second
to no troops in the world for steadiness of resistance when
on the defensive, or for ardour and dash when attacking.
This justice is rendered to them by one of the most com-
petent and justly renowned writers on the military tactics
of the ancients, who says : " For a length of time, the He-
brews only had infantry, which indeed always constituted
the main strength of their armies. The solidity of these
foot-soldiers was admirable, and their intrepidity such, that
they never hesitated to attack cavalry, however advan-
tageously it might be posted. And, what is indeed sur-
prising, this infantry never degenerated, from the days of
Moses till the destruction of Jerusalem." (Chevalier
Folard, Dissertation sur la tactique des Hehreux, p. 3,
Commentaire sur Polyhe, passim.)
The ravages which Gallus liad committed in his march
to Jerusalem had exasperated the entire people. The dis-
comfiture which his legionaries sustained gave boldness to
those Judeans who had not yet taken up arms against him.
Everywhere the people rose and occupied the principal
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 409
passes on his line of retreat. He himself had found it ne-
cessary to undertake a retrograde movement toward the
town of Bethoron, as his first position Avas too near Jeru-
salem to be safe from sudden attack. This movement,
however, had not been executed without considerable loss.
His rear-guard was attacked by the Jews, led on by Simon
ben Gioras, who subsequently became the first of their
chiefs. He put a number of Romans to the sword, and
captured several wagons loaded with baggage and muni-
tion, which were carried in triumph to Jerusalem. So
perplexed did Cestius Gallus become, that, unable to de-
cide on advance or retreat, he remained three days sta-
tionary at Bethoron, in deep consultation as to the best
means of extricating the Romans from the hornets' nest
his cruelties had roused around him. He had already
made up his mind to retreat, when emissaries reached him
from the leading aristocrats in Jerusalem, who had sum-
moned his aid, assuring him that the inhabitants of that
city were disgusted with the excesses of the Zealots ; that a
reaction was preparing, and that, if he presented himself
boldly, the partisans of Rome within the city would rise
and insure his success. King Agrippa, willing to parti-
cipate in the pacification of Judea, despatched two of his
principal officers, Phoebus and Burcoeus, to ofier an am-
nesty and perfect oblivion of the past, provided the peo-
ple would at once submit. But the leaders of the insur-
rection refused to listen to their proposals. And when
the two emissaries, who were both well known and popular
in Jerusalem, proceeded to address the citizens, the Zealots
let fly a shower of arrows at them, which killed Phoebus
on the spot, while Burcoeus, covered with wounds, had
great difficulty in escaping with life.
The partisans of Rome were not slow in taking advan-
tage of the popular indignation called forth by the murder
of Phoebus. A violent dissension broke out in the ranks
Vol. II. 35
410 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
of the Jews, and when Ccstius Galhis advanced, their con-
fusion was such that they rapidly retreated witliin the pre-
cincts of the temple, and left Gallus in possession of the
outer city. To this portion of Jerusalem he set fire, and,
taking up his own quarters in the royal palace, he prepared
to besiege the temple-mount. But the sight of a part of
Jerusalem in flames had at once reconciled the Jews.
The reaction promised by the partisans of Rome did not
take place. On the contrary, citizens and provincials vied
with each other in presenting a bold front to the besiegers.
The agents of the unsuccessful reactionary party did not
escape the resentment of their enraged countrymen, but
were compelled to jump over the ramparts ; and the Roman
general, conscious that, without support from within, his
force was inadequate to the reduction of Jerusalem, once
more resolved on a retreat. He has been blamed for
not having persisted in his attacks, and for not having
urged on the siege with greater vigour. Even Josephus
seems to share the opinion of the partisans of Rome
within the city, that if Gallus had been more energetic
and persevering, he would have been sure of success. Now
there can be no doubt but that Cestius Gallus was de-
ficient of that bold, resolute presence of mind which
characterized the military leaders of Rome. Still, it can-
not be denied that his position was most precarious ; that
each day passed before Jerusalem augmented the danger
of his stock of provisions becoming exhausted without any
possibility of supply ; and that the retreat which after a five
days' siege he found so diflScult might, after a delay of ten
days before or in Jerusalem, have proved utterly impracti-
cable. From the 30th of October until the 4th of November
Cestus assaulted Jerusalem, but, finding every attempt to
take the temple-mount unsuccessful, the baffled eagles were
compelled to relax their hold on the doomed city^ and to
withdraw from before her, and indeed from nearly all Judea.
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. " 411
The Zealots and their adherents no sooner beheld the re-
treat of the Roman, than they prepared to pursue and at-
tack him. Their leaders, during the investment of Jerusa-
lem, had evinced great ability. Foremost among them,
both on account of their military experience and of their
great influence with the people, were the two Parthian
princes Cenedseus and Monobazes, nephews of the reign-
ing king of Adiabene. Eleazar the son of Ananias the
high-priest, and another Eleazar the son of Simon, ranked
high in public estimation ; and Simon the son of Gioras
vied with them in courage and military enterprise. Other
chiefs, Silas, formerly general in the service of King
Agrippa, and Niger, " the bravest of the brave," greatly
distinguished themselves, and either pressed on the retreat-
ing columns of the Romans with destructive zeal, or checked
their advance by incessant attacks on their front and flanks.
The Romans, beset in all directions, sent forth shrill shrieks
of grief and despair, which were responded to with joyous
shouts by the eager Jews.
The army of Gallus was in imminent danger of being
totally destroyed, and was saved only by a stratagem, and
with great loss. Marching and fighting, and acquiring
every step of their advance at the price of blood, the Ro-
mans with great difiiculty regained their former camp at
Bethoron. Here their general determined to sacrifice a
portion of his forces to save the remainder. He therefore
stationed an unusually large number of sentinels around
his camp, with orders ostentatiously and loudly to repeat
and continue their signals until the Jews should discover
the stratagem. Then, taking advantage of the dense ob-
scurity of the night, he led forth his troops, who, carefully
avoiding the least noise, passed through the diflUcult and
dangerous defiles of Bethoron without being discovered or
molested. But the Romans had to abandon all their bag-
gage, battering train, and provisions, as well as their rear-
412 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
guard, "wliicli, to the number of four hundred, had to be left
in the camp. With the return of daylight the Jews dis-
covered the flight of Gallus, and, after taking possession
of his camp and all that it contained, continued their pur-
suit of the retreating Romans, which did not cease till
Cestius reached the strong city of Antipatris, twelve leagues
from Jerusalem. The loss of the Romans during this re-
treat— which nothing but their numerous cavalry saved
from degenerating into a flight — exceeded six thousand
combatants, and among them several superior officers of
distinction ; and Suetonius (in Vespasian, § iv.) tells us that
the legions sustained another loss, most painful to their feel-
ings of military honour ; an Eagle (Roman standard) was cap-
tured by the Jews. The survivors of this carnage, dispirited
and mutinous, imputed their disgrace to the incompetency
of their leader; and Cestius Gallus himself was so overcome
by his disaster, that he fell sick and died shortly after his
repulse from before Jerusalem.
The triumphant return of the Jewish insurgents was
hailed with tumultuous joy by the populace, but with sur-
prise and apprehension by the upper classes, as well as by
the peace-loving bourgeoisie. There existed at that time, in
Jerusalem and throughout Judea, three distinct parties,
which, indeed, are to be met with in every age and country
at the commencement of violent popular commotions.
There was, first, a party of conservatives, not numerous, but
very influential, composed of those who have every thing to
lose and nothing to gain by a revolution. Then the party
of destructives, numerous, but not yet very influential, who
have nothing to lose but every thing to gain by a decided
change in public aflFairs. Between these two extremes the
mass of the people fluctuate ; submissive from habit to the
conservatives, but liable to be carried away by the energy
of the destructives. In Jerusalem the conservative party
was formed by the leading senatorial and sacerdotal fami-
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 413
lies, adherents of Rome ; the citizens generally and the
better class of provincials being their chief supporters.
The party of destructives was identified with the Zealots
and supported by the masses throughout the provinces.
These two parties viewed each other with intense hatred,
which, on the part of the conservatives, was strengthened
by fear, as the Zealots preached the reign of perfect equal-
ity and community of possessions. It was in self-defence
that the privileged conservatives had urged on the invasion
of Cestius Gallus. Some of their most distinguished chiefs
leading members of the Sanhedrin, and Ananias, the
high-priest — had already, with several others, been put to
death by the Zealots under their hereditary leader, Menah-
hem. And though Eleazar — himself a Zealot chief, but also
a son of the murdered pontiff — had taken advantage of a re-
vulsion of public feeling, and had brought Menahhem to
justice — he being the fourth generation of the turbulent
family of Hezekiah, who, in lineal succession, had met with
an untimely and violent end — still, the avenger himself was
eyed with scarcely less fear and suspicion by the magnates
of Jerusalem than Menahhem had been. The victory over
Cestius Gallus had entirely confounded the hopes of the
conservatives, who did not think it within the scope of pro-
bability that the half-armed, disorderly rabble that defended
the precincts of the temple-mount would be able to resist
a Roman army ; and when that army had been repulsed,
these conservatives could not bring themselves to believe
in the possibility of a host of thirty thousand veteran Ro-
mans being forced under any circumstances to succumb to
an infuriated populace. Up to the last moment the leaders
of this party kept up their negotiations with Gessius Florus,
the expelled procurator of Judea ; and when the triumph
of the insurgents was placed beyond a doubt, these conser-
vatives, even the most patriotic among them and those least
35*
414 POPT-BIBLICAL HISTOIIY OF THE JEWS.
compromiscfl by tlioir partisanship for Rome, were placed
in a most painful situation.
On the one hand, the furious Zealots, mad with success,
threatening instant destruction to whosoever should counsel
peace or submission. On the other hand, the irresistible
power of Rome, roused and irritated, but not at all weak-
ened, by the discomfiture of Gallus, breathing vengeance,
and certain, in all human probability, to overwhelm Judea.
Between these implacable enemies, the war, if continued,
must become one of extermination. For nothing short of
the absolute independence of Judea would satisfy the Zea-
lots ; nothing short of the destruction of that association,
even to its last member, could secure the submission of
Judea, and disarm the Romans. One means of salvation
alone seemed to remain ; and that was to gain the confi-
dence of the people so as to obtain the supreme direction
of public affairs, and then to raise an army having at its
head trustworthy officers, and sufficiently strong to suppress
the faction of the Zealots, while at the same time it gave
weight to the negotiations for amnesty and peace to be
carried on with Rome.
The brief interval between the arrival of the news an-
nouncing the defeat of Cestius Gallus, and the return to
Jerusalem of the victorious insurgents, was ably employed
by the chiefs of the conservatives in rallying their partisans
and enlisting the citizens of Jerusalem in their support.
These citizens had seen with alarm and disgust a rude mob
of Galileans, Idumeans, and other rustics, assume dominion
over the holy city, and not only violate the sanctity of
oaths, at all times held so high by the Jews, in the slaugh-
ter of the Roman garrison that had surrendered on the
faith of a solemn treaty and assurance of safety, but also,
in their blind rage, shed the blood of the most illustrious
chiefs of the Sanhedrin and of the priesthood. That mob
was now again marching on Jerusalem in all the arrogance
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 415
of success ; and unless the power was taken out of the hands
of the Zealots, there was nothing to prevent their carrying
out their destructive and levelling principles so as to re-
duce the people to general poverty ; while at the same time
they gave to the war against Rome a character of ferocity
that would render impossible any future reconciliation.
To prevent these evils, the citizens determined to make
common cause with the conservatives, and were joined by
many of the leading provincials. The victors were received
with every demonstration of joy ; a national convention met
in the galleries of the temple, to which the chiefs of the in-
sui'gents were summoned. But such members of the San-
hedrin as had not perished or fled to the Romans took
their seats as of right in the convention, to which several
leading citizens and provincials had been invited. The
consequence was that the conservatives commanded an
overwhelming majority, which enabled them to take into
their hands the entire control of public affairs, and to in-
trust every office of importance to their own partisans. A
supreme council of government was elected, which was to
have its seat in Jerusalem, and to direct the internal ad-
ministration, and the conducting of the war. At the head
of this council were placed Joseph the son of Gorion, and
the aged priest Ananus, (who must not be confounded with
the Sadducee high-priest of the same name, of whom we
have already spoken as raised to office by King Agrippa,
and become unpopular by his rigid administration of the
criminal laws.) Of these two men Ananus represented the
directing power of mind, and Joseph the subordinate and
executive power of the sword.
Ananus is described by Josephus (Bell. Judaic, lib. iv.,
cap. 5) as "A most just and venerable man, whose high birth
and dignity derived a fresh lustre from his affability and a
meekness that put him on a level with the most lowly. He
was an ardent lover of liberty, and an admirer of repub-
416 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
lican government. He valued peace exceedingly, and felt
convinced that Judea must j)erish unless some favourable
arrangement could be entered into with Rome. Had he
lived, the war would have terminated by compromise and
mutual arrangement ; for under such a leader the Jews
would have given the Romans so much trouble that the lat-
ter would have been induced to grant reasonable terms."
This character, as given by Joscphus, is all the more re-
markable since it proves that among the conservatives of
Judea there were men who sincerely loved their country,
and who, while they justly appreciated the danger and dif-
ficulties of a contest against Rome, did not despair of so
conducting that contest as eventually to save the national
honour and welfare of Judea ; even though peace with and
submission to Rome were the ends they aimed at. Such
men there were not a few among the conservatives, though
it cannot be denied that among that party there was a nu-
merous and influential section that were so intimately con-
nected with Rome as to value the favour of the emperor
much higher than the welfare or even the existence of their
people. The members of the council of defence were chosen
from among these two sections of conservatives. The
Zealots and their adherents were not elected. Indeed, so
complete was their exclusion, that of the three chiefs who
subsequently assumed and held the supreme command — Si-
mon the son of Gioras, Jochanon the son of Levias of
Giscala, and Eleazar the son of Simon, — not one obtained
a seat in the council, or any office of trust.
The whole of Judea, with the adjacent provinces of Gali-
lee, Idumea, and Perea across the Jordan, were divided into
seven districts, to each of which a commander-in-chief was
appointed. Surrounded by these districts, and covered by
them, Jerusalem, with its temple, the seat of the chief go-
vernment, formed the centre of resistance, for the defence
of which each district offered numerous fortifications and
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 417
strong positions. To the north, which was most exposed
to a Roman invasion, four of these armed districts, with
their commanders, protected the metropolis ; while one to
the east, one to the west, and one to the south, were
deemed sufficient.
Unfortunately, the frontier, especially to the north,
could not be closed, as many frontier districts were in-
habited by Syro-Greeks, and other non-Israelites, who
had been located there by the insidious policy of Herod
the Great, as natural rivals and enemies of the Jews. All
these colonists took part with Rome ; while the cities, gar-
risoned by Romans, were so many hostile strongholds, not
only on the frontiers, but in the very heart of the land,
that required constant vigilance, and a continual division
and subdivision of the Jewish forces.
The most important of these districts and military com-
mands— that which would have to bear the first brunt of
the war, and which in itself possessed the most formidable
means of resisting the weight of the Roman arms — was the
wealthy and populous province of Galilee, the chief command
in which had been intrusted to Joseph the son of Matthias,
the Oohen or priest. This man, subsequently so celebrated
as JosEPHUS THE HISTORIAN, and whose public life exercised
so pernicious an influence on the fortunes of Judea, was
barely thirty years of age when his distinguished abilities
and noble birth caused the supreme council to intrust to
dim the most important of the seven military command-
ments. Josephus boasted of his maternal descent from
the Asmoneans, while his paternal ancestors had held the
highest sacerdotal dignities. His father Matthias, then
about sixty years of age, resided in Jerusalem, and his
mother subsequently became obnoxious to the people, who
accused her of acting as a Roman spy.
Josephus has written an elaborate autobiography, in
which every event of his life is carefully related, and placed
418 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
in that point of view which he thinks the most favourable
to his own reputation. By comparing this autobiography
with his history of "the wars in Judea," which, properly
speaking, is the history of his own times, and both of
which have reached posterity, we are enabled to arrive at
something like a correct appreciation of his character and
conduct. The history, which was written twenty years
before the biography, labours hard to represent Josephus
such as he wished to appear to the Judeans, namely, as a
true-hearted patriot, who had fought and suffered for his
country. The autobiography — which he was driven to
l^ublish in self-defence, and when the accusations and re-
criminations of Justus of Tiberias and others had exposed
his ambiguous and unprincipled machinations during his
public life — represents Josephus such as he wished to ap-
pear to the Romans, namely, as their devoted friend and
active partisan, whose policy and self-sacrifice had greatly
facilitated their success and the subjugation of Judea.
Monsieur Salvador, (Domination Romaine, vol. ii., c. 8, et
passim) taxes Josephus with deliberate treason against
Judea, and maintains that he only accepted the command
in order to paralyze the defence and to ruin the cause of
his country. We can hardly subscribe to this harsh judg-
ment, though it cannot be denied that, whatever may have
been the motives and plans of Josephus, his double-dealing
and selfishness helped to destroy Jerusalem. But it ap-
pears to us that Josephus's great fault was a want of fixed
principles and firmness of character. He was extremely
selfish, but vain rather than ambitious, and, with the weak-
ness inseparable from vanity, he was continually shifting
and changing his purpose ; trying to stand well with the
Jews and also with the Romans, frittering away time that
was most valuable, and means that ought to have been
altogether devoted to the defence of his country, in the
pursuit of objects altogether personal to himself, and thus
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 419
losing siglit of Rome and its vast preparations, in order to
maintain himself against the rivalry of Jochanon, the son
of Levias of Giscala. We doubt whether Josephus was a
traitor of set and deliberate purpose, but we are certain he
was not an upright, single-minded man, and that — great as
were his abilities as a speaker and a writer, a soldier and
a statesman — still, in patriotism, honesty, bravery, and en-
terprise, he was greatly excelled by most of his colleagues.
Among them the first rank is due to Eleazar, the son of
the high-priest Ananias, who commanded in the southern
district of Idumea ; and John the Essenian, who was
charged with the defence of Thamna, the western district
extending along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The
fact that this John was an Essenian — a sect so strongly
averse to strife and bloodshed — proves how general must
have been the exasperation against Rome, how intense and
universal the determination to resent the oppressive rapa-
city of her representatives.
While the Judeans were making these preparations,
Rome was not idle. The tidings that Cestius Gallus had
been defeated reached the emperor Nero in the beginning
of December, Q6, at Athens, where he was sojourning at
the time, and where he gloried in exhibiting before those
great masters of the arts, the Greeks, his own personal
talents as a chariot-driver, musician, actor, and versifier.
To obtain the applause of Athenians was the reward of his
performances of which he was most ambitious ; but, irksome
as he thought it, his private affairs were obliged, for a
brief space, to yield to the duties and cares of empire.
Judea in open rebellion was an object of terror to super-
stitious Rome, where a prediction was hawked about that
from Judea should come forth men who were to obtain
dominion over the Roman empire. Accordingly, as Sue-
tonius relates, (in Vespasian, § iv.,) the subjugation of
Judea called for a powerful army and an able general.
420 rOST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
The peace which, two years before, had terminated the war
against the Parthians, had, like the war itself, been neither
glorious nor advantageous to Rome, and greatly injui'ed
the prestige of her power and the terror of her arms. And
though Vologeses, King of Parthia, for reasons which we
have already related, appeared sincere in his alliance with
Rome, it was to be feared that the great feudatories of the
Parthian empire, no longer restrained by their dread of
Corbulo, might, in spite of their king, take part with the
Judeans. Some of these feudatories, Jews by religion, had
already drawn the sword against Rome, and encouraged
the Jews by loudly promising them help from beyond the
Euphrates. But while thus the rebellion in Judea, sup-
ported or not by Parthian succour, rendered it necessary
to intrust great power to the commander of the East, the
suspicions of Nero, so fatal to the great Corbulo, did not
permit the emperor to select for that command any man
of weight in the empire or of recognised political ability.
It was necessary to find a general sufficiently skilful in
war to fight and conquer for the emperor, but so power-
less in peace, so void of the influence arising from high
birth and high fame, as not to excite the jealousy of Nero.
Such a man happened just then to be in attendance on the
emperor at Athens.
Flavins Vespasianus was the younger son of Flavins Sa-
binus, a tax-gatherer and usurer, and the grandson of a
centurion who had fled from the battle of Pharsalia. His
mother, however, was more respectably connected. From
her he took his name, Vespasianus, and her brother was
a senator. Young Vespasian began his career in arms in
Thrace, and soon became distinguished for his bravery and
militar}^ abilities. He speedily rose to the rank of tribune
or commander of a legion, and successively held the ofiice
of questor (receiver and paymaster-general) in the island
of Crete and in the province of Cyrene. According to
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 421
the institutions and usages of Rome, civil and military
offices were so blended, that, in order to rise to eminence,
it was necessary a man should pass through the regular
gradation of both. And as these civil offices were held
only for one year, the institution served to train a multi-
tude of placemen, qualified to take office in various parts
of the great Roman empire. On his return from Cyrene,
Vespasian with great difficulty obtained the office of edile
or police-magistrate in the city of Rome. The next step
on the ladder of promotion — that of prcetor, or superior
judge — he found it still more difficult to attain. He stood
six years successively for the office before he could obtain
it. ». The opposition to his appointment arose from the
senate, and was caused by a want of respectability in his
private life. He had married a woman of no reputation,
who Avas known to have lived in a state of concubinaoje
with a Roman knight. It had even been said that she
was not freeborn ; and as no bondwoman or alien could,
according to the laws of Rome, contract a valid marriage,
Flavia Domitilla, previous to her marriage with Vespasian,
in order to prove her birth and citizenship, had to be
claimed before the judges by her father. Flavins Liberalis,
who held no higher rank than that of clerk to a questor
or city receiver. The name of the Flavian, which sub-
sequently distinguished the imperial dynasty of Ves-
pasian, was thus derived from his wife as well as from his
father.
This unbecoming marriage provoked the indignation of
the Senate, of which proud body the office of prcetor would
constitute Vespasian a member, and to which his own low
birth proved no recommendation. Accordingly, year after
year his appointment was frustrated, and the baffled can-
didate for office did not succeed until, by vile adulation to
the favourites of Caligula, and by taking part against the
Senate in the struggle that preceded the recognition of
Vol. II. 36
422 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
Claudius as emperor, he had secured the support of the
freedmen who, in the name of that weak monarch, governed
the Roman world. After the expiration of his year of office
as prretor, Vespasian was appointed to a superior com-
mand in the war of Germany, from whence he was sent, as
the emperor's lieutenant, to Britain, where he fought the
gallant Caractacus, who was subdued and sent prisoner to
Rome. For his British exploits Vespasian obtained the
honours of a triu7nph, was appointed consul and pontifex,
and then sent as governor to the great and wealthy pro-
vince of Africa. Scandal-mongers, instigated by his rivals
for office, asserted that he was detested by the provincials ;
but Suetonius, who is reliable authority, inasmuch as he
does not flatter the Flavians, declares that he conducted
his administration with great integrity, (in Vespas., § iv.)
Certain it is, however, that — notwithstanding the avarice
which formed the great reproach of his character as em-
peror, and contrary to the general practice of Roman go-
vernors, who, after administering the affairs of a province
during a few years, came back Avith immense wealth — Ves-
pasian returned from Africa so poor that not only was he
obliged to mortgage a portion of his small patrimony to his
elder brother. Flavins Sabinus, but also to carry on a traffic
in beasts of burden, which gained for him the nickname of
muleteer, and by no means raised him- in public estimation.
Vespasian, with many other office-hunters, had followed in
the train of Nero to Athens ; and there it was that a few
moments of slumber exposed the veteran, then in his fifty-
seventh year, to a danger greater than any he had encoun-
tered during all his numerous campaigns. For though it
was neither on the battle-field nor in the council-chamber
that sleep had closed his heavy eyelids, that was no pallia-
tion of an offence all the more heinous since it was com-
mitted at a theatrical repi'esentation, and while the most
powerfully tragic of all actors, Nero himself, was perform-
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 423
ing. It required the urgent intercession of some of tlie
emperor's favourite minions to appease his wrath and in-
diornation: and it is doubtful whether that intercession
would have saved Vespasian's life, (Tacit., Annal., lib. xvi.,
§ v.; Sueton., inVespas., § iv.) had not the tidings from
Judea stayed Nero's hand, by causing him to reflect that
this Vespasian was the very man for the occasion — the
most trustworthy, from his abilities and experience, the least
dangerous, from his poverty, low birth, and want of politi-
cal influence or ambition. In this last respect, however,
Nero proved mistaken. For, within three years from Ves-
pasian's appointment to the command in Judea, the high-
born Nero perished miserably, and the ancient and illus-
trious family of the Caesars became extinct ; while Vespasian,
the low-bred muleteer, placed on his own brow the imperial
diadem, and bequeathed it to his two sons successively.
Titus, the eldest of these sons, then about twenty-seven
years old, was with his father at Athens when he was ap-
pointed to the command, and by his direction proceeded to
Alexandria, where he placed himself at the head of two
legions that were carried to Judea by sea ; while Vespasian
himself travelled by land to Ptolemais, where he had fixed
his head-quarters and concentrated all his troops and auxilia-
ries. Here he demoted the first three months of the year 67
to organize his army and to prepare his invasion. The num-
ber of combatants under his command after the junction of
Titus and his two legions was full sixty thousand, exclusive
of the numerous and destructive train of camp-followers that
usually attended a Roman army. Of these, thirty thousand
horse and foot were Roman veterans ; while Herod Agrippa,
King of Northern Palestine or Iturea, Sohemus, King of
Lebanon, and Antiochus, King of Comagene, each furnished
two thousand archers and one thousand horse ; and the king
of the Nabathene Arabs, five thousand foot and one thousand
horse. Formidable as this army was from its numbers, it was
424 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
still more so from the order and discipline which the prac-
tised skill and stern eye of the general had introduced. It is
from the model of this army, and profiting hy the conver-
sations he had with Vespasian and Titus, that Josephus
has drawn that remarkable description of the military or-
ganization and conduct of the Romans which we find in
his history, and which is equal to the best delineation of
the ancients, (compare Joseph., Bell. Judaic, lib. iii., with
Polybius, lib. vi.,) both as to importance of ideas and in-
terest of details ; is, moreover, the guide and instructor
from which later writers have chiefly derived their knowledge
of Roman military organization. For this task no man
could be more competent than Josephus. His patriotism may
be doubtful ; his honesty as a man, and faithfulness as a
historian, may be questioned ; but it is impossible to deny
that he possessed talents of a very high order, and that, as
a general and a statesman, his abilities entitled him to that
respect and favour with which he always was treated by
those excellent judges of merit, Vespasian and Titus.
While these formidable forces assembled at Ptolemais,
on the frontier of the province of Galilee, which Josephus
had been sent to defend, and in which, as he himself relates,
(Bell. Jud., lib. ii., cap. 20,) it was expected he should raise
and organize one hundred thousand fighting men to keep
the field, and should also strengthen the fortifications of
the various towns, it may be interesting to know how he
prepared to meet the imminent danger to which his country
and the province under his command were exposed. The
whole of the winter had been passed in intestine broils and
dissensions. Beyond one body of eight thousand men,
specially attached to his person and in his pay, Josephus
raised no troops. He forbade the Galileans to attack the
Roman garrisons at Sephoris and other important strong-
holds throuirhout his district ; but he did not exert his au-
thority to compel the chiefs of Galilee to live at peace with
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 425
each other and with himself. The council at Jerusalem,
alarmed by his equivocal conduct, sent four commissioners
to dispossess him of his command, and to bring him to Je-
rusalem ; but he raised the standard of rebellion against the
council, took the commissioners prisoners after an obsti-
nate combat; and when Vespasian was ready to commence
operations, Josephus had no army in the field, had added
nothing to the strength of the fortified cities, and the rich
and populous province of Galilee lay before the invaders
with no other means of defence than what the enthusiasm
of the inhabitants, and the situation of some naturally
strong cities, could afford. All this had raised the highest
indignation throughout the whole country, not only against
Josephus, but also against the party which had appointed
him ; an indignation still more heightened by the fact that
his province — the most important, as the most exposed — was
also the only one in which civil dissensions had absorbed the
energies of the people, had wasted the time, and caused the
needful means of defence to be neglected.^^ The example
2° During the winter an attempt was made by John the Essene to sur-
prise Azotus, which miscarried, and in which that commander lost his life.
Another attempt, led on by Niger, also proved a failure, chiefly through
the superiority of the Romans in cavalry. Shortly before the invasion of
Vespasian, the Galileans compelled Josephus, against his own inclination,
to attack Sephoris, the principal Roman stronghold in that district. The
city was taken, and the inhabitants, with the garrison, took refuge in the
citadel. But a panic raised by Josephus himself, by means of a false re-
port that a considerable Roman army had come to the relief of the citadel,
seized on the Jews, and caused them hastily to evacuate Sephoi'is, that they
might not be exposed to a double attack in front and rear. The gari-ison took
advantage of this panic to regain possession of the city, and to close the
gates against the Jews. Vespasian, on hearing of the siege of Sephoris,
despatched Placidus, goveimor of Ptolemais, with a detachment of five
thousand men, to reinforce the besieged. Although Placidus succeeded in
entering Sephoris, Josephus attempted a second attack by escalade, and
obtained possession of a portion of the city wall. But the garrison soon
recovered frorii its first surprise, rallied, and prepared for an obstinate de-
426 rOST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
Josephus had set of resisting the authority of the great
council was not lost upon the party of the Zealots, who once
more prepared to assert their right to take the lead.
In the midst of these agitations Vespasian opened the
campaign, at the head of his well-appointed array, to op-
pose which there was no Jewish force in the field. Hence
the campaign became a succession of sieges, in which each
town, left to its own resources, had to resist the whole
weight of the Roman army. For Vespasian, profiting by
the calamitous experience of Cestius Gallus, determined to
reduce the whole country before he attacked Jerusalem ;
and as he was in no hurry to terminate a war which would
be sure to enrich him, and also to keep him out of the
dreaded presence of Nero, he chalked out to himself a plan
of operations according to which three or four years of
slow but certain progress were to subdue the whole coun-
try. The first town he attacked was Gabara ; but, though
it offered no resistance — being destitute of any Jewish gar-
rison— Vespasian caused all the inhabitants to be slaugh-
tered, the town to be pillaged, and then set on fire. The
same fate was inflicted on the surrounding villages. It is
Josephus who acquaints us with these horrid cruelties of
the Roman general, and it is most instructive to notice the
unconcerned and matter-of-course manner in which Jo-
sephus, writing at Rome, and under the eye of Vespasian
and Titus, speaks of these Roman acts of cruelty and
slaughter, and to contrast it with the pompous and decla-
fence. But, though Josephus relates that he had not yet lost one man, he
deemed it prudent, "as he was not acquainted with the locality," to re-
nounce the enterprise. (Jos., Vit., p. 30, edit. Havercamp.)
During the winter many of the principal inhabitants of Jerusalem and
Judea quitted the country and sought refuge with the Romans. These
fugitives kept up a constant correspondence with their dependants in Ju-
dea, by means of whom they received eai-ly and correct intelligence of
every movement projected by the Jews, while at the same time they dis-
heartened the Judeans with alarming rumours of all kinds.
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 427
matory tirade in ■which he indulges whenever he describes
and condemns the acts of desperation with which his own
countrymen sought to retaliate on their ferocious invaders.
At the very time that the struggle in Judea was commenc-
ing, a similar struggle was raging in Britain. There, like-
wise, the atrocious conduct of Roman governors had driven
the natives to take up arms under Boadicea, the widowed
queen of the Iceni. It is a singular but frightful coinci-
dence, that while the Romans slaughtered thousands of unre-
sisting Jews — aged, infants, women — the Britons should have
burned London, a Roman colony, and put seventy thousand
Roman women, children, and aged men, to the sword ; a
frightful retaliation this, in the far West, for cruelties prac-
tised in the East. But one short campaign, one decisive
battle, tamed the fierceness of the Britons ; while years of
slaughter could not subdue the Jews. The former had not,
and at that time could not have, the enduring perseverance,
resulting from high principle, that sustained the Jews in
the unequal conflict.
The first conquest of Vespasian, Gabara, had been an
easy one ; the next, Jotopatha, cost him more labour and
blood. During forty-five days, Vespasian exhausted all
that the science and valour of Rome could supply of means
of attack. Josephus had cast himself into Jotopatha,
and, once there, he was not permitted to quit that fort-
ress. In vain he tried to persuade the garrison to let
him depart. In vain he promised to raise an army for
their relief. The most valiant leaders of the Galileans had
thrown themselves into Jotopatha, and they were deter-
mined their slippery governor should share their fate. ('Bell.
Jud., lib. iii., cap. 7.) This stronghold was situated on a
high rock, inaccessible on three sides, and strongly forti-
fied on the fourth side and only outlet. But so closely
was the place invested that it was difficult to conceive
how Josephus could leave without either falling into the
428 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
hands of the Romans, or voluntarily joining them. Tho
defence was equally gallant and skilful, and, for a time, suc-
cessful ; while every attack was repulsed and every strata-
gem frustrated by the besieged. Even Vespasian himself
was wounded. The merit Josephus takes altogether to
himself, aa governor; but it is certain he had at his side
those who would take care to support him to the utmost so
long as he did his duty. The only drawback to the strength
of Jotopatha was the want of water. Day by day the
rations became less. The excessive heat at the end of
June, and the want of water, combined with the continued
combats they had to sustain, began to exhaust the garri-
son. An effort to relieve the beleaguered fortress was at-
tempted by the garrison and citizens of Jaffa, but failed.
From prisoners made on this occasion, Vespasian learned
the extreme state of suffering to which the garrison of Joto-
patha was reduced, and therefore determined to turn the
siege into a blockade, with the reasonable expectation of
starving the Jews into a surrender. They still held out,
when a deserter assured Vespasian that an escalade at-
tempted shortly before break of dawn would be crowned
with certain success ; as at that hour the sentinels, overcome
by fatigue, and expecting shortly to be relieved, were no
longer watchful. The treacherous counsel Avas adopted.
The breaches were stormed. The sleeping sentinels were
cut down ; the Romans burst into the town, and the work
of slaughter began. Few, very few of the inhabitants es-
caped. Twelve hundred captives of every age and sex
were spared. Forty thousand were slaughtered.^''
The governor, Josephus, escaped into a cavern, where
^^Csesar, in his Commentaries, (Bell. Gallic, lib. ii., § 29,) relates tho
storming of a stronghold in which the inhabitants of Naraur and Haiuault
Lad sought refuge against the Roman invaders, and which, for its natural
advantages, bears a striking resemblance to Jotopatha ; though the num-
bers who submitted to captinty were very different. The Belgians at
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 429
he found that forty of the garrison, with provisions for a
few days, had provided a shelter. We must refer to his
history for the narrative of his own future fortunes : how
VesjDasian, not finding him among the slain or captives, and
suspecting he might be concealed among the caverns, sent
a Roman ofiicer, who had formerly known Josephus, to the
mouth of the cave in which he was, to promise him safety
if he would, surrender ; how Josephus in vain tried to per-
suade his men to consent ; how he was more successful when
he proposed that, since no means of escape remained, they
should, in order to avoid the sin of suicide, cast lots for
two men who should stab the rest, and then kill each other ;
how he, as of priestly race, was appointed to cast the lot,
and how, with his usual skill, he succeeded in making that
duty devolve upon himself and the most feeble-minded of
his companions ; how, when the fatal tragedy was completed,
and the two stood sole survivors among their immolated
brethren ; how, when all this was done, Josephus per-
suaded his companion to go with him and surrender to the
Romans ; how he played the prophet, promised the em-
pire to Vespasian, and was taken into his favour and con-
fidence. For all these details we must refer to himself.
(Ibid., cap. 8.)
The capture of Jotopatha, and the surrender of Jose-
phus, were followed by the conquest of all Galilee — a pro-
vince possessed of immense means of resistance, but which
Josephus had neglected to organize. We do not know
whether he acquainted Vespasian with the backward state
in which the preparations of the Galileans had been left ;
first were very obstinate ; at length, the besieged lost heart and treated
for a sui-render, but broke the treaty. Theii* alleged treachery so exas-
perated CiEsar, that, having assaulted and taken the place, he ordered all
that resisted to be cut down, and the captives to be sold as slaves. The
number of slain is not given, but the captives exceeded fifty-three thou-
sand.
430 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
but it is certain that the activity and vigour with which
Vespasian conducted the campaign — and Avhich contrasts
so strongly with the indolence and languor of his subsequent
operations — left the Galileans no time for organizing their
forces. We may therefore assume that he was aware of
their condition, and determined, by simultaneous attacks,
to prevent their concentrating on any point an army ca-
pable of taking and keeping the field.
While yet engaged in the blockade of Jotopatha, Ves-
pasian despatched Trajan, the father of the subsequent em-
peror, against Joppa in the mountains, where the Galileans
began to assemble in arms. On his approach, the Jews
sallied forth to meet him, but were, by repeated charges of
horse, driven back within the fortifications, consisting of a
double wall that surrounded the city. But so rapid was
the pursuit, that the Jews and Romans entered .pell-mell
through the outer gates and over the external wall. When
the troops on guard beheld this state of confusion, they be-
came alarmed lest the city should at once be carried. They
therefore closed the inner gates with so much precipitation,
that they shut out the greater part of the force that had
sallied forth, wliich, pent up in the narrow space between
the two walls, was destroyed by the Romans.
After this first advantage, Trajan invited Titus to head
the assault, and thus to acquire the honour of having taken
the city. The townsmen, unable to defend the rampart,
continued the fight in the narrow streets, and were power-
fully assisted by their wives, who from the house-tops threw
all manner of missiles on the heads of the assailants. After
six hours of carnage, the sword of the Roman prevailed;
the defenders were cut down to a man, the women and
children consigned to slavery.
At the same time that a body of Galileans was assem-
bling at Joppa in the mountains, another similar assemblage
was forming on Mount Gerizim, amid the ruins of the Sa-
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 431
maritan temple. To dislodge and scatter this assemblage,
A^espasian despatched Cerealis "with a sufficient force.
That general, however, did not attempt to force the Jew-
ish stronghold, but dug a deep trench round the mountain,
and so closely invested the Jews, that their supplies of
food, and especially of water, were soon exhausted ; many
perished ; many others laid down their arms, and surren-
dered. Those who persisted to the last were attacked and
slaughtered, but not without inflicting great loss on their
assailants.
On his march to Jerusalem, Cestius Gallus had destroyed
the city of Joppa, or Jaffa, on the shores of the Mediter-
ranean. After his repulse and retreat from Judea, the
supreme council of defence caused this important maritime
city to be in part rebuilt, and made it the station of a bold
and enterprising body of mariners, whose wives and chil-
dren dwelt among the ruins, while the men were employed
on. board of numerous vessels which the council had fitted
out and armed, and which proved very annoying to the
Romans. These cruisers — whom Josephus, in his zeal for
Rome, designates as pirates (ibid., cap. 9) — intercepted
the Roman supplies from Egypt and Syria, and kept the
coasts of these two countries in a constant state of alarm.
A division of Romans, despatched against Jaffa, found it not
difficult to scale the walls and to penetrate into the town
during the night. The Jews, not sufficiently numerous to
resist the threatened attack, trusted for safety — as the
Athenians had done when their city was assailed by the
hosts of Xerxes — to their wooden walls, and embarked
their wives and children in their ships. But the elements
proved more destructive than the sword of the Romans.
A sudden hurricane shattered the ships, or drove them on
the rocks which line that iron-bound coast. The Roman
commander had stationed archers on these rocks, whose
arrows slaughtered the wretches that had escaped ship-
432 rOST-EIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
wreck. Upward of four thousand human beings were con-
signed to a watery grave. The city of Joppa Avas again
destroyed ; one portion only, the upper town, was fortified
and occupied by a Roman garrison, who, in obedience to
the orders they had received, devastated the adjoining
country with fire and sword, and drove the inhabitants to
seek shelter in Jerusalem.
During the heat of the summer, Vespasian spent three
weeks at Cesarea-Philippi, the residence of King Agrippa
II., who, with his sister Berenice, entertained the Roman
commander so splendidly as almost to ruin the king, whose
most productive territories were occupied by the Jewish in-
surgents ; while he himself was accused by all the petty
princes, his neighbours, who hoped to profit by his fall,
of being lukewarm in the cause of Rome. As thus his pre-
sent and future existence was altogether dependent on the
favour of the Roman commander-in-chief, King Agrippa
spared neither expense nor pains to ingratiate himself with
Vespasian. In this purpose he was greatly aided by Titus,
the son of Vespasian. This young Roman had become ac-
quainted with Berenice, the king's sister, at Ptolemais, and
there entered into a tender liaison with her, which ripened
into a confirmed attachment during his stay at Cesarea-
Philippi. By her means Titus was induced to befriend her
brother, the king ; who, on his part, was careful not to
thwart the inclinations of so powerful an auxiliary, and
therefore encouraged, or at all events did not check, an
intercourse so little honourable to himself or sister. As
the first-fruits of his complaisance, Vespasian restored to
him the city of Tiberias, the most considerable in his do-
minions, which had made common cause with the insur-
gents. During the conflict between Josephus and the su-
preme council, this city had suifercd so greatly that it
could offer no resistance to A^espasian, who, at the en-
treaty of King Agrippa, spared the inhabitants.
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 433
This was an easy, bloodless conquest ; the next opera-
tions of the Roman commander were more difficult and
destructive. On the shores of Lake Tiberias, fronting each
other, stood the two fortified cities of Tarichsea and Ga-
mala, the former to the south-west, the latter to the
south-east. These two cities were successively attacked and
carried by the Romans. The defence of each was obstinate
in the extreme, and cost the Romans numbers of men ; a
loss for which they took ample vengeance on the besieged.
At Tarichaea they contented themselves, after the capture
of the city, with sending their able-bodied prisoners to
slavery, putting only twelve hundred aged 'men to the
sword. At Gamala the Romans suffered much. The in-
habitants of that city were famed of old as the most war-
like and valorous of the Galileans ; it was, moreover, the
native home of Judah, the founder of the Zealots' associa-
tion. The defence they made against the Romans was ex-
celled by no other throughout the whole of the war. After
successfully resisting a seven months' siege by the troops
of King Agrippa, Gamala was attacked by Vespasian in
person ; and it was not till the entire population of nine
thousand souls had perished, that the Romans could master
the city. An attack on the Jews assembled at Mount Ta-
bor, and the capture of Giscala, completed the conquest
of Galilee. The command in the last-named city had been
held by Jochanan the son of Levias, the great rival of
Josephus, and best known by the designation " of Giscala."
This chief, whom Josephus describes as the most artful, un-
principled, and dangerous of men, had been in arms against
the Romans long before the general insui-rection broke out
in Judea. Exasperated by the tyranny of the last pro-
curators, he had organized a strong body of chosen war-
riors, and successfully maintained himself in the mountains,
carrying on a predatory war, as Mattathias the Asraonean
had done before him. When, against his opinion and ad-
VoL. IT. 37
431 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
vice, Ills native city Giscala prematurely rose against the
Itomans, but was taken by them and burnt, he raised a
force sufficient to expel the invaders, and rebuilt the city,
^yhich he strongly fortified. Summoned to surrender, he
deceived Titus into a suspension of hostilities, profiting by
"which he himself, his troops, and his partisans, escaped to
Jerusalem, though a number of his followers were over-
taken and cut down by the Romans. From all parts of
Galilee fugitives had flocked to Jerusalem ; and when Jo-
chanan arrived, he found the metropolis of Judea distracted
by a furious civil war raging within her.
When the first tidings arrived of the stout defence made by
Josephus and Jotopatha, even the Zealots began to alter their
opinion of his previous conduct, ascribing it no longer to
treachery, but to error in judgment. His friends in the
council took credit to themselves for having appointed so
gallant and able a governor ; and all parties in anxious sus-
pense awaited the progress of the siege. When the news
ai-rived that Jotopatha had fallen, and that the heroic go-
vernor and his brave garrison had buried themselves beneath
its ruins, great was the grief at Jerusalem, but greater still
the enthusiasm. All parties vied in doing posthumous hon-
ours to the hero of Jotopatha and his valiant compeers. The
personal enemies of Josephus, anxious to do justice to his
memory, joined the council which decreed a public mourn-
ing of thirty days ; while the poets of Judea excited the
people by laments, in which they sung the glory of the
true-hearted chiefs who had died for their country.
But the greater the public enthusiasm had been, the
more terrible was the reaction, the more ferocious the rage,
when the news at length arrived that Josephus, the sole
survivor of the defenders of Jotopatha, was in the camp of
the Romans, the confidant, the adviser of Vespasian. All
the rumours of his former treasons, all the reports of the
treachery of the party that had intrusted him .with com-
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 435
mand, at once revived with tenfold force. He himself was
beyond the immediate reach of justice, but his friends, his
connections, his party, were still in Jerusalem. Their past
treachery must be punished, their future treason be pre-
vented. The Zealots rose as one man. The fugitives from
Galilee, who had fled from the fire and sword of Vespasian,
joined them, and scenes of the most frightful violence took
place. In the course of this history we have had occasion
to notice how truly human nature, in all ages, remains the
same ; how, notwithstanding the advance of civilization,
man, when strongly excited by rage or fear, becomes an
animal more ferocious and more dangerous than lion or tiger.
When, during the French Revolution, the news arrived at
Paris that La Fayette had quitted the army, the mob of
Paris rose and dragged to prison hundreds of innocent,
high-born, and wealthy men, suspected of being friends to
Lafayette; and on the second of September, 1792, and the
three days following, all these persons were murdered : so
likewise in Jerusalem. The news of Josephus's defection
armed the mob, who, led on by the Zealots, broke into the
houses of several chiefs who were accused as partisans of
Josephus, and hurried them to prison. The leaders of the
Zealots — Eleazer the son of Simon at their head — organized
themselves as a council in opposition to the established go-
vernment ; like the Jacobins who formed the municipality
in Paris. The numbers of exasperated provincials who had
sought refuge in Jerusalem adhered to this new council,
which inaugurated its authority by sending assassins into
the prison, who slaughtered the prisoners amid the loud
acclamations of the Zealot mob and the provincials. The
next act was to proclaim perfect equality among laymen
for all offices of state, among priests for all dignities of
priesthood. These last were to be distributed by lot, and
the chiefs so managed that the high-priesthood, which so
long had been hereditary in the principal families of Jerusa-
436 rOST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
lem, fell to one Phanias tlie son of Shamai, a stone-cutter,
who, though of priestly descent, was a rude, illiterate man,
and was actually following the plough when, to his great
surprise, the insignia of the highest office were presented
to him. Hitherto all the efforts of the regular government
to rouse the citizens or national guard of Jerusalem, com-
posed of housekeepers, to arm in self-defence, had been
vain; but this last act of the Zealots was looked upon as an
outrage on religion. All the citizens took up arms at once.
The Zealots, in possession of the temple-fortress, did not
wait to be attacked ; they sallied forth, and a series of furi-
ous combats commenced. The citizens of Jerusalem, more
numerous than the Zealots and their adherents, and now
thoroughly roused at seeing strangers to the holy city,
rude refugees from Galilee, take upon themselves the su-
preme rule of Jerusalem and the temple, fought with the
energy of despair. They were led on by the most eminent
and bravest of their chiefs — Ananus, Joseph ben Gorion,
Niger, Zechariah ben Baruch — who vied with each other in
animating and skilfully directing the citizens. The Zealots
were at length forced to retreat within the first enclosure
of the temple ; from thence they were driven into the tem-
ple-fortress, where they were surrounded and blockaded.
Ananus, the president of the regular government, seeing
his party victorious, ordered the attack to cease, and after
some discussion carried his point. He neither wished to
turn the temple into a slaughter-house, nor yet to destroy
gallant men, his own countrymen, who would prove both
willing and able to defend their country, if they could only
be brought to listen to reason. Six thousand armed citi-
zens were stationed at the different issues from the temple-
mount, to watch the Zealots and keep them closely invest-
ed. These city militia-men were to be regularly relieved,
and no inhabitant to be exempted from military duty. But
the wealthy were soon tired of these unwonted exertions.
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 437
As their turn of service came, they hii-ed hibourers, vil-
lagers, and whoever else thej could get, to do duty for
them. Most of these had a fellow-feeling for the besieged
Zealots, who no longer were cut off from all communica-
tion with the country, but found means to send messengers
to rouse the populace south of Jerusalem.
Such was the state of affairs in Jerusalem when Jochanan
of Giscala and his followers arrived. As he had long been
on terms of intimacy and friendship with R. Simon ben
Gamaliel, the president of the Sanhedrin, Jochanan was
readily received into the confidence of the supreme coun-
cil. And as he was supposed to exercise great influence
over the Galileans, who formed so great a portion of the
besieged Zealot force, he was deputed to negotiate with
them and to bring them to terms. Josephus accuses him
of betraying his trust ; that instead of trying to calm and
conciliate the Zealots, he added to their exasperation by
assuring them that the intentions of Ananus and the coun-
cil were to destroy the Zealots to a man, and then to sur-
render Jerusalem to the Romans; and that the only means
of counteracting these cruel and treasonable designs was
to apply for instant help to the patriot population south
of Jerusalem. (Bell. Jud., lib. iv., cap. 3.) It is impossible
to decide whether this accusation be true, wholly or in
part ; for, on the one hand, the bitter hatred of Josephus
against Jochanan is so manifest that it deprives his state-
ments of all claim to credibility whenever he speaks of his
rival ; while, on the other hand, though Jochanan kept aloof
from the besieged Zealots, even after their triumph, his
ambition was boundless, and might have tempted him to
aspire to that supremacy in Jerusalem which subsequently
he attained.
But, whoever originated the idea of summoning the
Southerners to Jerusalem, the application proved but too
successful ; within a few days twenty thousand countrymen
438 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
in arms were at the gates of Jerusalem. These men came
from the southern province named Idumea by Josephus,
and which comprised the ancient territory of the tribes of
Simon, Dan, and part of Judah ; but they found the gates
closed and the Avails lined by armed citizens. The go-
vernment attempted to remonstrate "with these new assail-
ants. The most popular man in Judea, Joshua ben Gamla — •
who had been high-priest, and whose services to the cause
of education had endeared him to the people — was the
delegate chosen for that purpose by the council. But his
efforts proved vain. The furious Southerners refused to
hear him. They denied the right of the council to close
the gates of the Jewish metropolis against any Jews ; and
while Joshua indignantly repudiated the idea of surrender
to the Romans, the Southern chiefs insisted that fear was
an evidence of guilt, and that the council, by the refusal
to admit them into the city, abundantly proved that trea-
son was contemplated, and that punishment was expected
and dreaded. As the insurgents remained deaf to reason,
the city militia of Jerusalem had to guard against an enemy
in the heart of the city and another at the gates. The
citizens were sufficiently numerous to perform this double
duty ; and the council, which remained in session all day,
and in turns watched by night, fully expected that, when
the first excitement of the Idumeans should have evapo-
rated, they would grow tired of being encamped outside
the walls, and would eventually yield to proposals of
peace. But one of those events which no human prudence
can foresee, and human skill can but seldom guard against,
frustrated all their expectations, and led to the utter ruin
of the conservative party.
The public guards had been doubled, the vigilance of the
governors had not been suspended ; but one evening Ana-
nus, whose turn of duty it was, worn out by watching and
care, had retired to his mansion to snatch a few hours' rest.
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 439
A hurricane suddenly broke out — one of those fearful, irre-
sistible hurricanes of the East, when storm, rain, and thun-
der combine their terrors, when the tempest howls, the
lightnings flash midst torrents of rain, and the earth
seems to rock ; when the wildest animals lose their ferocity,
and whatever lives and moves seeks shelter ; such a hurri-
cane— frightful beyond the memory of man — burst out.
The Southerners outside the walls were terrified, and looked
upon it as a sign of the divine wrath against them. The
council doubted not but that the hurricane would hasten
the departure of the Idumeans ; but the chiefs of the
Zealots judged differently. They saw at once the ad-
vantage they might derive from the storm, which, in their
impious fanaticism, they looked upon as a direct interven-
tion of Providence in their favour. The most hardy, armed
with saws which they found in the stores of the temple,
began rapidly, but noiselessly, to cut through the wooden
bars that had been fastened to the temple-gates from the
outside. The uproar of the elements prevented the city
militia from hearing the noise ; besides, among the militia
on guard there were many ready to favour the efforts of
the Zealots. The temple-gates once opened, an armed
party sallied forth, and by ones and twos, so as not to ex-
cite suspicion, glided through the city and met again at
one of the gates. The city guard, forgetful of its duty,
had sought shelter against the hurricane. Whether the
gate was opened to the Zealots by treachery, or whether
they forced it open, is uncertain, but it was opened; and
while some of them held possession, another body marched
hurriedly toward the Idumean forces. These, at the ap-
proach of a band of armed men, were alarmed, lest it
should be an attack from the city ; but the Zealots soon
made themselves known, and communicated their tidings.
At the head of the Idumeans they returned, passed through
the gate they had secured, and at once proceeded to attack
440 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
the city militia that blockaded the temple-mount. The
besieged Zealots, at a given signal, sallied forth from the
temple, and the citizens, unprepared for so sudden and
violent an attack in front and rear, were cut down or dis-
persed. The most important posts in the city were carried,
and the houses of the principal inhabitants marked for
proscription. Wild shrieks of horror, more frightful than
the roar of the elements, were heard throughout the doomed
city. Amid the darkness and confusion, all military or-
ganization was at an end ; there was no one to take the
command, there were none to obey. Ananus, who at the
first alarm hastened to the scene of action, had been cut
down ; the other chiefs, as they left their own houses, were
waylaid, and either killed on the spot or made prisoners.
It was less a night of battle than of wholesale assassination.
The return of daylight showed the extent of the slaughter
already committed ; but, so far from moderating the frenzy
of the Zealots, the sight of what had been done only ex-
cited them to fresh deeds of horror. A day of vengeance
to the Lord and to the people was proclaimed. The dig-
nitaries of the temple and of the law were especially ob-
noxious to the Zealots, and fell early victims to their rage.
R. Simon ben Gamaliel, the nassi or president of the Sanhe-
drin, Joshua ben Gamla, the high-priest and patron of edu-
cation, were murdered amid the exulting shouts of "Death
to the traitors !" The military governor, Joseph ben Gorion,
and the brave Niger, had commanded the citizens of Jeru-
salem when they defeated the Zealots ; for this they were
both put to death. But as Niger had opposed the cessa-
tion of hostilities which Ananus on that occasion com-
manded, it was determined to let him feel all the bitter-
ness of death. As the Zealots dragged him through the
city, he uncovered his breast and showed the scars honour-
ably gained against the llomans ; his plea was not for life,
but only that his remains might be interred ; but even this
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 441
•was denied him. Josephus asserts that twelve thousand
persons, eminent for their birth, their fortune, their talents,
were massacred during that reign of terror. (Bell. Jud.,
lib. iv., cap. 6.) It must, however, be borne in mind that
these particulars rest entirely on the authority of Josephus,
the sworn and implacable enemy of the Zealots, the friend
and partisan of the unfortunate men who perished. The
Talmud (tr. Gittin, fo. 56, et passim) speaks in general
terms of the violence committed by the Zealots in Jerusa-
lem, but enters into no particulars ; so that Josephus is our
only authority; and as he was not present, he must have
derived his knowledge of these events from hearsay, and
from persons who evidently indulged in exaggeration.
It is difficult to believe that — after the extensive flight
and emigration of conservatives during the winter months,
after the assassinations in the prisons and the furious com-
bats in the streets — there still should have remained in Je-
rusalem twelve thousand aristocrats. But while we look
upon this number as greatly exaggerated, we are not dis-
posed to dispute the details into which Josephus enters.
Men are yet alive who can remember, who lived through, the
reign of terror in France, when popular fury, thoroughly
aroused, repeated at Paris the same deeds of horror enacted
at Jerusalem ; and so perfectly similar was the expression
of popular feeling on both these occasions, that the narra-
tion of Josephus reads exactly like a royalist history of
the French Revolution. As in Paris, those citizens who
absented themselves from the sectional assemblies were sus-
pected 0? incivisme, (pride,) incarcerated, and brought to the
guillotine, so in Jerusalem ; as in Paris those who went
furthest in their sansculottism were denounced as Hehert-
ists (enemies of rational liberty) and executed, so in Jeru-
salem those citizens who tried to curry favour with the
Zealots by making common cause with them, were accused
of presumption and put to death ; so that whether a man
442 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
joined tliem or kept aloof, he was equally in danger. Those
only were safe whom poverty, low birth, and imbecility
placed beneath the notice of the dominant faction.
Such was the fatal reaction consequent on the defection
of Josephus which led to the inevitable ruin of his coun-
try. From that faial night no hopes remained for the Ju-
deans of successful resistance or honourable negotiation.
The union of the people was destroyed. The provinces re-
fused to obey or make common cause with the assassins
who usurped supreme power in the metropolis ; and these
assassins soon began to slaughter each other. The South-
erners, whose powerful assistance had enabled the Zealots
to conquer their antagonists, and to obtain the mastery
over Jerusalem, were soon disgusted with the horrors enact-
ing around them. They were quite willing that the guilty
should be punished ; but they insisted upon it that the
guiltless should be protected, that indiscriminate slaughter
should cease, and that some crime should be brought home
even to men of rank and fortune before they were put to
death.
The men of the South were numerous, warlike ; valuable
as auxiliaries, dangerous as enemies. The chiefs of the
Zealots saw how necessary it was to conciliate these power-
ful allies. Besides, it appeared quite practicable to esta-
blish a tribunal altogether dependent on the dominant fac-
tion, and guided by its dictates in the administration of
justice, and thus to preserve a semblance of legality with-
out sparing a single victim. A Sanhedrin of seventy-two
citizens of Jerusalem was appointed; the Lishkath Hagazis^
(•'stone portico,") so long deserted, was once more occupied
as a supreme court of justice, and crowded by a throng of
witnesses and spectators. The judges who were to occupy
the seats of Simon the son of Shetahh, of Sameas, of Ana-
nus, had been elected from the lower order of the middle
classes, petty tradesmen, and shopkeepers; no one ap-
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 443
pointed was permitted to refuse the office; and they were
pretty plainly given to understand that their own lives
depended on their obedience to the will of the Zealots.
In order to inaugurate their new Sanhedrin with due
^clat, the first prisoner placed on trial was Zechariah the son
of Baruch, a man high-born, wealthy, brave, and learned.
A friend of Ananus and Ben Gorion, a member of the San-
hedrin and council of defence, he had taken an active
part and chief command against the Zealots. The charge
against him was treason, conspiring to surrender Jerusalem
to the Romans, and entertaining secret relations with Ves-
pasian.
Zechariah appeared before his judges in the full strength
of his innocence, aware of his extreme peril, but determined
to confront his accusers without shrinking. After the accu-
sation had been heard, he was called upon for his defence.
Without hesitation, and most convincingly, he refuted the
charge, and showed that there was against him no direct
evidence, nor yet any the slightest indication or circum-
stantial proof. After having vindicated his own innocence,
he proceeded to attack his accusers. Boldly and eloquently
he upbraided them for their lawless proceedings, their
usurpation of power, the foul and sanguinary manner in
which they abused the right of the stronger. The Zealots,
who formed much the greater portion of the crowd that
heard him, gnashed their teeth with rage, swords were half
drawn from their scabbards, and the instantaneous and
savage explosion of their wrath was only restrained by the
certainty that the judges would find him guilty.
According to the usage of Jewish tribunals, the accused,
having concluded his defence, was removed from the hall
of justice, while the judges deliberated. In the present
instance, the length of time they took was quite unex-
pected. It became the theme of anxiety and suspense.
From the galleries of the temple the fact soon spread to the
444 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JE'O'S.
remotest parts of the citj, and agitated the entire popula-
tion : while some hailed these signs of hesitation and dif-
ference of opinion on the part of the tribunal as omens of
hope, others maintained that the whole was only a subter-
fuge to keep up and save appearances. At length, the
judges having agreed on their verdict, Zechariah was once
more placed before them ; when, to the surprise alike of
the accused and of his accusers, the president of the tri-
bunal with firm voice declared the charge not proved and
the prisoner acquitted. The long-restrained rage of the
Zealots now burst forth like a volcano. The judges were
hooted, driven from their seats, and out of the portico, with
blows ; and they would doubtless have fallen victims to
their sense of justice, if fear of the armed Southerners had
not compelled the Zealot chiefs to moderate the fury of
their followers. But nothing could save Zechariah. On
his acquittal, he was set at liberty, and went directly into
the temple to return thanks there; he was overtaken by
two ferocious Zealots, who stabbed him to the heart, and
threw his body into the deep valley alongside the temple.
During the reign of terror in Paris, a revolutionary
criminal tribunal was appointed, from whose sentence there
was no appeal, and at which the infamous Fouquier-Tin-
ville acted as public accuser. But what the revolutionary
judges at Jerusalem refused to do — to prostitute and per-
vert justice at the bidding of a dominant faction — was
unhesitatingly and even cheerfully done in Paris. The
same men that condemned Madame Roland and Baiily,
Malesherbes and the princess Elizabeth — the most virtuous
of republicans and royalists — also sent to the guillotine their
own most detestable chiefs, Hebert and Danton, Robes-
pierre and Henriot. During the whole time of its existence,
this tribunal never once evinced the slightest sense of jus-
tice or of humanity We have compared the reign of ter-
ror in Jerusalem with that in Paris. But in one point the
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 445
comparison fails. There were men in Jerusalem, who, at
the risk of life, would do justice; we find them not in
Paris.
The assassination of Zechariah, and the violent dispersion
of the tribunal, completed the disgust of the Southerns, who
renounced their connection with the Zealots and marched
back to their homes. Before their departure from Jerusa-
lem, they insisted on setting free upward of two thousand
prisoners, most of whom quitted Jerusalem and sought pro-
tection with Vespasian.
So long as the union between the Zealots and Idumeans
(men of the South) subsisted, Jochanan of Giscala had stood
aloof. Surrounded by his own band of trusty Galileans, he
had taken up his quarters in the palace of Grapta, one of
the princes of Adiabene ; and as this structure was more
of a fortified castle than a mansion, the Zealots did not
deem it advisable to attack him, while he was too weak to
rescue his friends of the council who had fallen into their
hands ; but when the alliance had been dissolved, and the
Zealots reduced to their own strength, Jochanan saw that
the time was come for him to act and aspire to the supreme
direction of affairs. Josephus bitterly upbraids Jochanan
as a tyrant and usurper. But if the state of things in Je-
rusalem actually was such as Josephus himself describes it,
no one can blame Jochanan for that, in self-defence, he set
up his own authority in opposition to the anarchy and blood-
shed upheld by the Zealots ; especially as Jochanan was a
man of ability, bravery, and experience, even by the un-
willing testimony of his worst enemy, Josephus. But the
other chiefs were not willing to recognise the supremacy of
Jochanan. Furious conflicts were waged within the city
between his partisans — consisting of his own Galileans,
augmented by citizens, Idumeans, and a considerable body
of Zealots who had joined him — and the main body of
Zealots who were opposed to him.
Vol. II. 38
4-lG POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
While these events were taking place in Jerusalem,
another chief acquired supreme power in Iduraea, or the
provinces south of Jerusalem. We have already spoken of
Simon ben Gioras,-^ a young warrior who greatly distin-
guished himself against the Romans under Cestius Gallus.
His extreme opinions, however, rendered him obnoxious to
the conservatives, who excluded him from every office; and
Ananus, the president of the council of defence, even ex-
pelled him from the district of Acrabatana, which he had
chosen for his residence. He sought refuge among the
most violent of the Sicarri, the immediate followers of
Menahhem, (the hereditary leader of the Zealots, executed
for tyranny at Jerusalem,) who, under a near kinsman of
that bloodthirsty chief, Eleazar the son of Jair, had taken
possession of the strong fortress of Massada. But to these
Zealots, Simon appeared not sufficiently zealous. They
reluctantly granted him an asylum in the lower part of the
citadel, but never allowed him to enter the superior or
stronger portion ; and it was not till he had given repeated
proofs of his valour, ability, and intense hatred of Rome and
her partisans, that he gained the confidence of his ferocious
hosts. In their predatory expeditions he was appointed
leader, and showed himself equally enterprising and mer-
ciless. While the Romans devastated one part of the
country, the self-styled "patriots" destroyed what the Ro-
mans spared ; and thus hapless Judea suffered not less from
her professed friends than from her declared enemies.
The success that invariably attended Simon in his encoun-
ters with his enemies, induced him to plan enterprises on a
larger scale, to be carried out at a greater distance. But
2- In Tacitus, (Hist., lib. v. § 12,) vrc meet -with the singular blunder of
the surname of Bar-Gioras being transferred to Jochanan of Giscala. An-
other Roman historian, Dion Cassius, (in Vespas. § vii.) leaves Simon in
possession of his surname, but turns it into Barporas. Probably both
errors oviffinated with transcribers..
THE JIOMANS IN JUDEA. 4-47
the cliiefs of Massada — fearful of being cut off /rom their
stronghold — refused to join him ; and as the news arrived
of the ruin of Ananus and the supreme council, Simon felt
sufficiently strong in his popularity to renounce the shelter
of Massada. With a small but devoted band of followers
he threw himself into the mountains, while his emissaries
throughout the country proclaimed freedom to every slave,
and large bounty to every freeman, who should enlist under
the banners of the patriot Simon. His troops rapidly
swelled into an army ; his increasing force and the prestige of
his name and uninterrupted success induced men of influence
to join him; and he was soon in a condition to quit the
mountains, to descend into the plain, and to take possession
of considerable cities. The governors of Idumea now has-
tened to confront him. They had been appointed by Ana-
nus and the council, but did not possess sufficient authority
or influence to prevent the rising of the populace that had
marched to Jerusalem and assisted the Zealots. But as
Simon's progress alarmed the property-owners throughout
the country, a large force was quickly raised, and a fierce
but drawn battle was fought, which left each army in the pos-
session of its ground. The governors of Idumea obtained
reinforcements, and were on the point of again attacking
Simon, when one of the Southern chiefs, named Jacob, under
the pretence of reconnoitering the enemy's camp, passed
over to Simon and entered into an arrangement with him,
in consequence of which the whole of the south country
recognised him as supreme chief. His power now was
more absolute than that of any Jewish king had ever been ;
while his ambition growing with his strength, he deter-
mined to make himself master of Jerusalem.
For this purpose he declared against the authorities who
bore sway in that metropolis, but whom he denounced as
usurpers, and carried his inroads and devastations to the
very gates of Jerusalem. His enemies, not daring to meet
448 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OP THE JEWS.
liim in the open field, tried to circumvent and harass him
by means of skirmishes and detachments placed in ambush
to cut oflf his stragglers. By such an ambush Simon's wife
was captured and carried in triumph to Jerusalem. The
chiefs there sought to turn this capture into a means of
forcing Simon to lay down his arms, or at least to recog-
nise their supremacy. But his reply to their proposal was
fire and sword carried through the entire district, and a
threat of revenge so terrible, that they at length restored
his wife, and he returned to Idumea.
While the Judeans were thus engaged during the winter
months of 67-68 in destroying each other, Vespasian
kept his troops in their comfortable quarters, and gave
them time to recover from their fatigues and sufferings
during their toilsome campaign in Galilee. He was kept
perfectly cognizant of every event that took place in Jeru-
salem, but his sagacity and experience told him it was
most to the advantage of Rome that he should not inter-
fere. The Jewish refugees in his camp in vain urged him
to march on Jerusalem and put an end to the anarchy and
bloodshed in that unfortunate city. His own officers inces-
santly pressed on him to take advantage of the bitter dis-
sensions of the Jews, and to terminate the war at once by
striking a decisive blow at Jerusalem. But nothing could
induce him to alter the plan of campaign he had traced out
to himself, and according to which the entire country was
to be in his power before he made any move against the
revolted metropolis. His quaint but significant remark —
"While the wolves are devouring each other, it is best to
leave them alone" — proves how clearly he perceived that
the Judeans themselves were doing his work for him. The
defence of the various strongholds in Galilee had led him
justly to appreciate Jewish prowess, and the degree of re-
sistance he was likely to experience at Jerusalem, where he
was quite convinced the approach of his army -v^Duld at
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 449
once put a stop to all intestine conflicts, by rallying all
factions and uniting tliem against Rome. "While our
enemies are destroying each other," he said to his lieu-
tenants, "it would be wrong to force them to unite. Do
you think thei-e is no glory to be acquired, if we conquer
without fighting ? Know that the reverse is the fact : the
fortune of war is doubtful, and he is the most praiseworthy
who leaves as little as possible to chance, and yet gains
his end." (Josephus, Bell. Jud., lib. iv. cap. 8.)
Toward the end of February, 68, Vespasian entered on
his second campaign. A secret deputation from the chiefs
of Gadara, a considerable city beyond Jordan, had invited
the Roman general to take possession of their city, and to
relieve them from the reign of terror which the Zealots
were about to introduce. The subjugation and possession
of Galilee facilitated Vespasian's compliance with this in-
vitation, and while he himself entered Gadara, his lieute-
nants Trajan and Placidus were despatched to complete the
conquest of Perea, the district beyond Jordan. The
former was directed to take possession of the strongholds
on the eastern boundary of the province ; the latter was
charged with the destruction or expulsion of the Zealots.
Vespasian himself, with the greater part of his army, after
leaving a strong garrison in Gadara, recrossed the Jordan,
in order to conduct in person the attack on the second line
of defence, which protected Jerusalem to the north, and
was composed of the three military districts of Thamna,
Acrabatene, and Jericho.
The Zealots stationed at Gadara were not a little surprised
by the unexpected approach of Vespasian and the peaceful
surrender of the city. They, however, contrived to retreat
in good order ; and while they loudly proclaimed the treason
and treachery of the Gadarenes, they themselves directed
their march along the shores of the Jordan toward Jerusa-
lem, which, since the subjugation of Galilee, was become
38*
450 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
the headquarters of their faction. On reaching Bethnabra,
they were reinforced by a considerable number of young
men, who had assembled in arms and were eager for battle.
The chiefs of the Zealots readily complied with their wish,
and marched to the encounter of Placidus. But their
courage proved no match for his skill and superior general-
ship. By a feigned retreat, he enticed the Jews into quit-
ting their advantageous position and commencing a pur-
suit destined to be of short duration. The Roman cavalry,
which throughout the war inflicted such heavy loss on
the Jews, turned their position, fell upon their flank and
rear, and cut them ofl" from Bethnabra ; while the re-
treating legions suddenly wheeled about, and by a
vigorous attack overthrew and routed the bewildered
Jews. The town of Bethnabra was taken by storm, plun-
dered, and burnt.
Those of the Zealots and their allies who escaped the
carnage soon rallied, and determined to cross the Jordan
lower down and opposite to Jericho. As they marched
on, their progress was encumbered by numbers of fugitives
of every age and sex, who had been driven from their
homes by the devastations committed alike by Trajan and
Placidus. These fugitives carried with them as much of
their movable property as they had been able to save : as
at the time of the exit from Egypt, flocks and herds, camels
and other beasts of burden, attended the march of the re-
treating Zealots, whose greater acquaintance with the locali-
ties enabled them to avoid many obstacles that impeded
the advance of the Romans ; so that, notwithstanding the
slow length of their line, the Jews reached the Jordan
before their pursuers.
But, oh horror ! the sight which awaited them on the
shores of that river paralyzed the boldest. A sudden rise
of the waters, so frequent at that season, rendered the
fords impassable, and turned the placid current of the river
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 451
into an Impetuous torrent, while no Moses, no Joshua, was
there to divide and control the turbid stream.
The light-armed advance guard of the Romans soon
appeared in sight. The bravest of the Zealots rushed to
the combat, while the multitude they sought to protect
sent forth shrieks of horror and howls of despair. Some
rushed into the surging stream, preferring death beneath
its waters to the merciless sword of the Romans ; others in
vain attempted to save themselves by swimming. The main
body of the Romans soon came up, put an end to the com-
bat, and slaughtered alike the defenceless and the resisting.
The banks of the Jordan were covered with the slain, whose
remains the rapid waters of the river carried into the
Dead Sea.
This catastrophe struck terror into all the adjacent
country. The strongholds erected near the mouths of the
Jordan, where it falls into the lake, were either aban-
doned by the Jews or surrendered to Placidus. The fort-
ress of Macheron was the only one throughout Perea that
continued to resist, and was one of the three places that
held out after the siege of Jerusalem. No details have
reached us respecting the progress of Trajan and his army,
but we know the result. Lower Perea was conquered and
devastated.
Vespasian had, at first, been equally successful. The
destruction of the conservative council of defence, and the
subsequent reign of terror in Jerusalem, had spread dis-
trust and discord through all classes of the community.
The chief commanders appointed by the fallen council
dreaded their own troops, while the treason of the Gadarenes
and the ferocity of the Zealots reduced the provincials to a
state of despondency which induced them to welcome the
Romans as deliverers. The second campaign of Vespasian,
at least until he enters the country of Simon Bar Gioras, pre-
sents no sieges like those of Jotopatha or Gamala ; no mul-
452 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
titucles in arms, like those assembled on Mount Tabor. But
though the Romans were not provoked by obstinate resist-
ance or serious losses, Vespasian permitted them to indulge
in unrestrained pillage and bloodshed. "After letting his
troops repose two days at Antipatris, Vespasian on the
third day commenced his advance, destroying the people
and burning every village within his reach. Having re-
duced the open country throughout the district of Thamna,
and taken the cities of Lydda and Jamnia, the general next'
gave the whole country of Bethlephoron to the flames.
In Idumea he obtained possession of the two strongholds
of Betharim and Caphar-Toba, where he put upward of
ten thousand persons to the sword, and carried off one thou-
sand captives." Such is the brief and business-like state-
ment of Josephus, (ib., lib. iv. cap. 8,) who cannot find one
word of censure for these Roman atrocities, while his vir-
tuous indignation boils over whenever he can meet with an
opportunity of enlarging on the wickedness of tlie Jews.
But for some reason or other, Josephus docs not tell us
why Vespasian so suddenly stopped short in Idumea, and
even deemed it advisable to adopt a retrograde movement.
It was not the lateness of the season, for he returned from
the south by the middle of May ; nor was it eager haste to
receive intelligence from Rome, since Vespasian kept the
field and continued his operations in Central Judea some-
time after his return from Idumea. The cause of his re-
treat, as M. Salvador clearly proves, (Domination Romaine,
vol. ii. p. 293,) must have been the system of defence
adopted by Simon Bar Gioras, and which threw obstacles
in the way of the Roman which, at that time, he felt him-
self unable to overcome. It is evident that the losses he
experienced must have been considerable, since he found it
necessary to recall a detachment of five thousand men sta-
tioned at Ammaus, and thus to abandon an important posi-
tion— the gate, as it were, of the roads and defiles leading
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 453
to Jerusalem. Even after this reinforcement, Vespasian
did not attack the district of Acrabatene, but continued
his march northward, through a country already in his
possession, as far as the ancient city of Sichem, which
under his auspices became a Roman colony and obtained
the name of Neapolis, (new town,) at present called Nablous.
From thence he followed the line of march which Pompey
had taken one hundred and thirty years before, and reached
Jericho, where he was successively joined by his lieutenants
Trajan and Placidus. The inhabitants of Jericho received
timely intelligence of his approach, but, unable to offer any
defence against this accumlation of force, they sought refuge
in the mountains, while Vespasian occupied himself in rais-
ing fortifications that should command the landing-places
and fords across the Jordan. Notwithstanding the success-
ful operations of his two lieutenants in Lower Perea, the
northern part of the province, with its chief city, Gerasa —
the birthplace of Simon Bar Gioras — still held out. A strong
body of troops under a third lieutenant, Lucius Annius,
was sent against the refractory district. Gerasa was taken
by storm, plundered, and burnt, while many other towns
and villages shared its fate.
About the middle of June, 68, Vespasian returned to
Cesarea, where he directed his attention to the construc-
tion of battering-rams of unusual force, and other imple-
ments of siege, newly invented, and which were intended
for Jerusalem. Until the attack on that doomed city, the
siege of Syracuse in Sicily — by the Romans under Mar-
cellus and Appius, during the second Punic war, 212 B. c. E.
— had been looked upon as the most perfect development
of the power of attack by means of warlike engines ; but
the siege of Syracuse was deprived of this pre-eminence by
the immense means of attack brought to bear on Jerusalem.
Tacitus remarks, (Hist., lib. v. § 13,) "The progress of the
war was suspended until the preparations for the attack
454 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
of Jerusalem comprised all the machines of war that were
known by the ancients, together with all those which the
inventive skill of later times had contrived."
Some time after his return to Cesarea, Vespasian re-
ceived intelligence of the sudden and astounding revolution
that had destroyed. Nero, and transferred the empire of
Rome to a new dynasty. The cruelty of Nero, his profli-
gacy and wastefulness, at length had met with condign pu-
nishment. After several abortive conspiracies, resulting in
numberless executions and confiscations, the governor of
Gaul — Vindex, a native of that country — raised the standard
of rebellion. As he felt that the proud Romans would not
readily recognise as their master a provincial, the descend-
ant of a conquered race, Vindex, who took upon himself to
decree the forfeiture of Nero and of the house of Coesar,
offered the imperial diadem to S. Galba, a Roman of high
birth and established military reputation, who at that time
held the chief command in Spain. Galba had just then
been sentenced to death, unheard, by Nero ; he therefore
did not hesitate a moment to accept the offer of Vindex ;
and, appealing to the troops under his command, was by
them saluted as emperor. The entire peninsula and all
Gaul, with the exception of the Roman colony of Lyons,
thus at once rose against Nero, and Galba prepared to
march on Rome. But the Roman legions stationed on the
Rhine felt indignant that a Gaul should take upon himself
to dispose of the empire. They refused to recognise Galba,
and, reinforced by an auxiliary body of Belgians, they
rapidly invaded the insurgent province. Vindex and the
Gallic legions encountered the invaders near Bcsan^on.
The chiefs on both sides, equally disaffected to Nero, were
anxious to come to an understanding, but their men did
not leave them time ; for so eager were the invaders, that
they rushed upon their adversaries without waiting for the
word of command ; so that the battle began without any
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 455
signal given on either side. The Gauls lost t^venty thou-
sand men, and were routed: Vindex, to avoid being taken
alive, killed himself; but the revolution to which he had
given the first impulse continued its course.
Long before the tidings of Vindex's defeat and death
reached Rome, Nero had with his own hand done justice
on himself. The name of the rebel — Vindex, " the aven-
ger"— fell on the conscience of the parricide like a clap of
thunder. Not less cowardly than cruel, Nero — who had
boasted that before him no emperor had known how to
carry out absolute imperial power to its fullest extent —
became paralyzed with terror, and incapable of thought or
action. When his sycophants beheld him thus abject and
helpless, they deserted him ; and when the intelligence
arrived that the troops in Spain had declared for Galba,
who was marching against Rome, the senate and prastorian
guards refused obedience to Nero. Terrified by the solitude
in which he was left, the fallen emperor fled from the city
disguised, in the most pitiable plight, attended only by four
freedmen. His flight terminated at a small country-house
belonging to one of these four men. Fearful of being seen
and recognised while entering through the door, he forced
his way through a quickset hedge, where the briars tore
his face, and crept into the building through a hole made
for him in the back wall. Here he learned that the senate
had decreed that he, as the common enemy of mankind,
should be seized and punished more majorum, "according
to the custom of the ancients," which, as he ascertained,
signified scourging to death. Even this fearful fate could
not rouse his feeble mind to the last energetic resolution ;
and it was only when a body of horsemen was heard ap-
proaching his asylum, that at last, and by the assistance
of his secretary, Nero put an end to his wretched life, on
the 11th of June, 68.
Had Nero been a man of energy and courage, he could
456 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
doubtless have maintained himself; for strange as it may
appear to us, Nero, who "fiddled while Rome was burning,"
was very popular with the lower classes of that immense
capital; and had he evinced any thing like a determination
to fight for his throne, they would have armed in his de-
fence. After his death, Galba was acknowledged by the
senate, and most of the armies took the oath of fealty to him.
Vespasian determined to send his son Titus to Rome to
compliment the new emperor, and to solicit the continuance
of his command. King Agrippa II., whose future fortunes
altogether depended on the favour of the emperor, whoever
he be, resolved to accompany Titus, whose testimony to the
king's zeal against his own people, the Jews, would absolve
him from the charge of lukewarmness, while his influence
would be exerted to promote the king's interests. But on
their arrival at Athens, the two travellers were surprised
to hear that Galba had perished a victim to a conspiracy;
and that his murderer, S. Otho, had been saluted as em-
peror by his fellow-conspirators, the praetorian guards, and
recognised by the trembling senate. Titus at once re-
turned to Cesarea, while Agrippa continued his journey to
Rome. On his arrival there, however, he found that short
as had been the reign of Galba — it had lasted only seven
months and some days — that of his successor was still
shorter. Salvius Otho, a man of high birth and depraved
character, the boon companion of Nero, had dissipated his
large fortune by his wasteful debaucheries, and was so over-
whelmed with debt, that he publicly declared nothing short
of imperial power could save him from ruin. When the
rebellion broke out, he held the office of governor of Lusi-
tania, (Portugal,) and had been among the first to declare
for Galba, who was seventy years of age and had no chil-
dren, in the hope that the aged emperor would nominate
him as his successoi'. But when he found that Piso, a man
of birth e^nal and of reputation far superior to his own,
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 457
was preferred to him, and that the old emperor by his par-
simony had offended the praetorian guards, whose favourite
prefect or commander, the infamous Nymphidius, Galba
had put to death, Otho took advantage of their discontent,
and by the most extravagant gifts induced them to murder
Galba and Piso, and to proclaim Otho. But this act of
the praetorian guards was highly offensive to the legions sta-
tioned in various parts of the empire, who contended that
if the nomination of the emperor rested with the soldiers, it
■was not the body of troops on guard at Rome, but the wdiole
of the army, that ought to exercise the right of electing
him. It was what Titus heard on this subject from the
troops in Greece, that induced him to hurry back to Judea,
full of the, idea that his own father, a renowned general, at
the head of a powerful and victorious army, was entitled
to act a prominent part among the military claimants of
the empire.
The legions on the Rhine, who had refused to recognise
the nominee of Vindex, were the first to declare against
the elected of the praetorians. Flushed with their recent
victory over the army of Gaul, these legions not only re-
pudiated Otho, but proclaimed their own general, Vitellius,
as emperor, and marched against Rome. Otho went forth
at the head of as large an army as he at the time could
collect, and encountered the invaders in Upper Italy. But
Otho himself was no general ; his praetorians, though ardently
attached to him, had no confidence in their ojQficers, and re-
fused to obey their orders ; while the troops of Vitellius,
superior in numbers and discipline, were commanded by
two able generals, Valens and Coecinna. The decisive
battle, at which neither of the rival emperors was present,
was fought near Cremona; the troops of Otho were defeated,
and after the battle a considerable body of them passed
over to his rival. Otho still possessed vast resources, and
his friends urged him to continue the war ; but he declared
Vol. II. :yj
458 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OP THE JEWS.
that he preferred the peace of his country to his own life,
and struck a dagger to his heart with a degree of heroism
that almost tempts us to say «No act of his life became
him so well as the quitting of it." He had reigned three
months.
His successor, Aulus Vitellius — a son of that governor
of Syria who had removed Pilate from his office in Judea
(vide supra., p. 376) — was not only recognised as emperor
in Rome, but the senate decreed that the legions who had
elected him deserved well of their country. Like most of
the high-born Romans of his time, this emperor, though by
no means destitute of education and abilities, was sunk in
the worst of profligacy and debauchery. Cruel like Cali-
gula, but without his excuse of madness ; wasteful like Nero,
but without his love of the fine arts ; extravagant like Otho,
but less troubled by his debts, of which he managed to get
rid by destroying his creditors, — Vitellius has established
for himself a peculiar reputation as the greatest and most
expensive glutton that ever lived. During the eight
months of his reign, the expenses of bis table exceeded nine
hundred millions of sesterces — equal to thirty millions of
dollars ; so that there seems to be some reason for the ap-
prehension expressed by Suetonius, (in Vitel.,) that had this
emperor's reign continued much longer, the Roman empire
would have been too poor to furnish him with a meal. Nor
must we feel surprised at this extravagant assertion, since
we are informed that one of his favourite dishes was com-
posed of the tongues of the rarest birds ; and that two
thousand difi"erent kinds of fish, and seven thousand of
birds, were placed upon his table at one banquet.
The example set by the diflferent portions of the army,
who had twice in one year nominated masters of the Ro-
man world, and been largely rewarded, was too tempting
not to find imitators. The legions on the Danube had
recognised Otho, and were in full march to join him ; but
t:i!: l;o:^IA■^-s in judea. 459
his defeat and death decided the conflict before they could
reach the scene of action. Their chiefs dreaded the
resentment of Vitellius, and induced the soldiers to pro-
claim Vespasian, who formerly commanded them, as em-
peror. That wary and sagacions old soldier, however, had
great misgivings on the subject, and preferred recognising
Vitellius. Too wise to suppose that an empire like that of
Rome could long be governed by the sword, Vespasian felt
his own want of political weight and family connection.
Both Galba and Otho were of ancient patrician descent, in
birth and kindred the peers of the Caesars ; Vitellius,
though not equally high-born, was still of an honourable
and patrician lineage ; while Vespasian was altogether a
self-made man. Besides, a rigid disciplinarian, he looked
upon a breach of discipline as the worst of crimes ; and dis-
obedience to the orders of the emperor de facto, as the most
flagrant breach of discipline. All this, and the fear of
destroying his family by unsuccessful ambition, induced him
— when the commissionei's appointed by Vitellius arrived at
Cesarea — to take the oath of allegiance to the emperor, and
to exact the same from the troops under his command.
The oath was taken, but in silence, and with visible cool-
ness and reluctance ; for, while Vespasian kept aloof and
hesitated, those around him were all the more zealous and
active. His son Titus, with his beloved Berenice, Mucius,
the governor of Syria, who commanded four legions of
excellent soldiers, Tiberius Alexander, the apostate Jew,
governor of Egypt, and also at the head of considerable
forces, were determined that Vespasian should reign, and
spared no efl"orts to insure success. The governor of Egypt
was most influential, since the immense city of Rome and
great part of Italy drew her supplies of corn from the
shores of the Nile ; so that Tiberius Alexander had it in
his power to starve Rome into submission whenever he
pleased. King Agrippa, at Rome, was initiated into every
460 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
movement made by t])e partisans of Vespasian, antl afforded
them every assistance in his power — acting the same part
in gaining over the senate that his father had acted when
Claudius was raised to the empire ; and at the same time
Agrippa kept exciting old Vespasian to declare himself, by
acquainting him with the agitated state of Italy, where
Vitellius was detested, and his soldiers lived at free-quar-
ters, indulging their rapacity and ferociousness without
any check or restraint.
Vespasian had long delayed entering on the campaign,
and it was not till the end of April that he despatched
Cerealis with a large force to the south to retrieve the
failure of the preceding year ; but Idumea was no longer
defended by Simon Bar Gioras, who, as we shall presently
relate, had been summoned to Jerusalem. His lieutenants
were not equal to the task of successfully carrying out his
plan of defence. Cerealis overcame their resistance,
slaughtered and devastated wherever he passed, and pene-
trated to Hebron, the principal city, which he took by storm,
plundered, and reduced to ashes, after putting all the in-
habitants to the sword.
Toward the end of May, Vespasian himself left Cesarea
with the troops under his own command, subdued Acraba-
tene and Gophna, crossed the mountains north of Jerusa-
lem, and placed strong garrisons in the towns of Ephraim
and Bethel. The whole of Judea was now subdued, except
the metropolis and the three strongholds of Macheron, be-
yond Jordan, Herodion, south of Jerusalem, and Massada,
west of the Dead Sea. But these places were isolated, in-
capable of protracted resistance if attacked, and, with the
exception of Jerusalem, not likely to give the Romans much
trouble. Vespasian had employed two years and eight
months, from the time he first took the field, in completing
this conquest, which by himself and many others was con-
sidered as a most meritorious achievement, and one that
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 461
entitled him to the highest reward : a testimony this to the
abilities and valour of the vanquished, the truth of which
cannot be disputed. His partisans now determined to
overcome his hesitation, and to make him accept the im-
perial diadem.
A few days after Vespasian's return to Cesarea, the
movement broke out at Alexandria, where, on the 1st of July,
69, Tiberius Alexander proclaimed Vespasian, and caused
his troops to swear fealty to the new emperor. A similar
movement took place at Cesarea on the 3d of the same
month. The old warrior no longer resisted. A number
of predictions and portents were seasonably remembered
by him ; and among the foremost to enjoy his imperial
bounty was Josephus, who — when first brought before Ves-
pasian, after the fall of Jotopatha — had foretold the glori-
ous destiny that awaited his captor.^^ At Berytus, where
Vespasian received a crowd of ambassadors who came to
compliment him on his election, he related to them how the
29 The Talmud (tr. Gittin fo. 56 b.) relates that it was R. Jochanan ben
Zachai who predicted the future elevation of Vespasian ; that this rabbi,
who was president of the Sanhedrin before and after the destruction of
Jerusalem, contrived to eflFect his escape from the reign of terror in that
city by the assistance of his nephew Abba Zickra, one of the chiefs of the
Zealots, and presented himself before Vespasian with the exclamation —
"Long live the emperor!" that Vespasian rebuked and even threatened
him for using such language, but that R. Jochanan supported his predic-
tion by a quotation from Scriptui-e : "Lebanon (the temple) shall faU by
means of a mighty one," (Isaiah x. 34,) and that none was mighty but a
monarch. After the prediction had come true, Vespasian required the
rabbi to ask a grace, promising to grant whatever he should request, on
which R. Jochanan solicited and obtained safety for the town of Jamnia
and its Sanhedrin, protection for the descendants of Hillel, and a physician
to heal the sick R. Zadock — one of his colleagues!. Subsequently, R.
Jochanan was blamed for not at once requesting safety and protection for
the temple of the Lord and for Jerusalem ; but the rabbi was defended by
the remark that if he had asked too much, he would probably have
obtained nothing. 39^^
462 rOST-BIBLICAL nrSTORY OF THE JEWS.
Jewish chief, whose bravery and skill he greatly extolled,
had assured him, while Nero was yet in the fulness of his
power, that he (Vespasian) was destined to become emperor
of Rome. Till then, Josephus had been treated as a cap-
tive ; but now, at the request of Titus, he was declared free,
and restored to the -rank he held before his capture. Plis
fetters were knocked off, Vespasian bestowed upon him a
large estate in Judea, and Josephus was held in high con-
sideration in the Roman army. (Bell. Jud., lib. vi. cap. 2.)
The new emperor despatched Mucins, governor of Syria,
with all the troops that could be spared, to Italy, there to
join the Danubian legions, and to carry on the war against
Vitellius ; Titus was left in command of the army in Ju-
dea ; and Vespasian himself repaired to Alexandria, where
he was within easy reach of news from Rome, and absolute
master of the subsistence of that great metropolis. In the
month of October, the Danubian legions of Vespasian en-
countered those of Vitellius near Cremona, on the same
battlefield of Bedriac where, six months before, the army
of Otho had been defeated. The Vitellians, then victors,
were now vanquished with great slaughter. The survivors
sought refuge in Cremona, but were besieged and com-
pelled to surrender. An important annual fair had at-
tracted to Cremona a great number of wealthy traders with
costly merchandise. The troops who fought for Vespasian,
many of whom had doubtless been trained to pillage and
slaughter in Judea, now practised in Italy the lessons they
had been taught in the East : public markets, private stores,
houses and temples were broken into and plundered, citi-
zens and strangers were robbed and murdered, and the
city itself burnt to the ground. The destruction of Cre-
mona, like that of Artaxata, was an indication of what
Jerusalem had to expect from soldiers ferocious, undisci-
plined, and brutalized to a degree that has never been sur-
passed.
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 463
Before the defeat of the VitelHans, the two chiefs who
had placed the emperor on the throne, Valens and Coecinna,
made their peace with Vespasian ; so likewise did the com-
mander of Vitellius' fleet, L. Bassus, subsequently gover-
nor in Judea. The wretched glutton, during and after the
defeat of his troops and the defection of his generals, had
remained in Rome, surrounded by a troop of vile parasites
and licentious soldiers. At the approach of his rival's
army, Vitellius wished to abdicate, and opened negotiations
for that purpose with Antonius Primus, who commanded
the legions victorious at Cremona, and with Flavins Sa-
binus, the brother of Vespasian, who at the time happened
to hold the oflice of prefect or mayor of the city of Rome.
Both these officers were anxious to save the great metro-
polis from the horrors of a civil war fought within its
streets, and which would place the lives and fortunes of the
citizens at the mercy of an infuriate soldiery; accordingly,
the terms proposed by Vitellius were accepted. He was to
be permitted to lay down the imperial dignity ; his life and
family were to be spared ; and he was to receive one hundred
millions of sesterces (about three and a half millions of
dollars) as the price of his abdication. But his adherents
would listen to no accommodation. The day after the con-
clusion of this treaty — the 18th of December, 69 — Vitellius,
attended by his family in mourning garments, quitted the
imperial palace and proceeded toward the temple of Con-
cord, where he was solemnly to renounce the imperial
power. But his soldiers and a vast concourse of people
compelled him to return to the palace, while the air re-
sounded with their acclamations. While the excitement
caused by this tumult was at its height, Flavius Sabinus,
escorted by an armed guard, happened to meet a strong
body of Vitellian soldiers, who at once attacked him, and
compelled him to seek refuge in the capitol. Here he was
besieged by the VitelHans, but was joined during the night
464 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
by his own family and his nephew, Domitian, the second son
of Vespasian, who deemed themselves more safe in the capi-
tol than at home. Early in the morning. Flavins Sabinus
sent an emissary to Vitellius, to claim his protection by vir-
tue of the treaty concluded between them. This messenger
bad the greatest difficulty in forcing his way through the
crowds of furious soldiers who, from all parts of the city,
hastened to attack the capitol ; and when he reached the
emperor, he found Vitellius powerless and the fate of Sa-
binus decided. The Vitellians treated the capitol, the
sanctuary of their own gods, as if it had been a hostile
fortress. The outer gates were set on fire ; the soldiers
climbed on the roofs of the adjoining buildings to hurl com-
bustibles into the venerable edifice. At length, an entrance
was forced, and the capitol, with its garrison, put to fire
and sword. Unfortunately for mankind, Domitian, that
tyrant, escaped ; but Flavins Sabinus was taken alive,
loaded with chains, and dragged before Vitellius, who in
vain tried to save him. Countless swords pierced the
body of Vespasian's unfortunate brother: his head was cut
ofi", and his remains were flung into the Tiber in the oppro-
brious manner that common malefactors were disposed of.
The conflagration of the capitol preceded by less than
twelve months the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem ;
yet how infinitely superior in dignity, how memorable in
its character, is the ruin of Zion, when compared with that
of the capitol ! The one fell, defended by her worshippers
against rufiian invaders, each stone consecrated, each foot
of ground saturated, by the blood of her children. The
voice of prophecy, which had predicted her restoration after
her first destruction, also proclaims her second and more
glorious restoration after her last overthrow. The love
with which the memory of Zion is still venerated and che-
rished, the hope which, amid calamities numberless, still
survives in the breasts of her long-exiled and widely-scat-
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 465
tered cliildren, is of itself a primd facie proof of the truth
of prophecy. The capitol fell, disgracefully destroyed by
the sacrilegious hands of her own people in a brawling
riot, a siege without aim, and a conflict without purpose.
Her memory survives but in history ; no heart palpitates at
the mention of her name, no fervent prayers ascend to the
throne of mercy in her behalf. For all practical purposes,
the capitol is dead and forgotten, while the memory of
Zion's temple is undying, and still influences millions.
Justly does Tacitus exclaim — "Rome never experienced a
catastrophe more disgraceful or lamentable than the con-
flagration of the capitol." (Historia, lib. iii. § 72.)
A few days after the destruction of the capitol, the
legions of Vespasian forced their way into Rome. Tacitus,
at the time a young man of twenty, thus describes the con-
duct of the citizens during the conflict that took place in
the streets between the two armies, and of which he was
an eye-witness: "The mob, spectators of the struggle, en-
couraged each party successively by cries and applause, as
if present at the games of the circus. When either Fla-
vians or Vitellians were forced to yield ground, and the
vanquished sought refuge in houses or stores, the clamours
of the mob forced the victims from their shelter, and in-
sisted on their being put to death. The mob also carried
off the spoils of the slain, for the soldiers, in their blood-
thirsty rage, thought of nothing but carnage. The scenes
which Rome presented were horrible, monstrous. In the
immediate vicinity of the battle-ground, covered with the
dead and the wounded, some citizens enjoyed the pleasures
of the bath, others got drunk; while prostitutes and men
equally shameless indulged in their disreputable calling.
The entire city seemed mad at once with lasciviousness and
thirst for blood." (Ibid. § 83.) At length the legions of
Vespasian conquered. Vitellius, discovered in a porter's
lodge, where he had concealed himself, was dragged through
466 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
the whole city with a rope round his neck, his clothes in
tatters, and ^Yas finally hacked in pieces, and his remains,
like those of Flavins Sabinus, flung into the river.
His death became the signal for rapine and carnage, of
which the citizens were no longer the spectators, but the
victims. The conquerors gave free scope to the most fiend-
like passions. The public places and the temples streamed
with blood. Under the pretext of searching for concealed
Vitellians, every house was forced open, every dwelling
violated, and rapine and lust gratified without restraint.
The conflagration of the capitol and the sacking of Rome
were indeed the prelude to the destruction of Jerusalem
and its temple. But as the tidings of these horrors rapidly
spread to the East and to the West, they were hailed with
shouts of gratified animosity by the nations that groaned
under the supremacy of Rome. In the West, the Batavians
rose in fearful insurrection under Civilis, (70 c. e. ;) while
in the East, in Jerusalem, amid the deeds of violence they
themselves enacted, the Zealots looked upon the horrors at
Rome, and the capitol in ashes, as a just manifestation of
retributive justice, as a certain presage of their own even-
tual triumph.
While thus, within the brief space of eighteen months,
the Roman Empire had witnessed the destruction of a
mighty djmasty, the suicide of two emperors, and the mur-
der of their two successors, — while Italy, devastated, Cre-
mona and great part of Rome in ruins, and the palladium
of the empire, the capitol, destroyed, attested the rage with
which the civil wars had been carried on, — Jerusalem, on a
smaller scale and in a more circumscribed theatre, beheld
a struggle for supremacy as fierce and unrelenting as that
waged in Rome itself. Jochanan of Giscala, by his supe-
rior abilities and unscrupulous energy, was gradually ac-
quiring a dictatorial power; but the Idumeans who had
joined him, and the Zealots who opposed him, were equally
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 467
averse to recognise his supremacy. The citizens thought
that the ruin of Jochanan, the most formidable of their
oppressors, would enable them to deliver Jerusalem from
the dominion of other less powerful tyrants; and the agents
and partisans of Rome, of whom there still were many in
the city, were ready to promote any undertaking that, by
arming the Jews against each other, might facilitate the
eventual success of Vespasian. All these parties were in-
duced to unite in a sudden attack on Jochanan. Their
forces were so greatly superior to his own, that they wrested
from him his stronghold, the castle of Grapta, which they
plundered, and killed a number of his men ; but Jochanan,
with admirable presence of mind, seized on a stronger posi-
tion. The garrison of the temple had joined in the attack
against him. Of this circumstance he took advantage,
seized on the undefended temple-mount, with its buildings,
and from this stronghold bade defiance to his united assail-
ants, who thus, by their very success, became placed in a
worse position than they had been before. What they had
chiefly cause to dread was that the enterprising Jochanan
might sally forth at night, or when they were least in a
condition to resist him ; for their chiefs knew how little
they could depend upon each other, and that whichever
one among them should be first attacked by Jochanan
would be left to his fate by his colleagues.
The conservative party, intrinsically the weakest, was
also, from its character, the most obnoxious and exposed.
Its chief, Matthias the son of Theophilus — who had been
the last high-priest, but was expelled by the Zealots to
make room for Phannias of Chabta, the stonecutter — was
especially anxious that the supremacy of Jochanan should
be eifectually guarded against. This, however, could only
be done by the appointment of a supreme leader, whom all
the other chiefs would be obliged to recognise ; and there
was but one man throughout the country who, from his real
468 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
power and military fame, was entitled to claim obedience.
That man was Simon ben Gioras, whose successful defence
of Idumea against Vespasian in person became a theme of
admiration to every Jew. In an evil hour for Jerusalem,
Matthias prevailed on the chiefs to invite Simon into the
city, and got himself appointed at the head of the deputa-
tion that carried the invitation, for the purpose of ob-
taining from Simon certain guarantees against the abuse
of his power. The supreme command in Jerusalem was
an object too gratifying to Simon's ambition to be refused ;
at the same time he was too well acquainted with the state
of affairs in Jerusalem to submit to any limitation of his
power, or to consent to any stipulations that Matthias pro-
posed. At the head of an army raised and disciplined by
himself, and devotedly attached to him, Simon marched to
Jerusalem ; the gates were thrown open, and the people
received him with universal acclamation as their chief and
deliverer. But his departure from Idumea left that pro-
vince defenceless and an easy prey to the Romans, as we
have already related ; while his presence in Jerusalem be-
came the signal of a fierce civil war against Jochanan,
whom he repeatedly attacked, but could not subdue ; and
who, in revenge for these attacks, made frequent sallies
into the parts of the city held by his rival, and which he
devastated with fire and sword.
One result of the constant warfare between Simon and
Jochanan was that it gave the Zealots under the command
of the latter an opportunity to repudiate his authority, and
to set up for themselves an independent chief ; for, though
Jochanan was vigilant and crushed every plot and conspiracy,
still Eleazar the son of Simon the priest, a man of daring
and abilities equal to his own, found means not only success-
fully to seduce the Zealots, but also, while Jochanan was re-
sisting the furious assaults of Simon on the temple-mount,
to seize upon the upper portion of the temple, containing
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 469
large stores of provisions, and where lie obtained further
supplies by means of the daily and festival sacrifices, and
other offerings, which amid the din and fury of the conflict
Avere regularly brought. The number of men under his com-
mand was two thousand four hundred, and his position
the strongest and most advantageous.
Simon, at the head of ten thousand Idumeans and
five thousand Zealots and armed citizens, held the city of
Jerusalem, with its vast stores of provisions and arms. His
army and supplies were the greatest, but his position the
most disadvantageous, as he was open to the continual in-
roads of the enterprising Jochanan, who, at the head of
six thousand Galileans, held the lower portion of the temple-
mount and the avenues leading into the city. These three
chiefs were engaged in perpetual conflict. Jochanan, at-
tacked at once by Eleazar from above and by Simon from
below, defended himself successfully against the former by
means of his military engines, and against the latter by the
strength of his walls and fortifications. But while he thus
maintained an equal contest against his rivals, he was
greatly distressed by the want of provisions, to obtain
which he had to make frequent but unexpected attacks on
the city, sallying forth whenever he saw an opportunity of
doing so with any prospect of success.
The quantities of food and of supplies of every kind col-
lected in Jerusalem must have been very large. The Tal-
mud (tr. Gittin, fo. 56) tells us, that when the war first broke
out, and the leading families found it necessary to conci-
liate and gain the confidence of the masses, three wealthy
men, whose names are mentioned, came forward and under-
took to supply the city during twenty-one years — the one
with wheat and barley, the second with wine, salt, and oil,
and the third with fuel. This statement is evidently exag-
gerated, but it is in part confirmed by Josephus, who de-
clares that the quantities of provision accumulated in Jeru-
VoL. II. 40
470 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
salem were sufficient to preserve the city from famine dur-
ing several years. (Bell. Jud., lib. v. cap. 1.) The joint
testimony of Josephus and the Talmud places it beyond a
doubt, that — full allowance made for exaggeration — the
store of grain and other necessaries within the city must
have been very great when the war first begun. A portion
of these stores had been burnt when the Idumeans broke
into the city, but a much larger portion was destroyed
during the frequent sallies of Jochanan, whose advance
and retreat were equally marked by fire ; a measure which
he deemed necessary for his own safety, as it diverted the
attention of his enemy.
During the winter of 69-70, while these conflicts were
most fierce, the Romans made no attempt on Jerusalem.
Ever since Vespasian's election to the empire, the war had
languished. He himself had quitted Palestine — first for
Egypt, and then for Rome. The attention of his son
Titus, who commanded in Judea, was directed to the
struggle in Italy and the rebellion of Civilis. The resump-
tion of hostilities in Judea was looked upon as remote ; and
the Jews from adjoining countries, whose festival visits to
the temple had been prevented by the war, determined to
profit by the species of truce which seemed, tacitly at least,
to have been established with the Romans, who for nearly
twelve months had made no hostile movement. From Par-
thia, Mesopotamia, and the shores of the Euphrates, from
Antioch and all Syria, from Asia Minor and the isle of
Cyprus, thousands of Jews flocked to Jerusalem to cele-
brate the passover. Alas ! it was the last time the children
of Israel assembled on that consecrated mountain, where
in days of old a visible sign of the Divine presence had
attested the truth of the revelation in which they believed,
the holiness of the worship they ofi'ered, the rites they
practised. It was the last time that the festive multitude
of Israelites approached the- mountain of the Lord, chant-
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 471
ing the Psalms of David, the songs of degrees, (Psalms cxx.
to cxxxiv.,) and shouting, "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem;
may they prosper who love thee." (lb. exxii. 6.) For the
last time the sons of Aaron, from the summit of Mo-
riah's mount, welcomed the pilgrim-throng, and chanted
the greeting, " Blessed be he that cometh in the name of
the Lord ! we bless you, from the house of the Lord." (Ibid,
cxviii. 26.) Many habitual visitors of the temple made
this last pilgrimage with a zeal renewed and strengthened
by an absence of three years. Many youthful worshippers,
whose only pilgrimage this was destined to be, approached
the metropolis of their people, " the city of the greatest
King," with feelings of awe and curiosity, of pious joy and
eager devotion. Who among all that crowd had a pre-
sentiment of the fate which awaited them? Who foretold
that, of all these assembled thousands, few, perhaps none,
should return to the homes they had left ; that the sword,
pestilence, or famine, should be the doom of most of them ;
while the few survivors — torn to pieces by wild beasts in
the arena, amid the laughter and scoffs of their heartless
victors, or perishing under the lash and labour of their
Roman task-masters — would envy those whom early death
had freed from their misery? Yet such was the destiny of
these pilgrims — strangers to the crimes of Jerusalem, but
involved in her ruin.
The multitudes that flocked to Jerusalem on the pass-
over of the year 70 — though not equal to the millions^° who
*> According to a computation made by order of Cestius Gallus, from the
number of paschal lambs offered, there were present at Jei'usalem on the
passoYcr of the year G6 not less than two millions five hundred and sixty-
six thousand persons. The computation assumes ten partakers to each
lamb ; but as those who had contracted any defilement could not join in
the offering, and as it frequently happened that twenty guests sat down to
one lamb, while there were never less than ten, Josephus insists that the
number must have been larger, and probably approached three millions.
The passovcr of the year G6 was in no wise distinguished from other festi-
472 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OP THE JEWS.
in the flourishing times of Judea had brought their paschal
offerings — numbered some hundreds of thousands. Elea-
zar's men, vrho held the upper part of the temple-mount
with the sanctuary, readily, and without suspicion, admitted
the pilgrims who came to offer sacrifice and worship. Jo-
chanan had also thrown open the avenues that led from the
city to his portion of the temple-mount ; but, ever watchful
and enterprising, he caused a large body of his most devoted
partisans to mix among the worshippers, and with them
gain admission to the upper mount. When they found
themselves within the temple-courts, Jochanan's men made
a sudden attack on Eleazar's, which the latter were not at
all prepared to resist. The pilgrims hastened from the
temple, and Eleazar, after a brief but fierce struggle, was
forced, with his men, to make submission to Jochanan, and
to renew the oath of fidelity to him. Thus the number
of commanders in Jerusalem was reduced from three to
two, while the accession of strength, both in men and
provisions, which Jochanan had obtained by the submis-
sion of Eleazar's troops, held out the assurance of suc-
cess over Simon, -who might lyive attempted to obtain the
same advantage over Jochanan which this chief had gained
over Eleazar, but had proved either too scrupulous or too
indolent to profit by the opportunity. But while these
chiefs were eagerly preparing to renew their conflict, the
sudden and unexpected advance of the Roman army put
an end to their hostilities, and caused them to unite heart
and hand in the defence of Jerusalem.
Vespasian no sooner reached Rome, and found himself
firmly seated on the throne of the Coesai'S, than he pre-
pared to terminate a war which it was no longer his interest
to prolong. Eighty thousand combatants assembled under
vals, and may therefore be considered as a fair criterion of the numbers
that generally attended.
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 473
the command of Titus, assisted by the most experienced
veterans in the Roman army. The siege and battering
train, which had been prepared by Vespasian himself, sur-
passed every thing of the kind that had till then been seen
or used at any siege. Whether from accident or design-
edly, and by the advice of Jewish transfugees, this vast army
suddenly advanced against Jerusalem, and completely
invested the city during the passover festival, (beginning
of April,) thus shutting in the many pilgrims, strangers to
the war, who from distant parts had come to worship at the
temple, but who now had to take part in the Avorst horrors
of the siege.
Jerusalem was situated on four hills ; to the north, that
of Bezetha, covered by the suburb of that name, and the
quarter of the city called the new town, which, not many
years before, had been built by Agrippa I. To the east
was situated Mount Moriah, with the temple, and below the
hill the suburbs of Ophel. To the south, Mount Sion, or
the upper town, formerly called the city of David ; and to
the west, Mount Acra, or the lower town. The circuit of
the city, according to Josephus, was thirty-five stadia, or
four miles : according to an older authority, fifty stadia,
somewhat less than seven miles. Its fortifications were
strong, both by nature and art. Three successive walls
surrounded the city; the first, or old wall, was looked upon
as impregnable, by reason of its height and solidity, and
was defended by sixty towers, lofty, firm, and strong. The
second wall had fourteen, and the third, or inmost wall,
eighty such towers. In addition to these regular defences,
there were several detached citadels or castles of great
strength, of which the fortress Antonia was the most con-
siderable. Towering above the city was the temple, a fort-
ress in itself, and equal in strength to any at that time
known.
The garrison of regular troops consisted of twenty-four
40-
474 POST-BIBLICAL HTSTOEY OF THE JEWS.
thousand men — fifteen thousand under Simon, and nine
thousand under Jochanan ; but this number was occasion-
ally augmented by citizens and pilgrims, who took up arms
in defence of the holy temple. This circumstance will ex-
plain to us a striking contradiction in the narration of the
siege as given by Jo'sephus. Sometimes, we find that the
Jews conduct their operations of attack and defence with
all the order, discipline, and regularity of combined move-
ments that characterize old soldiers ; while, at other times,
they rush on tumultuously, with the heedless rage and con-
fusion of a mere mob.
The strength of the fortifications was aided by the war-
engines that had been taken from the Romans under Ces-
tius Gallus, and which were placed on the walls. Immense
quantities of arrows, javelins, and other missiles had been
provided ; vast fragments of rock were poised on the walls,
so as in their fall to crush the assailants. Boiling hot tar,
pitch, oil, and tallow, lighted tow and sulphur, were held in
readiness to set fire to the enemy's battering-trains, and to
pour a shower of liquid flame on the heads of the troops
who advanced to storm the walls. Thick blankets, bales
of wool, hides, and rope-matting were placed so as to deaden
the force of the battering-ram ; while an ingenious ma-
chine was contrived to fasten on the movable beam of
the ram, and either to pull it u]) to the wall, or to tear it
from its axle-tree and break it. Simon and Jochanan, lay-
ing aside all their former animosity, united in opposing the
most obstinate resistance to the Romans. Unfortunately
for themselves, their reconciliation came too late. The
thousands of gallant men that had been slaughtered in
their fratricidal conflicts could not be recalled to life. The
vast stores of victual that in their mad fury — fomented,
probably, by Roman emissaries — they had destroyed, could
not be replaced. While toward the Roman assailant Jeru-
salem presented the aspect of strength and successful re-
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 475
sistance, there was an enemy lurking within her walls soon
to prove more destructive than the battering-train of Titus ;
and that enemy, famine, had been invited into doomed
Jerusalem'"^ by Jochanan ; and was soon followed by its off-
spring, pestilence and anarchy.
Josephus, in order to flatter Vespasian and Titus, invents
a miracle, and relates that while the brook Siloah furnished
the Romans with an abundant supply of water, the Jews
suffered terribly from thirst, as the brook dried up the
instant it came within reach of the besieged. (Bell. Jud.,
lib. V. cap. 9.) But this statement of his is a complete fa-
brication. Strabo, (lib. xvi.,) when relating the siege of
Jerusalem by Pompey, states that the besieged had plenty
3' Josephus, as well as the Talmud, abound with presages and omens
indicatiug the destruction of Jerusalem. Of these we will only mention
two : A man named Joshua, the son of Ananus, who had come from the
country to Jerusalem, to celebrate the feast of tabernacles seven years
preceding the siege, was suddenly seized with a prophetic inspiration,
which caused him to cry out, "Wo to the city! wo to the temple! a voice
from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the foiu* corners, against
Jerusalem, and against the nation!" This cry he continued unceasingly,
running day by day through the streets of Jerusalem, crying more loudly
and lamentably on Sabbaths and festivals than at other times, but never get-
ting hoarse or weary. Neither threats nor punishments could make him
desist, or wring from him a groan or complaint, or, indeed, induce him to
utter any other words than those which composed his dismal cry. At the
beginning of the siege, as he was running along crying, "Wo to the city ! wo
to the temple!" he suddenly added, "Wo also to myself!" and was that
same instant struck dead by a stone from a Roman ballista. (Jos. Bell. Jud.,
lib. vii. cap. 12.) The outer gates of the temple were so heavy, that it was
the work of twenty men to open or to close them. Forty years before the
destruction, they suddenly, of a night, flew open of their own accord, and
could not be closed, until R. Jochanan ben Zachai addressed them, and ex-
claimed, "Temple! temple! what use is it that thou showest thyself
frightened? I know that thy end will be destruction, for long ago Zecha-
riah the son of Iddo (xi. 1) prophesied against thee, and said — ' Open thy
gates, 0 Lebanon, that fire may consume thy cedars.'" (Talmud, tr. Yo-
mah,fo. 39.)
476 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
of water -within the city, while beyond its walls water was
very scarce. This is confirmed by Tacitus, (Ilistor., lib. v.
§ ] 2,) who speaks of the inexhaustible springs, the subter-
ranean reservoirs cut under the rock, the pools and cisterns
that kept the rain water ; all of which rendered Jerusalem
one of the best-supplied Eastern cities. Dion Cassius, in a
fragment preserved to us, (lib. Ixvi. § 4, in Vesp.,) goes even
further, and declares " the Romans suffered greatly from
thirst ; their only supply of water was foetid, and had to be
brought from a great distance: the Jews, on the contrary,
were plentifully supplied ; their aqueducts were cut in the
solid rock, and their pipes were carried under ground to a
vei'y considerable distance."
We have been induced to expose this fulsome misstate-
ment of Josephus, because the means of doing so are fur-
nished to us by Roman writers, contemporaries like himself,
but not like him influenced by private malice or the wish
to glorify the Flavian dynasty at the expense of truth and
of Israel. But the falsehood we have exjDosed is not the
only or by any means the most pernicious one in which Jo-
sephus indulged. Indeed, his conduct during the siege was
ridiculous in itself and degrading to him ; while, in its con-
sequences, it proved injurious to the Jews. As soon as
the Roman army had taken up its position round Jerusalem,
Titus directed Josephus to harangue the garrison and in-
habitants, and, if possible, to sow dissensions among them.
This mode of proceeding the Romans had already once
before employed at Syracuse, a city Avhich, like Jerusalem,
tasked the utmost resources of its assailants. There, like-
wise, transfugees harangued the besieged, telling them
"that if they wished to save their lives, they should at once
surrender; that the Romans were not come to besiege the
city as enemies and from animosity, but that their only
motives were pity and good feeling toward the citizens
oppressed by Hippocrates and Epicides, whose tyranny the
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 477
Romans were intent on destroying ; and that the attack of
the Romans was caused by no other object." (Tit. Liv.,
lib. XV. § 28.) Substitute the names of Jochanan and Simon
for those of the two emissaries of Hannibal, and the ha-
rangues delivered before Syracuse furnish the text of those
long-winded orations with which Josephus wearied the
patience of the besieged in his own times, and of his read-
ers at all times. On the occasion of his first address, he
was attended by Nicanor, a Roman officer, who had ne-
gotiated his surrender after the fall of Jotopatha ; but his
speech was cut short by an arrow from the ramparts, that
wounded Nicanor. Indeed it would have been difficult for
Titus to select a worse or more obnoxious ambassador than
Josephus. The bare sight of the ex-governor was enough
to enrage the defenders of Jerusalem ; and his addresses
invariably were followed by bloodshed as great as might
have been caused by a pitched battle. After listening to
him for awhile, the Jews, excited beyond all self-control,
threw themselves upon the Romans with renewed rage ;
while all those unfortunate men within the city who were
suspected of favouring his views, or of entertaining rela-
tions with him, were sacrificed by the rage and indignation
of the Zealots.
Josephus was a vain man — vain of his descent, vain of
his valour and abilities, vain of his influence with the Fla-
vian dynasty. His vanity as an orator was deeply wounded
and mortified by the result produced by his speeches to the
besieged. Those who refused to listen to his harangues,
and who replied with curses and arrows to his beautiful
phrases and elegantly-turned periods, were, in his estima-
tion, the worst, the most brutal of men. He hated Jochanan
of Giscala and the dominant party in Jerusalem full as
bitterly as they detested him; and his feelings toward the
mass of the people, who despised his oratory, were scarcely
less rancorous. This hatred of his survived the ruin of his
478 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JtWS.
enemies ; and in order at once to apply a salve to his own
vanity, and to account for bis want of success to his patron
and employer, Titus, Josephus gave free scope to his ran-
cour, by describing the Jews of Jerusalem as the most
Avorthless, and their chiefs as the most criminal, of human
beings — rebels at once against God and the emperor, cast
oflF by God, and justly punished by the emperor. And in
order to make good his statements, he did not hesitate to ex-
aggerate, to invent, to distort, and to gloss over the foul deeds
of his patrons, while he magnifies the crimes of his enemies.
This indulgence of revenge satisfied and of selfishness
gratified might have been undeserving of further notice
than a brief sentence or two of exposure and condemnation,
had not Josephus inflicted on his people an injury that out-
lived him, and to this day hurts them. He wrote against
Apion, who calumniated the Joavs, and yet his own history
is a calumny, all the more telling because he himself was a
Jew. The black colours in which he depicts the Jews suited
the views of the Dark Ages. The general feeling through-
out Europe, and wherever Christianity was dominant, was
of itself sufficiently hostile to the Jews, but that hostility
was strengthened and supported by the writings of Jose-
phus, the great Jewish historian. Accordingly, monkish
writers readily adopted him as an unquestionable authority:
he acquired a degree of popularity, founded, not on his
own merits, but on the use to which he could be turned
against the Jews ; and as that popularity yet survives to
some extent, we may be sure that the motive has not alto-
gether ceased.
The defence of Jerusalem has called forth the admira-
tion of the great military writer, Chevalier Folard, who,
even while he blames Jochanan and Simon for not making
the best use of the vast multitudes at their disposal, de-
clares, that " Of all the celebrated cities of ancient times,
none is more famous than Jerusalein, not only for the mag-
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 479
nificence of its public buildings, but likewise for tbe num-
ber of sieges it had to sustain. Of these the most memora-
ble is the last, when the Romans, under Titus, were the
assailants. Whatever is most admirable in the art of war
was put in practice during this siege. The courage and
constancy of the defence are fully equal to the skill, valour,
and perseverance of the attack ; and in point of enterprise
the besieged are even superior to the besiegers." (Com-
mentaries on Polybius, ii. 310, 314.) The Romans them-
selves did justice to the patriotism of the Jews, and con-
fessed that the defence of Jerusalem deserves to rank with
that of Carthage and of Numantium. But with later writers
the defence forfeits its merits because the defenders were
Jews. The same spirit which in ancient Numantium or ,
modern Saragossa is glorified as bravery and patriotism, is
in Jerusalem vituperated as obstinacy and wickedness.
It is true that the Zealots were red-hot fanatics, reckless
of life, whether their own or that of others, indifferent to
suffering, which they were alike ready to inflict or to en-
dure. But in their fanaticism they were sincere, to their
extreme opinions they clung honestly and manfully, and
of their sincerity and honesty they gave the strongest proof
that could be offered or exacted — they persevered to the
end, and died in their mistaken but unfeigned zeal. Ruth-
less and ferocious as they evidently were, they did not
surpass, or even equal, the Romans to whom they were
opposed, and whose turpitude bears the same proportion
to the wickedness of the Zealots as the immense extent of
the Roman Empire does to the diminutive province of
Judea. It cannot be denied that as the last century of
Roman senatorial domination Avas the most generally
rapacious and grindingly oppressive the world ever saw,
until the discoveries and conquests of the Spaniards in
x^merica, so, likewise, the first century of imperial sway
was the most atrociously corrupt, the most unblushing
480 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
and inhumanly profligate, that, until the clays of the Bor-
gias, (Pope Alexander VL and his detestable oflFspring,)
the world was ever cursed withal. And yet, when record-
ing the fall of Jerusalem, historians, one and all following
in the footsteps of Josephus, overwhelm the perishing and
hopeless Jews with fhe bitterest reproaches for their wick-
edness, and reserve all their admiration for the hind-hearted
Titus and his ruflSans. One single exception to this general
historical outcry we meet with in Schlosser's Universal
History: "The Jews defended their capital with a degree
of heroism such as but few nations have manifested in their
fall. Even the Romans — with whom the consideration of
Christianity and its fortunes did not yet exercise any influ-
,ence as to their judgment of this struggle — admitted that
the defence of Jerusalem is entitled to rank with the re-
sistance of Carthage and of Numantium." (Weltgeschichte,
vol. iv. p. 250.)
Josephus invariably represents Titus as humane, kind-
hearted, and sincerely desirous to save Jerusalem and its
misguided people. Tacitus confirms the character of Titus
as given by the Jewish historian, and speaks in the very
highest terms of Titus' clemency and beneficence as em-
peror. The Talmud, on the contrary, invariably desig-
nates Titus as Ha-rasliang, (the wicked,) and always speaks
of him as supremely proud, cruel, and blasphemous. For
doing this the Talmudists have met with abundant re-
proach. They have been accused of falsely and malig-
nantly painting their enemy as a monster. The testimony
of Josephus, of Tacitus, and even of Suetonius, has been
triumphantly adduced against them. But notwithstanding
the outcry raised against the unfortunate Talmudists, they
did not wrong Titus ; they described him such as he proved
himself during his stay in the East and after his return to
Rome, up to the time that he ascended the im^ierial throne.
Suetonius, a contemporary -of the Flavian emperors, but
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 481
not, like Josephus and Tacitus, biassed by the sense of obli-
gation for favours received, tells us that until his accession
to the empire Titus had been vindictive, debauched, cruel,
and rapacious. This impartial historian does justice to the
change wrought in the emperor's character when mature
age had tamed his fierce passions, and a sense of duty
awakened his better feelings ; but with this change in his
character the Talmudists never became acquainted. Had
he lived, it is likely that his bitter feelings against the
Jews might have relented, so that they, likewise, might
have experienced his clemency. In that case the Talmud-
ists would, unquestionably, have recorded the change in
his character and in their own opinion. But his short
reign of two years did not afford them the opportunity ; and
that they did not wrong him, is proved by the following
extract from a modern writer of deep research and of esta-
blished veracity: "As prefect of the prtetoi-ian guards,
and as his father's lieutenant, Titus (on his return to Rome)
took an active part in the government, but evinced a de-
gree of rigour truly cruel and despotic. He employed
agents, whom he sent into the camps and theatres with
directions loudly — and as if it had been the expression of
the public voice — to clamour for the punishment of every
person obnoxious to him ; and the individuals thus de-
nounced Titus caused at once to be put to death. On one
occasion he even invited one of these unconscious victims
to a banquet, and then caused him to be cut down in the
presence of all the guests. The associates who surrounded
him were the most wicked of men ; he himself evinced ex-
treme rapacity, and publicly indulged in the worst de-
bauchery and sensuality. His entire conduct thus led to
the expectation that he would prove a second Nero."
(Schlosser, Weltgeschichte, vol. iv. p. 257.) If such was his
character in Rome and among his own people, what must
it havS been in Judea among enemies !
Vol. II. 41
482 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
Joscplius tells us that Titus "was very anxious to save
Jerusalem and the temple ; and modern historians dilate on
"how Titus was driven against his will" to destroy both.
(Kitto, i. 756.) We have already shown, in the instance of
Artaxata, that it Avas part of the Roman system to destroy
those strongholds and cities which formed national points
of concentration and of defence for the power of any coun-
try Rome was intent on subduing. We have also related
the destruction of Cremona, and shown how little the fe-
rocious legions, in their licentious fury and rapacity, felt
inclined to spare an innocent city belonging to their own
people, or to respect the temples in which their own gods
were worshipped. Now, Jerusalem was the national point
of concentration, the chief stronghold of the Jews, and, as
such, doomed by the relentless system of Rome. Moreover,
Jerusalem was one of the wealthiest cities of Western Asia,
its temple reputed even more wealthy than it actually was.
The stimulus thus offered to Roman rapacity was much
more powerful than at Cremona. Add to all this, that the
besieging army was in part composed of the discomfited
legions of Cestius Gallus, eager to obliterate their disgrace
in the blood of those who had caused it, and that the whole
Roman army was exasperated to the utmost against Jeru-
salem, where an entire legion of their fellow-soldiers had
been treacherously massacred. ( Vide p. 405.) It is cer-
tain the power and influence of Titus over his legions, and
the degree of discipline he could enforce, were not suffi-
cient to overcome the fury of his troops ; for Josephus him-
self relates that when the besiegers had committed acts of
horrid and useless cruelty, and Titus wished to punish the
perpetrators, he felt himself powerless before the great
number of the offenders.^^ (Bell. Jud., lib. vi. cap. 15.) It
3^ A report was spread that the Jews swallowed their gold. The con-
sequence was, that the prisoners and refugees in the Roman camji were
butchered by the soldiers, and two thousand were "ripped up" in ono
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 483
is therefore quite evident that the Romans ^vould in no
case have spared Jerusalem or the temple. The only
safety for both was to be found in a successful defence.
Jochanan and Simon saw this clearly, and acted accord-
ingly-
It is not our intention to enter into any detail of the
military defence of Jerusalem, the high character of which
we have already described in the words of that truly com-
petent judge, the Chevalier Folard. ( Vide p. 479.) The
besieged did not wait for the attack, but made frequent,
and in part successful, sallies, by which they destroyed the
Roman works, and more than once spread consternation
among the veteran legions. If due allowance be made for
the total disproportion in the resources respectively at the
command of Jochanan and Simon, and of Titus, the Jew-
ish chiefs displayed as great military skill, and greater
genius, than the Roman general. The well-chosen oppor-
tunities and success of their attacks; the dangers they
brought upon Titus, personally; the boldness with which
these chiefs set fire, with their own hands, to the hostile
battering machines ; the perseverance and ingeniousness
with which they dug mines, causing explosion and combus-
tion under the very engines on which the besiegers relied
for the reduction of the obstinate city ; the well-directed
discharges of arrows and javelins by which the progress of
the Roman working parties was so greatly impeded, — all
this proves that sound calculations as well as unyielding
valour directed the defence.
As the siege proceeded, the emulation grew more strong
in both hosts. The hope, by their unparalleled resistance,
to tire out the invaders, inspired the Jews, and caused them
night, to come at their supposed treasures. Titus Tvished to punish these
ruffianly butchers, but found them so numerous that he was obliged to
content himself with issuing general orders threatening death to the of-
fenders, but ■which were not attended to.
484 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OP THE JEWS.
to endure unheard-of hardships without a murmur ; and if
their last attempt to destroy the Roman siege-works had
been as successful as their previous eflForts, Titus would
have been compelled to raise the siege. On the other hand,
the great wealth which Jerusalem and the temple were
known to contain stimulated the Romans, while the desire
to bring a dangerous expedition to a successful and speedy
conclusion animated Titus and his subordinates to un-
wonted exertions. Unfortunately for the Jews, there was
no hope of succour from without ; for though the princes
of Adiabene, who shared the toils and dangers of the de-
fence, repeatedly promised help from the Euphrates, the
aged king of Parthia, Vologeses, remained true to his Ro-
man alliance, and not only prevented any movement of his
vassals in aid of the Jews, but even offered Vespasian forty
thousand Parthian auxiliaries — an offer which that emperor
did not deem it prudent to accept. (Tacit. Historia, lib. iv.
§ 52.) The condition of the besieged within the walls of the
doomed city, was even more hopeless than their foreign pros-
pects. The vast multitudes shut up in Jerusalem required
immense supplies to sustain life. At an early period of
the siege the stores of provision that had escaped destruc-
tion were seized and reserved for the use of the soldiery,
while the resident population, and still more the many
strangers, were left a prey to all the horrors of famine.
The want of food began to be generally felt as early as the
first week in May. The strangers, ravenous like wolves
maddened by hunger, broke into the houses of the citizens
and robbed them of their scanty stores. Josephus relates
that a mother, left without a morsel of bread, and exaspe-
rated to madness by these robberies, in the phrcnsy of
hunger, killed her own infant, and devoured part of it. The
Talmud (tr. Gittin) also abounds in graphic details of the
extreme misery that prevailed in Jerusalem. Gradually
the stock of provisions reserved for the soldiery failed ;
THE ROMANS IN JUDEA. 485
Jochanan and his men, wlio garrisoned the temple-mount,
were compelled, in order to sustain life, to appropriate to
themselves the consecrated wine and oil in the store-rooms
of the temple. About the middle of July (the 17th day
of the Hebrew month Thamuz) the daily sacrifices ceased.
Josephus relates that Titus bitterly upbraided Jochanan
for not providing a priest to ofiiciate, and challenged him
to come out from the temple and fight it out on some other
spot — a proposal which Jochanan treated with scorn. Jo-
chanan and Simon, both sufficiently ruthless by nature,
completed the misery of the wretched people of Jerusalem
by seizing and putting to death every one who was sus-
pected of a leaning toward Rome. The high-priest Mat-
thias, who had introduced Simon into the city, was exe-
cuted with three of his sons, because the fourth had sought
refuge with Titus. Many other priests and persons of
merit met with a similar fate. But amid all the horrors
of famine and anarchy the defence never once relaxed ;
the Jews fought with the energy of despair, and with the
firm resolve to die rather than to surrender. After five
months of sanguinary combat by night and by day, and
with varied success, desolation and despair at length en-
tered the sanctuary of Zion. The tenth day of Ab wit-
nessed the destruction of the second temple, as the ninth
of the same month had witnessed that of the first. All fell
at once — temple, city, fortress. The sword of the Roman
was glutted with slaughter. Let us cast a vail over atro-
cities so degrading to human nature, and over those worse
horrors of which, after the rage of battle had subsided, the
Romans became guilty. After the fall of Jerusalem, three
strongholds remained in the possession of the Jews ; all three
successively fell into the hands of the Romans ; the last,
3Iassada, emulated the example of Numantium, the inha-
bitants and garrison disdaining to surrender. Above a
million and a half of human beings had perished during the
41*
486 POST-BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS.
war; the most considerable cities were destroyed, and
great part of the country depopulated, while the fertile
lands were sold for the benefit of Vespasian's treasury.
No people were ever so completely ruined as the Jews ;
and yet they survived and maintained their importance in
the history of the world, so that the destruction of Jeru-
salem forms but an epoch in their annals.
END OF VOL. n.
STEREOTTPED BY I,. JOHNSON ft CO.
PHILADELPHIA.
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