LITMIR.BIZ

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where his wife Cleopatra resided. Syria fell into a state of still greater confusion under his successors, when Zabina disputed the throne with the legitimate heir, Antiochus VIII, the latter finding likewise a competitor in his brother on the mother's side, Antiochus IX. The last pages of the history of Syria are stained with crimes caused by the deadly hatred of the various members of the Seleucidæan house against each other, and with the murders they committed. Soon after the death of her husband Demetrius, Cleopatra had one of her sons, Seleucus, killed, and mixed the poisoned cup for the other one, Antiochus Grypus, who forced her to drink it herself.

      Hyrcanus took advantage of this state of anarchy and weakness in Syria, which lasted several years, to enlarge the boundaries of Judæa, until his country attained its former limits. Soon after the death of Antiochus Sidetes, the last traces of vassalage to which the siege of Jerusalem had reduced Judæa were completely wiped out, and even the bonds of alliance were canceled, whilst Alexander Zabina was grateful to be acknowledged by Hyrcanus as king of Syria. It was at this period (124) that the inhabitants of Jerusalem, particularly those included in the great council, made an appeal to the Egyptian community and to the priest, Judas Aristobulus, teacher to the king, and of priestly lineage, to allow the anniversaries of the consecration of the Temple and of the victory over the sinners to be numbered among the memorial holidays of the nation. To strengthen their request they referred to the unexpected help which God had given His people in the evil days of Antiochus, enabling them to restore the sanctuary to its former purity. This appeal from Judæa was at the same time a hint to the Alexandrian community to acknowledge the new conditions that had arisen.

      John Hyrcanus, who until then had acted only in self-defense, was now, after the fall of Alexander Zabina (123), ready to strike energetically at Syria. Judæa at that time was encompassed on three sides by foreign tribes: on the south by the Idumæans, on the north by the hated Samaritans, and beyond the Jordan by the Greeks, who had never been friendly to the Judæans. Hyrcanus therefore considered it his mission to reconquer all those lands, and either to expel their inhabitants or to incorporate them with the Judæans; for so long as foreign and hostile tribes existed in the very heart of the country, its political independence and religious stability would be in constant danger. Not only were these hostile peoples ever ready to join surrounding nations, and assist them in their greed for conquest, but they also often interfered with the religious worship of the Judæans, thus frequently giving rise to acts of violence and bloodshed. Hyrcanus was consequently impelled by religious as well as by political motives to tear up these hotbeds of constant disturbance and hostility.

      To accomplish so great a task Hyrcanus required all the strength he could muster, and, in order not to tax too heavily the military resources of the nation, he employed mercenaries, whom, it is said, he paid out of the treasures he had found in David's sepulcher. The first place he attacked was Medaba, in the Jordan district. That city was taken after a six months' siege. Then the army moved on towards Samega, which, situated on the southern end of the Sea of Tiberias, must have been a place of great importance to the Judæans. Next in turn came the towns of Samaria; its capital, Shechem, as well as the temple erected on Mount Gerizim, which had always been a thorn in the side of the Judæans, were destroyed (21 Kislev, about 120). The anniversary of the destruction of this temple (Yom har Gerizim) was to be kept with great rejoicing, as the commemoration of a peculiarly happy event, and no fasting or mourning was ever to mar the brightness of the festival. From this time forth the glory of the Samaritans waned; for, although centuries to come still found them a peculiar people, and, at the present day even, they continue to exist and to offer sacrifice on Mount Gerizim, still, from the want of a central rallying point, they gradually decreased in numbers and prosperity.

      After his victory over the Samaritans, Hyrcanus marched against the Idumæans. This people, although fallen very low during the many vicissitudes of fortune attending the constant changes of the Macedonian and Asiatic dynasties, and forced by the Nabathæans to leave their dwellings, had alone, among all the tribes related by blood to the Judæans, been able to maintain themselves, and had preserved their ancient bitter animosity against them undiminished. Hyrcanus laid siege to their two fortresses, Adora and Marissa, and after having demolished them, gave the Idumæans the choice between acceptance of Judaism and exile. They chose the former alternative, and became, outwardly, followers of that faith. The temples of the Idumæan idols were, of course, destroyed, but the priests secretly adhered to their worship. Thus, after more than a thousand years of enmity, Jacob and Esau were again united – the elder serving the younger brother. For the first time Judaism, in the person of its head, John Hyrcanus, practised intolerance against other faiths, but it soon found out with deep pain how highly injurious it is to allow religious zeal for the preservation of the faith to degenerate into the desire to effect violent conversion of others. The enforced union of the sons of Edom with the sons of Jacob was fraught only with disaster to the latter. It was through the Idumæans and the Romans that the Hasmonæan dynasty was overthrown and the Judæan state destroyed.

      The first result of the conquest of the Idumæans and of their adoption of Judaism was a new contest with the city of Samaria, now chiefly inhabited by Macedonians and Syrians. A colony of Idumæans had been transplanted from Marissa to the vicinity of Samaria. They were attacked and ill-treated by their neighbors, who were urged on to their acts of aggression by the Syrian kings, Grypus and Cyzicenus. The latter, who resembled Antiochus Epiphanes in his folly and extravagance, manifested in particular a fierce hatred against Hyrcanus. His generals invaded Judæa, took several fortresses near the sea-coast, and placed a garrison in Joppa. Hyrcanus thereupon complained to the Roman Senate, which had guaranteed to Judæa the possession of this seaport, and sent five ambassadors to plead the justice of his cause at Rome. Among these was Apollonius, the son of Alexander, who had appeared before the Senate in a former embassy. Rome replied in fair words to the petition of Hyrcanus, and promulgated a decree forbidding Antiochus Cyzicenus to molest the Judæans, who were the allies of Rome, and commanding him to restore all the fortresses, seaports and territories which he had seized. It was further ordered that the Judæans should be allowed to ship their goods duty free from their ports, a favor not granted to any other allied nation or king, excepting the king of Egypt, who was regarded as the peculiar friend of Rome, and finally that the Syrian garrison should evacuate Joppa. Whether the sentence pronounced by Rome had any great effect upon Antiochus Cyzicenus or not, the fact that it was not adverse to Hyrcanus was so far a boon that it strengthened his cause. It appears to have restrained Cyzicenus within certain bounds.

      When, however, Hyrcanus, bent upon punishing Samaria for its enmity to the people of Marissa, besieged that city, causing famine within its walls by closely surrounding it with trenches and ramparts, and thus cutting off every possibility of exit, Cyzicenus came to its assistance. In an engagement with Aristobulus, the eldest son of Hyrcanus, who was conducting the siege conjointly with his younger brother Antigonus, Cyzicenus was defeated and forced to flee to Bethshean (Scythopolis). Too weak to confront the Judæans alone, he called to his help the co-regent of Egypt, Ptolemy VIII (Lathurus), who, inspired by the hatred entertained by the Egyptians against the Judæans, readily complied with that request. His mother Cleopatra, with whom the people had obliged him to share the government, was secretly in league against him, befriending, like her parents, the cause of Judæa. Two sons of Onias IV, Helkias and Ananias, sided with her. It was doubtless on that account that her son took an aversion to the Judæans, and gladly came forth at the call of Cyzicenus to compel Hyrcanus to withdraw from the siege of Samaria. Despite the wishes of his mother, Lathurus sent an army of six thousand men to support Cyzicenus against Judæa. Too weak to venture on meeting the Judæan troops in the open field, the operations were confined to laying waste the country around, in the hope of thus impeding the work of the besiegers. The Judæan princes, however, instead of being forced to abandon the siege, contrived by various manœuvres to compel the king of Syria to leave the scene of action and to withdraw to Tripolis. During one of the battles in which Cyzicenus was beaten, it is said that a voice from the Holy of Holies was heard announcing to Hyrcanus, at the very moment in which it took place, the victory achieved by his sons. He is said to have heard the following words pronounced in Aramaic: "The young princes have defeated Antiochus." The two generals, Callimandrus and Epicrates, whom Lathurus had left behind to continue the hostilities, were not more fortunate than himself, for the first lost his life in some engagement, the second succumbed to bribery, and delivered into the hands of the Judæan princes

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