praise their fidelity to Ptolemy. The siege of Gaza was famous; but in the end the city was taken by storm, and Antiochus, secure at last of the province, which his ancestors had so long coveted, was at peace with Ptolemy, as the Roman embassy directed. From Palestine Antiochus turned to the Greek cities of Asia Minor, and by 196 B.C. he was in Thrace. There he was confronted by the ambassadors of Rome, who expressed their surprise at his actions. Antiochus replied that he was recovering the territory won by Seleucus his ancestor, and inquired by what right did the Romans dispute with him about the free cities in Asia (Polyb. xviii. 33 seq.). The conference was broken off by a false report of Ptolemy's death, but

Antiochus

and Rome. war between Rome and Antiochus was clearly inevitable and Antiochus was joined by Hannibal. After much diplomacy, Antiochus advanced into Greece and Rome declared war upon him in 191 B.C. (Livy xxxvi. 1). He was defeated on the seas and driven first out of Greece and then out of Asia Minor. His army was practically destroyed at Magnesia, and he was forced to accept the terms of peace, which the Romans had offered and he had refused before the battle. By the peace of Apamea (188 B.C.) he abandoned all territory beyond the Taurus and agreed to pay the whole cost of the war. He had stood in the beauteous land-the land of Israel-with destruction in his hand. He had made agreement with Ptolemy. He had turned his face unto the isles and had taken many. But now a commander had put an end to his defiance and had even returned his reproach unto him (Dan. xi. 16-18). After Magnesia men said "King Antiochus the Great was " (Appian, Syr. 37); and the by-word was soon justified in fact, for he plundered a temple of Bel at Elymais to replenish his exhausted treasury and met the fitting punishment from the gods at the hands of the inhabitants (Diodorus xxix. 15). He stumbled and fell and was not found (Dan. xi. 19).

Seleucus IV.

The need which drove Antiochus to this sacrilege rested heavily upon his successor Seleucus IV. (reigned 187-175 B.C.). The indemnity had still to be paid and Daniel designates Seleucus as one that shall cause an exactor to pass through the glory of the kingdom (xi. 20). A tradition preserved in 2 Macc. iii. describes the attempt of Heliodorus, the Seleucid prime minister, to plunder | the temple at Jerusalem. The holy city lay in perfect peace | and the laws were very well kept because of the piety of Onias the high priest. But one Simon, a Benjamite, who had become guardian of the temple, quarrelled with Onias about the city market, and reported to the governor of Coele-Syria and Phoenicia that the treasury was full of untold sums of money. The priests and people besought Heliodorus to leave this sacred treasure untouched, but he persisted and-in answer to their prayers-was overthrown by a horse with a terrible rider and Scourged by two youths. Onias, fearful of the consequences, offered a sacrifice for his restoration, and the two youths appeared to him with the message that he was restored for the sake of Onias. The description of the previous tranquillity may be exaggerated, though it is clear that the Jews, like the other inhabitants of Palestine, must have been left very much to themselves; but the enmity between the adherents of Simon and the pious Jews, who supported and venerated Onias, seems to be a necessary precondition of the state of affairs soon to be revealed. There were already Jews who wished to make terms with their overlord at all costs.

Antio chus IV.

When Antiochus IV. Epiphanes (175-164 B.C.) succeeded to the throne, Jason-whose name betrays a leaning towards Hellenism-the brother of Onias, offered the king a bribe for the high-priesthood and another for leave and Jason. to convert Jerusalem into a Greek city (2 Macc. iv. 7 sqq.). Antiochus had spent his youth at Rome as a hostage, and the death of Seleucus found him filling the office of war minister at Athens. The Hellenistic Jews were, therefore, his natural allies, and allies were very necessary to him if he was to establish himself in Syria. Onias had proceeded to Antioch to explain the disorder and bloodshed due to Jason's followers, and so Jason, high priest of the Jews by grace of Antiochus,

| had his way. The existing privileges, which the Jews owed to their ambassador to Rome, were thrust aside. In defiance of the law a gymnasium was set up under the shadow of the citadel. The young men of the upper classes assumed the Greek hat, and were banded together into a gild of ephebi on the Greek model. In fact Jason established in Jerusalem the institutions which Strabo expressly describes as visible signs of the Greek way of life-" gymnasia and associations of ephebi and clans and Greek names borne by Romans" (v. p. 264, referring to Neapolis)— and that on his own initiative. The party who wished to make a covenant with the heathen (1 Macc. i. 11 sqq.) were in the majority; and so far and so long as they were in the ascendant Antiochus was rid of his chief danger in Palestine, the debatable land between Syria and Egypt. At first Egypt was well disposed to him, as Cleopatra his sister was regent. But she died in 173 B.C.

The struggle for the possession of Palestine began in 170 B.C., when Rome was preoccupied with the war against Perseus of Macedonia. Antiochus sent an ambassador to Rome to protest that Ptolemy, contrary to all law and equity, was attacking him (Polyb. xxvii. 17). In self defence, therefore, Antiochus advanced through Palestine and defeated the Egyptian army near Pelusium on the frontier. At the news the young king, Ptolemy Philometor, fled by sea, only to fall into his uncle's hands; but his younger brother, Ptolemy Euergetes II., was proclaimed king by the people of Alexandria (Polyb. xxix. 8). Thus Antiochus entered Egypt as the champion of the rightful king and laid siege to Alexandria, which was held by the usurper.! | When he abandoned the siege and returned to Syria, Philometor, whom he had established at Memphis, was reconciled with his brother, being convinced of his protector's duplicity by the fact that he left a Syrian garrison in Pelusium. In 168 B.C. Antiochus returned and found that the pretext for his presence there was gone. Moreover the defeat of Perseus at Pydna set Rome free to take a strong line in Egypt. As he approached Alexandria Antiochus met the Roman ambassador, and, after a brief attempt at evasion, accepted his ultimatum on the spot. He evacuated Egypt and returned home cowed (Dan. xi. 30; cf. Polyb. xxix. 11). Later he could attend the celebration of the Roman triumph over Macedonia, and surpass it by a festival at Antioch in honour of his conquest of Egypt (Polyb. xxxi. 3-5); but the loss of Pelusium made it imperative that he should be sure of Palestine. His friends the Hellenizing Jews had split up into factions. Menelaus, the brother of Simon the Benjamite, had bought the high-priesthood over the head of Jason, who fled into the country of the Ammonites, in 172 B.C. (2 Macc. iv. 23 sqq.). To secure his position (for he was not even of the priestly tribe) Menclaus persuaded the deputy of Antiochus, who was dealing with a revolt at Tarsus, to put Onias to death. Antiochus, on his return, had his deputy executed and wept for the dead Onias. But Menelaus managed to retain his position, and his accusers were put to death. Antiochus could pity Onias, who had been tempted from the sanctuary at Daphne, but he needed an ally in Jerusalem-and money. Then, during the first or second invasion of Egypt, Jason, hearing that Antiochus was dead, returned suddenly and massacred all the followers of Menelaus who did not take refuge in the citadel. He had some claim to the loyalty of such pious Jews as remained, because he was of the tribe of Levi-in spite of the means he, like Menelaus, had employed to get the high-priesthood. His temporary success reveals the strength of the party who wished to adopt the Greek way of life without consenting to the complete substitution of the authority of Antiochus for the prescriptions of the Mosaic Law. It was also a warning to Antiochus, who returned to exact a bloody vengeance and to loot the Temple (169 or 168 B.C.). After the evacuation of Egypt, Antiochus followed out the policy which Jason had suggested to him at the first. Jerusalem was suddenly occupied by one of his captains, and a garrison was planted in a new fortress on Hellenism. Mount Zion. Then to coerce the Jews into conformity, the Law was outraged in the Holy Place. The worship of Zeus Olympius replaced the worship of Yahweh, and swine

were offered as in the Eleusinian mysteries. At the same time the |
Samaritan temple at Shechem was made over to Zeus Xenius:
it is probable that the Samaritans were, like the Jews, divided
into two parties. The practice of Judaism was prohibited by
a royal edict (1 Macc. i. 41-63; 2 Macc. vi.-vii. 42), and some
of the Jews died rather than disobey the law of Moses. It is
legitimate to suppose that this attitude would have surprised
Antiochus if he had heard of it. His Jewish friends, first Jason
and then Menelaus, had been enlightened enough to throw off
their prejudices, and, so far as he could know, they represented
the majority of the Jews. Zeus was for him the supreme god
of the Greek pantheon, and the syncretism, which he suggested
for the sake of uniformity in his empire, assuredly involved no
indignity to the only God of the Jews. At Athens Antiochus
began to build a vast temple of Zeus Olympius, in place of one
begun by Peisistratus; but it was only finished by Hadrian in
A.D. 130. Zeus Olympius was figured on his coins, and he
erected a statue of Zeus Olympius in the Temple of Apollo at
Daphne. More, he identified himself-Epiphanes, God Manifest
-with Zeus, when he magnified himself above all other gods
(Dan. xi. 37). To the minority of strict Jews he was therefore
"the abomination of desolation standing where he ought not ";
but the majority he carried with him and, when he was dying
(165 B.C.) during his eastern campaigns, he wrote to the loyal
Jews as their fellow citizen and general, exhorting them to
preserve their present goodwill towards him and his son, on
the ground that his son would continue his policy in gentleness
and kindness, and so maintain friendly relations with them
(2 Macc, ix.).

Jewish

Judas to settle down like an ordinary citizen. But Alcimus complained to the king and Judas fled just in time to escape being sent to Antioch as a prisoner. In the battle of Adasa, which soon followed, Nicanor was defeated and his forces annihilated, thanks to the Jews who came out from all the villages of Judaca (1 Macc. vii. 46). At this point (161 B.C.) Judas sent an embassy to Rome and an alliance was concluded (1 Macc. viii.), too late to save Judas from the determined and victorious attack of Demetrius. The death of Judas at Elasa left the field open to the apostates, and his followers were reduced to the level of roving brigands. The Syrian general made fruitless attempts to capture them, and build forts in Judaea whose garrisons should harass Israel (1 Macc. ix. 50-53), but Jonathan and Simon, brothers of Judas, found their power increase until Jonathan ruled at Michmash as judge and destroyed the godless out of Israel (1 Macc. ix. 73).

In 153 B.C. there appeared another of the series of pretenders to the Syrian throne, to whose rivalry Jonathan, and Simon after him, owed the position they acquired for Jonathan themselves and their nation. Jonathan was recog- and Sigren. nized as the head of the Jews, and his prestige and power were such that the charges of the Hellenizing Jews received scant attention. As the years went on he became Strategus and the Syrian garrisons were withdrawn from all the strongholds except Jerusalem and Bethzur. In 147 B.C. he defeated the governor of Coele-Syria in another civil war and received Ekron as his personal reward—as it was said in the name of the prophet Zachariah (ix. 7), "and Ekron shall be as a Jebusite." The king for whom he fought was defeated; but his successor acceded to the demands of Jonathan, added three districts of Samaria to Judaea and freed the whole from tribute. The next king confirmed this and appointed Simon military commander of the district stretching from Tyre to Egypt. So with Syrian as well as Jewish troops the brothers set about subduing Palestine; and Jonathan sent ambassadors in the name of the high-priest and people of the Jews to Rome and Sparta. In spite of the treacherous murder of Jonathan by the Syrian general, the prosperity of the Jews was more than maintained by Simon. The port of Joppa, which was already occupied by a Jewish garrison, was cleared of its inhabitants and populated by Jews. Finally, in 141 B.C., the new era began: the yoke of the heathen was taken away from Israel and Simon was declared high-priest and general and ruler of the Jews for ever until there should arise a faithful prophet (1 Macc. xiii. 41, xiv. 41).

For the Jews who still deserved the name the policy of Antiochus wore a very different aspect. Many of them became martyrs for the Law, and for a time none would Revolt. raise his hand to defend himself on the Sabbath if at all. No record remains of the success of the Athenian missionary whom Antiochus sent to preach the new Catholicism; but the soldiers at any rate did their work thoroughly. At last a priestly family at a village called Modein | committed themselves to active resistance; and, when they suspended the Sabbath law for purposes of self defence, they were joined by the Hasidacans (Assidacans), who seem to have been the spiritual ancestors of the Pharisees. The situation was plain enough: unless the particular law of the Sabbath was suspended there would soon have been none to keep the Law at all in Palestine. Jerusalem had apostatized, but the country so far as it was populated by Jews was faithful. Under Judas In 135 B.C. the political ambitions of the Jews were rudely Maccabeus the outlaws wandered up and down re-establishing checked: a new king of Syria, Antiochus Sidetes, resented their by force their proscribed religion. In 165 B.C. they attained encroachments at Joppa and Gazara and drove them Joha their end, the regent of Syria conceded the measure of toleration back into Jerusalem. In 134 famine compelled John Hyrcanus they required with the approval of Rome; and in 164 B.C. the Hyrcanus, who had succeeded his father Simon, to temple was purged of its desecration. But Judas did not lay a belated compliance with the king's demands. The Jews laid down his arms, and added to his resources by rescuing the Jews down their arms, dismantled Jerusalem, and agreed to pay rent of Galilee and Gilead and settling them in Judaea (1 Macc. v.). for Joppa and Gazara. But in 129 B.C. Antiochus died fighting The Nabatacan Arabs and the Greeks of Scythopolis befriended in the East and for sixty-five years the Jews enjoyed indepenthem, but the province generally was hostile. In spite of their dence. John Hyrcanus was not slow to take advantage of his hostility Judas more than held his own until the regent defeated opportunitics. He conquered the Samaritans and destroyed the him at Bethzachariah. The rebels were driven back on Mount temple on Mount Gerizim. He subdued the Edomites and Zion and were there besieged (163 B.C.). The rumour of a compelled them to become Jews. Soon after his death his sons pretender to the throne saved them from destruction, and they stormed Samaria, which Alexander the Great had colonized with capitulated, exchanging the strongholds they had for their lives. Macedonian soldiers, and razed it to the ground. Judas AristoAt any rate the time of compulsory fusion with the Greeks was bulus, who succeeded and was the first of the Hasmonaeans, ended once for all. In 162 B.C. Demetrius, the son of Seleucus, called himself king and followed his father's example by comescaped from Rome and was proclaimed king. Like Antiochus pelling the Ituraeans to become Jews, and so creating the Gallee Epiphanes, who also had spent his youth as a hostage in Rome, of New Testament times. In this case, as in that of the Edomites, he was inclined to listen to the Hellenizing Jews, whom he found it is natural to suppose that there existed already a nucleus of assembled in full force at Antioch, and to support them against professing Jews which made the wholesate conversion possible. Judas, who was now supreme in Judaea. But he dealt more By this time (103 B.C.) it was clear that the Hasmonacans were subtly with them: instead of a pagan missionary he -from the point of view of a purist-practically indistinguishsent them Alcimus, a legitimate high-priest, who de-able from the Hellenizers whom Judas had opposed so keenly, tached the Hasidaeans from Judas. Indeed, Alcimus and his except that they did not abandon the formal observances of company did more mischief among the Israelites than the heathen Judaism, and even enforced them upon foreigners. Conse(1 Macc. vii. 23) and Judas took vengeance upon those who deserted quently the Jews were divided into two parties-Pharisees and from him. Nicanor was appointed governor and prevailed upon Sadducees-of whom the Pharisees cared only for doing or

Alcimus.

enduring the will of God as revealed in Scripture or in the
events of history. This division bore bitter fruit in the reign of
Pharisees Alexander Jannaeus (104-78 B.C.), who by a standing
and army achieved a territorial expansion which was little
Sadducees. to the mind of the Pharisees. At first his attack upon
Ptolemais brought him into conflict with Egypt, in which he was
worsted, but the Jewish general who commanded the Egyptian
army persuaded the queen to evacuate Palestine. Then he
turned to the country cast of the Jordan, and then to Philistia.
Later he was utterly defeated by a king of Arabians and fled to
Jerusalem, only to find that the Pharisees had raised his people
against him and would only be satisfied by his death. The
rebels' appeal to the Seleucid governor of part of Syria (88 B.C.)
caused a revulsion in his favour, and finally he made peace by
more than Roman methods. Aretas, the Arabian king, pressed
him hard on the south and the east, but he was able to make
some conquests still on the east of the Jordan. In spite of his
quarrel with the Pharisees, he seems to have offered the cities
he conquered the choice between Judaism and destruction
(Jos. Ant. xiii. 15, 4). Under Alexandra, his widow (78-69 B.C.), |
the Pharisees ruled the Jews and no expansion of the kingdom
was attempted. It was threatened by Tigranes, king of Armenia,
who then held the Syrian Empire, but a bribe and the imminence
of the Romans (Jos. Ant. xiii. 16, 4; War i. 5, 3) saved it. At
her death a civil war began between her sons, which left the
way open for Rome. Pompey's lieutenant Scaurus
Pompey.
entered Syria in 65 B.C., after the final defeat of
Mithradates, and Pompey soon followed to take command of
the situation. Three parties pleaded before him, the repre-
sentatives of the rival kings and a deputation from the people
who wished to obey no king, but only the priests of their God
Jos. Ant. xiv. 3, 2.) Pompey finally decided in favour of Hyrca-
nus, and entered Jerusalem by the aid of his party. The adherents
of Aristobulus seized and held the temple mount against the
Romans, but on the Day of Atonement of the year 63 B.C.
their position was stormed and the priests were cut down at
the altars (Jos. Ant. xiv. 4, 2-4; Wer i. 7). Hyrcanus was left
as high-priest-not king of the Jews-and his territory was
curtailed. The coast towns and the Decapolis, together with
Samaria and Scythopolis, were incorporated in the new Roman
province of Syria.

In

complaints of the Jewish nobility. In 42 B.C., however, the tyrant of Tyre encroached upon Galilean territory and in 40 B.C. Herod had to fly for his life before the Parthians. Even as a landless fugitive Herod could count upon Roman support. At the instance of Mark Antony, and with the assent of Octavian, the senate declared him king of Judaea, and after two years' fighting he made his title good. Antigonus, whom the Parthians had set upon his throne, was beheaded by his Roman allies (37 B.C.). As king of the Jews (37-4 B.C.) Herod was completely subject and eagerly subservient to his Roman masters. 34 B.C. (for example) or earlier, Mark Antony gave Cleopatra the whole of Phoenicia and the coast of the Philistines south of | Eleuthesus, with the exception only of Tyre and Sidon, part of the Arabian territory and the district of Jericho. Herod acquiesced and leased Jericho, the most fertile part of his kingdom, from Cleopatra. In the war between Antony and Octavian Cleopatra prevented Herod from joining Antony and so left him free to pay court to Octavian after Actium (31 B.C.). A year later Octavian restored to the Jewish kingdom Jericho, Gadara, Hippos, Samaria, Gaza, Anthedon, Joppa and Straton's Tower (Caesarea). Secure of his position, Herod began to build temples and palaces and whole cities up and down Palestine as visible embodiments of the Greek civilization which was to distinguish the Roman Empire from barbarian lands. A sedulous courtier, he was rewarded with the confidence of Augustus, who ordered the procurators of Syria to do nothing without taking his advice. But with the establishment of (relatively) universal peace Palestine ceased to be a factor in general history. Herod the Great enlarged his borders and fostered the Greek civilization of the cities under his sway. After his death his kingdom was dismembered and gradually came under the direct rule of Rome. Herod Agrippa (A.D. 41-44) revived the glories of the reign of Alexandra and won the favour of the Pharisees; but his attempt to form a confederacy of client-princes was nipped in the bud. Even the war which ended with the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, and the rebellion under Hadrian, which led to the edict forbidding the Jews to enter Jerusalem, are matters proper to the history of the Jews.

References to authorities other than Josephus are given in the course of the article; his Antiquities and War are the chief source for the period. All modern authorities are given by Schürer. (J. H. A. H.)

In 61 B.C. Pompey celebrated the third of a series of triumphs over Africa, Europe and Asia, and in his train, among the III.-From A.D. 70 to the Present Day. prisoners of war, was Aristobulus, king of Judaea. Palestine Owing to the peculiar conditions of the land and the varied meanwhile remained quiet until 57 B.C., when Alexander, the interests involved in it, the later history may best be treated son of Aristobulus, escaped from his Roman captivity and in four sections. In the first the general political history will attempted to make himself master of his father's kingdom. be set forth; in the second a sketch will be given of the cult Aulus Gabinius, the new proconsul of Syria, defeated his hastily of the "holy places "; the third will contain some particulars gathered forces, besieged him in one of the fortresses he had regarding the history of modern colonization by foreigners, managed to acquire, and induced him to abandon his attempt which, while it has not affected the political status of the country, in return for his life. The impotence of Hyrcanus was so has produced very considerable modifications in its population obvious that Gabinius proceeded to deprive him of all political and life; and the fourth will consist of a brief notice of the power by dividing the country into five cantons, having Jerusa-progress of exploration and scientific research whereby our lem, Gazara, Amathus, Jericho, and Sepphoris, as their capitals. | knowledge of the past and the present of the land has been Other raids, headed by Aristobulus, or his son, or his adherent systematized. Peitholaus, disturbed Palestine during the interval between 57 and 51 B.C. and served to create a prejudice against the Jews in the mind of their masters. But with the civil wars which began in 49 B.C. there came opportunities which Hyrcanus, at the instance of Antipater, used to ingratiate himself with Caesar. Once more, as in the days of Simon, the suzerain power was divided against itself, and, though Rome was as strong as the Seleucids had been weak, Caesar was grateful. For timely help in the Egyptian War of 47 B.C. Hyrcanus was rewarded by the title of Ethnarch, and Antipater with the Roman citizenship and the office of procurator of Judaea. The sons of Antipater became deputies for their father; and it appears that Galilee, which was entrusted to Herod, fell within his jurisdiction. The power of this Idumaean family provoked popular risings and Antipater was poisoned. But Herod held his ground as governor of Coele-Syria and retained the favour of Cassius and Mark Antony in turn, despite the

The

Herods.

1. Political History from A.D. 70.—The destruction of Jerusalem was followed by the dispersal of the Jews, of whom till then it had been the religious and political centre. The The first seat of the sanhedrin was at Jamnia (Yebna),, Dispersion. where the Rabbinic system began to be formulated. This extraordinary spiritual tyranny, for it seems little else, acquired a wonderful hold and exercised a singularly uniting power over the scattered nation. The sharp contrasts between its compulsory religious observances and those of the rest of the world prevented such an absorption of the Jewish people into the Roman Empire as had caused the disappearance of the ten tribes of Israel by their merging with the Assyrians.

It would appear that at first, after the destruction of the city, no specially repressive measures were contemplated by the conquering Romans, who rather attempted to reconcile the Jews to their subject state by a leniency which had proved successful in the case of other tribes brought by conquest within the empire.