Joseph and His Son Hyrcanus

After this Antiochus made friendship and an alliance with Ptolemy. He gave him his daughter Cleopatra as his wife, and handed over to him Coele-Syria, Samaria, Judea and Phoenicia as her dowry. When the taxes were divided between the two kings, the principal men all farmed the taxes of their own countries, collected the sum that had been fixed for them, and paid it to the kings. At this time the Samaritans were flourishing, and they did the Jews a great deal of harm, cutting off parts of their land and carrying off slaves. This happened when Onias was high priest. After Eleazar’s death his uncle Manasseh had taken the priesthood, and when he had ended his life Onias received that office. He was the son of Simon, who was called the Just; and this Simon, as I said before, was Eleazar’s brother. This Onias was a man of small mind and a great lover of money. For that reason he did not pay the tax for the people, twenty talents of silver, which his forefathers had paid to the kings out of their own estates; and so he provoked King Ptolemy Euergetes, the father of Philopator, to anger. Euergetes sent an ambassador to Jerusalem to complain that Onias did not pay his taxes, and threatened that if he did not receive them he would seize their land and send soldiers to live on it. When the Jews heard this message from the king they were dismayed; but Onias was so sordidly greedy that nothing of this kind made him ashamed. [a]

There was at this time a certain Joseph, young in years, but highly regarded by the people of Jerusalem for his dignity, good sense and justice. His father’s name was Tobias, and his mother was the sister of Onias the high priest. She told him of the ambassador’s coming, for he was then staying at a village called Phicol, where he had been born. So he came to the city and rebuked Onias for not caring for the safety of his countrymen, and for bringing the nation into danger by not paying this money. It was for their safety, he told him, that he had received authority over them and been made high priest. But if he loved money so much that he could bear to see his country in danger on that account and his countrymen suffer the greatest harm, then Joseph advised him to go to the king and ask him to let them off either the whole sum demanded or part of it. Onias answered that he did not care for his authority; that he was ready, if it could be done, to lay down his high priesthood; and that he would not go to the king, because he did not trouble himself at all about such matters. Joseph then asked whether he would allow him to go as ambassador on the nation’s behalf, and he said he would. So Joseph went up into the temple and called the people together in an assembly. He urged them not to be disturbed or frightened because of his uncle Onias’s carelessness, but to be at rest and not torment themselves with fear over it; for he promised to be their ambassador to the king and to persuade him that they had done him no wrong. When the people heard this, they thanked Joseph. Then he went down from the temple and entertained Ptolemy’s ambassador hospitably. He gave him rich gifts and feasted him magnificently for many days, and then sent him ahead to the king, telling him that he would soon follow. He was now all the more willing to go to the king because the ambassador encouraged him. The ambassador earnestly urged him to come to Egypt and promised to see that he obtained from Ptolemy everything he wanted, for he was greatly pleased with Joseph’s frank and generous temper and with the dignity of his bearing. [e]

When Ptolemy’s ambassador reached Egypt, he told the king how thoughtless Onias was, and told him also of Joseph’s good disposition: that he was coming to him to ask pardon for the people’s offenses, since he was their protector. In short, he praised the young man so lavishly that he made both the king and his wife Cleopatra well disposed to him before he arrived. Joseph then sent to his friends in Samaria and borrowed money from them, and got ready what he needed for the journey — clothes, cups and pack animals — which came to about twenty thousand drachmas; and he went to Alexandria. Now it happened that at this time all the principal men and rulers of the cities of Syria and Phoenicia were going up to bid for their taxes, for every year the king sold them to the most powerful men in each city. These men saw Joseph on the road and laughed at him for his poverty and his shabby appearance. When he reached Alexandria and heard that King Ptolemy was at Memphis, he went up there to meet him. He met the king as he was sitting in his chariot with his wife and with his friend Athenion, the very man who had been ambassador at Jerusalem and had been entertained by Joseph. As soon as Athenion saw him, he introduced him to the king, telling him what a good and generous young man he was. So Ptolemy greeted him first and invited him up into his chariot; and as Joseph sat there, the king began to complain of the way Onias had acted. Joseph answered: “Forgive him because of his age. You surely know that old men and infants have exactly the same kind of mind. But from us who are young you will have everything you want, and you will have no cause to complain.” The king was so delighted with the young man’s good humor and wit that, as though he had long experience of him, he already began to feel a still greater affection for him, so much so that he told him to take his meals in the palace and to be a guest at his own table every day. But when the king came to Alexandria, the principal men of Syria saw Joseph sitting with the king and were very much offended. [f]

When the day came on which the king was to farm out the taxes of the cities, and the men of highest rank in their several countries were to bid for them, the bids for the taxes of Coele-Syria, Phoenicia, and Judea with Samaria came to eight thousand talents in all. At this Joseph accused the bidders of having agreed among themselves to value the taxes too low, and he promised that he himself would give twice as much for them; and as for those who did not pay, he would send the king their whole property, for this right was sold together with the taxes themselves. The king was pleased to hear the offer, and because it increased his revenues he said he would confirm the sale of the taxes to Joseph. But when he asked him whether he had any guarantors who would stand surety for the payment of the money, Joseph answered very pleasantly: “I will give you security, and from persons who are good and reliable, whom you will have no reason to distrust.” And when the king told him to name them, he replied: “I give you no other guarantors, O king, than yourself and your wife here; you will be security for both parties.” Ptolemy laughed at the proposal and granted him the farming of the taxes without any guarantors. This deeply grieved those who had come into Egypt from the cities, since they had been outdone, and they all went back to their own countries in shame.

Joseph took two thousand foot soldiers from the king, for he asked for some help in forcing those in the cities who resisted to pay; and he borrowed five hundred talents from the king’s friends at Alexandria and hurried back into Syria. When he was at Ashkelon and demanded the taxes from its people, they refused to pay anything and insulted him besides. So he seized about twenty of their principal men and killed them, collected their property, which came to a thousand talents, sent it all to the king, and told him what he had done. Ptolemy admired the man’s shrewd handling of the matter, praised him for what he had done, and gave him leave to act as he pleased. When the Syrians heard of this they were astounded. Having the men of Ashkelon who had been killed before them as a grim example, they opened their gates, received Joseph willingly and paid their taxes. And when the people of Scythopolis tried to insult him and would not pay him the taxes they had formerly paid without dispute, he killed the principal men of that city as well and sent their property to the king. In this way he gathered great wealth and made vast profits from farming the taxes. He used the fortune he had gained to support his authority, thinking it wise to keep hold of what had been the cause and foundation of his present good fortune; and he did this by means of what he already had, for he secretly sent many presents to the king, to Cleopatra, to their friends, and to all who had power at court, and so bought their goodwill. [h]

Joseph enjoyed this good fortune for twenty-two years. He became the father of seven sons by one wife; and he had another son, named Hyrcanus, by the daughter of his brother Solymius, whom he married in the following way. He once came to Alexandria with his brother, who had brought with him a daughter already of age to marry, intending to give her in marriage to one of the Jews of high rank there. Joseph dined with the king, and fell in love with a dancing girl of great beauty who came into the room where they were feasting. He told his brother of it, and since a Jew is forbidden by their law to have relations with a foreign woman, he begged him to conceal his offense, to be kind and helpful to him, and to give him the chance to satisfy his craving. His brother willingly agreed to serve him. He dressed up his own daughter, brought her to Joseph by night, and put her into his bed. Joseph, being drunk, did not know who she was, and so lay with his brother’s daughter. He did this many times and loved her exceedingly, and he told his brother that his love for this dancing girl was putting his life in danger, since the king would perhaps not give her up to him. But his brother told him not to worry about that: he could enjoy the woman he loved without any danger and could have her as his wife. Then he told him the truth, and assured him that he had preferred to have his own daughter dishonored rather than overlook his brother’s state and see him come to disgrace. So Joseph praised him for his brotherly love and married his daughter, and by her he had a son, whose name, as we said before, was Hyrcanus. [i]

When this youngest son showed, at thirteen years old, a mind that was both courageous and wise, he was greatly envied by his brothers, since his ability was far above theirs and of a kind they might well envy. Joseph once wanted to find out which of his sons had the best natural bent toward virtue. He sent them one by one to the men who then had the best reputation for teaching the young; but the rest of his children, through laziness and unwillingness to work, came back to him foolish and unlearned. After them he sent out the youngest, Hyrcanus. He gave him three hundred pairs of oxen and told him to go two days’ journey into the wilderness and sow the land there; but he secretly kept back the straps that bound the yokes on. When Hyrcanus came to the place and found he had no straps, he ignored the drivers of the oxen, who advised him to send some men to his father to bring the straps. Thinking that he ought not to waste his time while men were sent to fetch them, he devised a stratagem that suited someone older than he was. He slaughtered ten pairs of the oxen, shared out their meat among the laborers, cut up their hides and made straps, and with them he bound on the yokes. In this way he sowed as much land as his father had told him to sow, and went back to him. When he returned, his father was delighted with his shrewdness and praised the sharpness of his understanding and his boldness in what he had done. He loved him all the more, as if he were his only true son, while his brothers were deeply troubled at it.

Then someone told Joseph that a son had just been born to Ptolemy, and that all the principal men of Syria and of the other countries subject to him were to keep a festival for the child’s birthday and were hurrying off to Alexandria with large retinues. Joseph himself was kept from going by old age, but he tested his sons to see whether any of them would be willing to go to the king. The elder sons excused themselves, saying that they were not polished enough for such company, and advised him to send their brother Hyrcanus. He gladly took this advice, called Hyrcanus, and asked him whether he would go to the king and whether he was willing to go or not. Hyrcanus promised to go, and said he would not need much money for the journey, because he would live modestly, and ten thousand drachmas would be enough; and his father was pleased with his son’s good sense. A little later the son advised his father not to send his presents to the king from home, but to give him a letter to his steward at Alexandria, so that the steward might supply him with money to buy whatever was finest and most precious. Joseph thought that ten talents would be enough to spend on presents for the king. He praised his son for the good advice and wrote to Arion, his steward, who managed all his money at Alexandria. The money held there on Joseph’s account was no less than three thousand talents, for Joseph sent to Alexandria the money he received in Syria, and when the day appointed for paying the taxes to the king came, he wrote to Arion to pay them. So when the son had asked his father for a letter to the steward and had received it, he hurried off to Alexandria. And when he had gone, his brothers wrote to all the king’s friends asking them to destroy him.

When he arrived in Alexandria he delivered his letter to Arion, who asked him how many talents he wanted, hoping he would ask for no more than ten or a little more. He said he wanted a thousand talents. At this the steward was angry and rebuked him as a young man who meant to live extravagantly. He told him how his father had gathered his fortune by hard work and by resisting his cravings, and urged him to imitate his father’s example. He assured him besides that he would give him only ten talents, and those only for a present to the king. The son was provoked at this and threw Arion into prison. Arion’s wife told Cleopatra of it and begged her to rebuke the boy for what he had done, for Arion was highly esteemed by her; and Cleopatra told the king. Ptolemy sent for Hyrcanus and told him that he was surprised that, having been sent to him by his father, he had not yet come into his presence, but had put the steward in prison; and he ordered him to come and give an account of why he had done it. They report that the answer Hyrcanus gave the king’s messenger was this: that there was a law of his people forbidding a child that was born to taste of the sacrifice before he had gone to the temple and sacrificed to God. By the same reasoning he had not come to the king himself while he was still waiting for the present he was to give him as his father’s benefactor. And he had punished the slave for disobeying his orders, because it made no difference whether a master was small or great: “Unless we punish such men, you yourself may expect to be despised by your subjects.” When the king heard this answer he burst out laughing and marveled at the boy’s greatness of spirit.

When Arion learned that this was the king’s attitude and that he had no way of helping himself, he gave the boy a thousand talents and was let out of prison. Three days later Hyrcanus came and greeted the king and queen. They were glad to see him and entertained him graciously, out of the respect they had for his father. Then he went privately to the merchants and bought a hundred boys who were educated and in the prime of youth, at a talent each, and a hundred girls at the same price each. When he was invited to a feast with the king among the principal men of the country, he was given the lowest place of all, because he was little regarded, being still a boy in age, by those who placed everyone according to rank. Now all those who sat with him had piled up in front of Hyrcanus the bones of their portions, having taken the meat off for themselves, until the table where he sat was full of them. The guests at the table then asked Trypho, the king’s jester, who was employed for jokes and laughter at festivals, to make Hyrcanus a laughingstock. So he stood beside the king and said: “Do you see the bones lying beside Hyrcanus, my lord? From this you may guess that his father has stripped all Syria as bare as he has stripped these bones.” The king laughed at what Trypho said and asked Hyrcanus how he came to have so many bones in front of him. He replied: “Quite rightly, my lord. It is dogs that eat the meat and the bones together, as these guests of yours have done” — and here he looked at the guests — “for there is nothing in front of them. But it is men who eat the meat and throw away the bones, as I, being a man, have now done.” The king admired the wisdom of his answer and told them all to applaud, in approval of his retort, which was truly a witty one. [k]

The next day Hyrcanus went to each of the king’s friends and of the powerful men at court and greeted them, but he asked their servants what present their masters would give the king on his son’s birthday. Some said they would give ten talents each, and that others of higher rank would each give according to the size of his wealth. To each of them Hyrcanus pretended to be sorry that he could not bring so large a present, since he had no more than five talents. When the servants heard this they told their masters, and they were glad at the prospect that Joseph would fall out of favor and make the king angry by the smallness of his present. When the day came, the others offered the king no more than twenty talents, even those who brought most. But Hyrcanus gave each of the hundred boys and hundred girls he had bought a talent to carry, and presented them, the boys to the king and the girls to Cleopatra. Everyone marveled at the unexpected richness of the gifts, even the king and queen themselves. He also gave gifts worth a great many talents to the king’s friends and to his attendants, so that he might escape the danger he was in from them; for it was to these men that Hyrcanus’s brothers had written to destroy him. Ptolemy admired the young man’s magnanimity and told him to ask for whatever gift he liked. But he asked nothing more of the king than that he would write to his father and brothers about him. So when the king had shown him very great honor and given him very large gifts, and had written about him to his father and his brothers and to all his commanders and officers, he sent him away. But when his brothers heard that Hyrcanus had received such favors from the king and was coming home with great honor, they went out to meet him in order to destroy him, and they did this with their father’s knowledge; for Joseph was angry with him for the money he had spent on presents, and so had no concern for his safety. Even so, Joseph hid the anger he felt toward his son, out of fear of the king. When Hyrcanus’s brothers came out to fight him, he killed many of the men who were with them, and two of his brothers themselves; the rest escaped to their father in Jerusalem. But when Hyrcanus came to the city and no one would receive him, he was afraid for himself and withdrew beyond the river Jordan. There he stayed, making the barbarians pay their taxes.

At this time Seleucus, who was called Soter, the son of Antiochus the Great, reigned over Asia. And Hyrcanus’s father Joseph died. He was a good man and of great generosity of spirit, and he brought the Jews out of poverty and obscurity into a more splendid state. He held the farm of the taxes of Syria, Phoenicia and Samaria for twenty-two years. His uncle Onias also died about this time and left the high priesthood to his son Simon; and when Simon died, his son Onias succeeded him in that office. It was to this Onias that Arius, king of the Spartans, sent an embassy with a letter, of which this is a copy: “Arius, king of the Spartans, to Onias, greetings. We have come across a certain writing from which we have learned that the Jews and the Spartans are of one stock and are descended from the family of Abraham. It is only right, therefore, that you, who are our brothers, should send to us about any of your concerns as you please. We will do the same, and will regard your concerns as our own, and look on our concerns as shared with you. Demoteles, who carries this writing, is delivering the letter. The writing is square; the seal is an eagle gripping a serpent.” [l]

Those were the contents of the letter sent by the king of the Spartans. But after Joseph’s death the people fell into faction because of his sons. The elder brothers made war against Hyrcanus, the youngest of Joseph’s sons, and the people were divided, though the greater part joined the elder brothers in this war, as did Simon the high priest, because he was related to them. Hyrcanus, however, decided not to return to Jerusalem any more. He settled beyond the Jordan and was continually at war with the Arabs; he killed many of them and took many captive. He also built a strong fortress, constructed entirely of white stone up to the very roof, and had animals of enormous size carved on it. Around it he dug a great, deep moat of water. He also made caves many hundreds of yards long by cutting through the projecting part of the rocky mountain opposite, and then he made large rooms in it, some for feasting and some for sleeping and living in. He brought in a great quantity of running water as well, which flowed through it and was very delightful and ornamental in the court. But he made the entrances at the mouths of the caves so narrow that no more than one person could go in at a time; and he built them this way on purpose, for his own safety, in case he should be besieged by his brothers and run the risk of being caught by them. Besides this he built courts larger than usual and adorned them with very large gardens. When he had brought the place to this state, he named it Tyre. It lies between Arabia and Judea, beyond the Jordan, not far from the country of Heshbon. He ruled over those parts for seven years, all the time that Seleucus was king of Syria. But when Seleucus died, his brother Antiochus, who was called Epiphanes, took the kingdom. Ptolemy the king of Egypt, who was also called Epiphanes, died too. He left two sons, both young; the elder was called Philometor and the younger Physcon. As for Hyrcanus, when he saw that Antiochus had a great army, he was afraid that he would be caught by him and punished for what he had done to the Arabs, and he ended his life by killing himself with his own hand; and Antiochus seized all his property. [p]