Nicanor’s Day and Rome’s Alliance

About the same time Demetrius, the son of Seleucus, escaped from Rome, seized Tripoli in Syria, and put the diadem on his own head. Then he gathered some mercenaries about him and entered the kingdom, and everyone welcomed him gladly and gave themselves up to him. They seized King Antiochus and Lysias and brought them to him alive, and at Demetrius’s order both were put to death at once, after Antiochus had reigned two years, as has already been related elsewhere. Many wicked Jews and renegades now flocked to him, and with them Alcimus the high priest. They accused the whole nation, and Judas and his brothers in particular. They said that these men had killed all his friends; that they had destroyed all those in his kingdom who took his side and were waiting for him; and that they had driven them out of their own land and made them strangers in a foreign one. And they asked him to send one of his own friends and learn through him what outrages Judas’s party had committed. [a]

Demetrius was provoked and sent out Bacchides, a friend of King Antiochus Epiphanes, a good man, who had been entrusted with all of Mesopotamia. He gave him an army, put Alcimus the high priest in his charge, and ordered him to kill Judas and those with him. Bacchides set out from Antioch with his army, and when he reached Judea, he sent to Judas and his brothers to talk of friendship and peace, for he meant to take him by treachery. But Judas did not believe him, for he saw that he had come with an army as large as a man brings to a war, not to a peace. Some of the common people, however, listened to what Bacchides proclaimed. Thinking they would suffer no harm from Alcimus, since he was their own countryman, they went over to them; and when they had received oaths from both men that neither they nor any who shared their views would come to harm, they put themselves in their hands. But Bacchides cared nothing for his oaths and killed sixty of them, and by not keeping faith with the first to come over he turned back all the others who had been thinking of going over to him. After he left Jerusalem and was at a village called Beth-zaith, he sent out men who seized many of the deserters and some of the people as well. He killed them all, and ordered everyone in the country to obey Alcimus. Then he left him there with part of the army, so that he could hold the country, and went back to King Demetrius at Antioch. [b]

Alcimus wanted to make his rule secure. Understanding that he would govern more safely if he won the goodwill of the people, he drew everyone to him with kind words, and by talking with each man in a way that pleased and gratified him he very quickly gathered a large band and a force around himself. Most of these came from the impious and the renegades, and using them as his servants and soldiers he went through the country and murdered everyone he found who took Judas’s side. When Judas saw that Alcimus was already becoming powerful and had killed many of the good and devout men of the nation, he too went through the country and killed those who took the other side. When Alcimus saw that he could not hold out against Judas but was outmatched in strength, he decided to turn to King Demetrius for help. So he went to Antioch and stirred the king up against Judas, accusing him of having done him many injuries already, and saying he would do more unless he were stopped first and punished by a strong force sent against him.

Demetrius already judged that it would endanger his own affairs to stand by while Judas grew so strong, so he sent out Nicanor, the most devoted and most loyal of his friends, for he was the man who had escaped with him from the city of the Romans. He gave him as large a force as he thought would be enough against Judas, and ordered him to show the nation no mercy at all. When Nicanor came to Jerusalem, he did not decide to fight Judas at once, but judged it better to get him into his hands by treachery. So he sent him peaceful words: there was no need for them to fight and run risks, he said, and he would give Judas his oath that he would come to no harm; for he had come with his friends to make known to them King Demetrius’s mind and what he thought of their people. When Nicanor had sent this message, Judas and his brothers were persuaded, and suspecting no deceit they gave him pledges and received Nicanor and his force. But while he was greeting Judas, in the middle of their talk, he gave his men a signal to seize Judas. Judas saw the plot, sprang away to his own men, and escaped with them. Now that his intention and his trap had been exposed, Nicanor decided to make war on Judas. He gathered his army, made ready for battle, and engaged him near a village called Capharsalama; and having won, he forced Judas to flee to the citadel in Jerusalem. [d]

As Nicanor was coming down from the citadel to the temple, some of the priests and elders met him and greeted him, and showed him the sacrifices which, they said, they were offering to God for the king. But he blasphemed and threatened them that unless the people handed Judas over to him, he would pull down the sanctuary when he came back. After making these threats he left Jerusalem, and the priests, grieving at what had been said, broke into tears and begged God to rescue them from their enemies. When Nicanor had left Jerusalem and come to a village called Beth-horon, he pitched his camp there, and another force from Syria joined him. Judas pitched his camp at Adasa, another village, almost four miles from Beth-horon, with two thousand soldiers. He urged them not to be dismayed at the number of their opponents, nor to reckon how many they were about to fight, but to bear in mind who they were and what great prizes they were risking themselves for, and to close with the enemy courageously. Then he led them out to battle. He engaged Nicanor, and after a hard fight he overcame the enemy and killed many of them, and at last Nicanor himself fell, fighting splendidly. When he fell, his army did not stand either. Having lost their general, they turned to flight and threw away their armor. Judas pursued and slaughtered them, and with trumpets he signaled to the villages around that he was defeating the enemy. When the villagers heard it, they leaped out armed and met the fugitives face to face and killed them, so that not one escaped from this battle, though they numbered nine thousand. This victory happened to fall on the thirteenth of the month that the Jews call Adar and the Macedonians Dystrus. Every year they celebrate the victory on that day and keep it as a festival. After that time the Jewish nation rested from wars for a little while and enjoyed peace; then they were thrown back again into struggles and dangers. [e]

When the high priest Alcimus decided to pull down the wall of the holy place, which was old and had been built by the ancient prophets, a sudden stroke from God fell on him. It threw him speechless to the ground, and after being tormented for many days he died, having been high priest four years. When he was dead, the people gave the high priesthood to Judas. Judas heard of the power of the Romans: how they had conquered Galatia and Iberia and Carthage in Libya, and besides these had subdued Greece and the kings Perseus and Philip and Antiochus the Great. So he decided to make friendship with them. He sent two of his friends to Rome, Eupolemus the son of John and Jason the son of Eleazar, and through them asked the Romans to be their allies and friends, and to write to Demetrius not to make war on the Jews. The senate received the envoys from Judas when they came to Rome, talked with them about the business they had been sent on, and agreed to the alliance. It made a decree about it and sent a copy to Judea, and the decree itself was engraved on bronze tablets and set up in the Capitol. It ran as follows: “Decree of the senate concerning alliance and goodwill with the nation of the Jews. No one subject to the Romans shall make war on the nation of the Jews, or supply those who make war on them with grain or ships or money. If anyone attacks the Jews, the Romans shall help them as far as they are able; and again, if anyone attacks the Romans, the Jews shall fight on their side. If the nation of the Jews wishes to add anything to this alliance or to take anything away, it shall be done by the common decision of the Roman people, and whatever is added shall be binding.” The decree was written by Eupolemus the son of John and by Jason the son of Eleazar, when Judas was high priest of the nation and his brother Simon was general. This was how the first friendship and alliance between the Romans and the Jews came about. [h]