Hyrcanus Conquers Idumea

When Hyrcanus heard of Antiochus’s death, he marched at once against the cities of Syria, expecting to find them, as indeed they were, empty of fighting men and of anyone able to defend them. He took Medeba in the sixth month, after his army had endured great hardship. Then he took Samega and the places near it at once, and besides these Shechem and Gerizim, and the people of the Cutheans, who live around the temple built in the likeness of the temple in Jerusalem. Alexander had allowed Sanballat, his general, to build it for the sake of his son-in-law Manasseh, the brother of Jaddua the high priest, as we have related before. Now this temple came to be deserted two hundred years after it was built. Hyrcanus also took the cities of Idumea, Adora and Mareshah, and brought all the Idumeans under his hand. He allowed them to remain in the country if they would circumcise their genitals and agree to live by the laws of the Jews. Out of longing for the land of their fathers they submitted to circumcision and to taking on the whole Jewish way of life, and from that time on they were Jews. [a]

Hyrcanus the high priest wished to renew the friendship with the Romans, and he sent an embassy to them. The senate received his letter and made a treaty of friendship with him in these terms: “Fannius son of Marcus, the praetor, convened the senate on the eighth day before the Ides of February in the Comitium, in the presence of Lucius Mannius son of Lucius, of the Mentine tribe, and Gaius Sempronius son of Gaius, of the Falernian tribe. The business was the embassy of Simon son of Dositheus, Apollonius son of Alexander, and Diodorus son of Jason, good and worthy men sent by the people of the Jews. They spoke about the friendship and alliance between their people and the Romans, and about public affairs. They asked that Joppa and the harbors, and Gazara and the springs, and whatever other cities and places of theirs Antiochus had taken in the war contrary to the decree of the senate, be restored to them; that the king’s soldiers not be allowed to pass through their country or the country of their subjects; that whatever Antiochus had enacted during that war contrary to the decree of the senate be made void; that the senate send envoys to see that what Antiochus had taken from them was given back, and to assess the damage to the country laid waste in the war; and that it give them letters to kings and free peoples for their safe return home. On these matters it was resolved to renew friendship and alliance with good men, sent by a good and friendly people.” As to the letters, the senate answered that it would consider the matter when it had leisure from its own affairs, that it would take care in future that no such wrong was done to them again, and that the praetor Fannius should give them money from the public treasury for their journey home. So Fannius dismissed the Jewish envoys, giving them money from the public treasury, and gave the decree of the senate to those who were to escort them and see them safely home. [f]

Such was the state of affairs of Hyrcanus the high priest. As for King Demetrius, though he was eager to march against Hyrcanus, he had neither the opportunity nor the means, for the Syrians and the soldiers were hostile to him, since he was a wicked man. They sent envoys to Ptolemy, called Physcon, asking him to give them someone of the line of Seleucus to take the kingdom. Ptolemy sent them Alexander, called Zebina, with an army. A battle was fought with Demetrius, and Demetrius was defeated and fled to his wife Cleopatra at Ptolemais. When his wife would not receive him, he went on from there to Tyre, where he was caught, and after suffering much at the hands of those who hated him, he died. Alexander took the kingdom and made a treaty of friendship with Hyrcanus the high priest. Afterward Antiochus the son of Demetrius, called Grypus, made war on him, and he was defeated in battle and killed.