Aristobulus Takes a Crown

When their father Hyrcanus was dead, the eldest son, Aristobulus, intending to change the government into a kingdom, for that was what he resolved to do, was the first to put a diadem on his head, four hundred and eighty-one years and three months after the people had been delivered from slavery in Babylon and returned to their own country. This Aristobulus loved his next brother, Antigonus, and treated him as his equal, but the others he kept in chains. He also threw his mother into prison because she disputed the government with him, for Hyrcanus had left her mistress of all; and he went so far in cruelty as to starve her to death in prison. He was turned against his brother Antigonus too, by slanders, and made him a victim alongside his mother, though he seemed to have an affection for him and had made him, above the rest, a partner with him in the kingdom. At first he did not believe those slanders, partly because he loved him and so paid no attention to what was said against him, and partly because he thought the accusations came from the envy of those who told them. But once, when Antigonus had returned in splendor from a campaign and the feast was at hand at which they make tabernacles to God, it happened that Aristobulus had fallen sick, and Antigonus went up to the temple most splendidly dressed, with his soldiers about him in their armor, to celebrate the feast and to offer many prayers for his brother’s recovery. Then some wicked men, who very much wanted to break the harmony between the brothers, used this opportunity: the splendid appearance of Antigonus and the great deeds he had done. They went to the king and spitefully made the most of his show at the feast. They claimed that none of this was like a private person; that these actions were signs that he was reaching for royal authority; and that his coming with a strong body of men must mean he intended to kill him. His reasoning, they said, was this: that it was foolish of him, when it was in his power to reign himself, to think it a great favor to be honored with a lower rank by his brother. [a]

Aristobulus was persuaded by these accusations, though against his will, but took care both that his brother should not suspect him and that he himself should not risk his own safety. So he ordered his guards to lie in wait in a certain place that was underground and dark, while he himself lay sick in the fortress called Baris, which was later renamed Antonia. He commanded them that if Antigonus came in to him unarmed, they should touch no one, but if armed, they should kill him. Then he sent to Antigonus and asked him to come unarmed. But the queen, and those who joined with her in the plot against Antigonus, persuaded the messenger to tell him the very opposite: that his brother had heard he had made himself a fine suit of armor for war, and wanted him to come in that armor so that he could see how fine it was. So Antigonus, suspecting no treachery and relying on his brother’s goodwill, came to Aristobulus armed, as he used to be, in his full armor, in order to show it to him. But when he came to a place called Strato’s Tower, where the passage happened to be extremely dark, the guards killed him. His death shows that nothing is stronger than envy and slander, and that nothing more surely divides the goodwill and natural affection of men than those passions. But here one may well wonder at a certain Judas, of the sect of the Essenes, who never missed the truth in his predictions. When this man saw Antigonus passing by the temple, he cried out to his companions and friends, who stayed with him as his pupils in order to learn the art of foretelling things to come, “It would be good for me to die now, since I have spoken falsely about Antigonus. He is still alive; I see him passing by. Yet I foretold that he would die this very day at the place called Strato’s Tower, and the place where I foretold he would be killed is about seventy-five miles from here, and a great part of this day is already past. I am in danger of proving a false prophet.” As he was saying this, in a gloomy mood, the news came that Antigonus had been killed in an underground place that was itself also called Strato’s Tower, the same name as the Caesarea that lies on the sea. This event threw the prophet into great confusion. [b]

But Aristobulus immediately repented of this slaughter of his brother. Because of it his disease grew worse, and his mind was troubled by the guilt of such wickedness, until his insides were corrupted by unbearable pain and he vomited blood. At that time one of the servants attending him, while carrying his blood away, slipped, by divine providence, as I cannot but suppose, and spilled some of the blood at the very spot where stains of Antigonus’s blood, from his murder there, still remained. The onlookers cried out, as if the servant had spilled the blood there on purpose. Aristobulus heard it and asked what the matter was; and when they did not answer him, he was all the more eager to know, since men naturally suspect that what is concealed in this way is very bad. So by threatening them and frightening them into speaking, he forced them at last to tell him the truth. At this he shed many tears, in the turmoil of mind that came from his knowledge of what he had done, and he groaned deeply and said, “So I see that I am not hidden from God in the impious and horrible crimes I have committed, but a swift punishment is coming upon me for shedding the blood of my own family. And now, you most shameless body of mine, how long will you hold back a soul that is owed to the ghosts of my brother and my mother? Why do you not give it all up at once? Why do I pour out my blood bit by bit, like an offering, to those I have so wickedly murdered?” As he said these last words he died, having reigned one year. [e]

He was called a lover of the Greeks. He conferred many benefits on his own country: he made war against Iturea and added a great part of it to Judea, and compelled the inhabitants, if they wished to remain in that country, to be circumcised and to live according to the Jewish laws. He was by nature a considerate man and very modest, as Strabo testifies on the authority of Timagenes, who says this: “This man was considerate and very useful to the Jews; for he added territory to them and won over part of the nation of the Itureans for them, binding them to the Jews by the bond of circumcision of their genitals.”