Ptolemy Lathyrus Invades Judea

When Aristobulus was dead, his wife Salina, whom the Greeks called Alexandra, released his brothers from prison, for Aristobulus had kept them in chains, as we have said already, and made Jannaeus, also called Alexander, king, since he was ahead of the others both in age and in moderation. This son happened to be hated by his father from the moment he was born, and was never allowed into his father’s sight as long as the father lived. The cause of this hatred is reported to have been as follows. Hyrcanus loved best the two eldest of his sons, Antigonus and Aristobulus. God appeared to him in his sleep, and he asked God which of his sons would be his successor. When God showed him the face of Alexander, he was grieved that this son was to be the heir of all his goods, and he had him brought up in Galilee. Yet God did not deceive Hyrcanus. For after the death of Aristobulus, Alexander did take the kingdom; one of his brothers, who reached for the kingdom, he killed, and the other, who chose to live a private and quiet life, he held in esteem. [a]

When Alexander Jannaeus had settled the government in the way he judged best, he marched against Ptolemais. He defeated its men in battle, shut them up in the city, encamped around it and besieged it. For of the cities on the coast only Ptolemais and Gaza remained for him to conquer, besides Strato’s Tower and Dora, which were held by the tyrant Zoilus. Now while Antiochus Philometor and his brother Antiochus, who was called Cyzicenus, were making war on each other and destroying each other’s armies, the people of Ptolemais could get no help from them. But when they were hard pressed by this siege, Zoilus, who held Strato’s Tower and Dora and kept a body of soldiers, and who was aiming at a tyranny for himself while the kings were contending, came and gave the people of Ptolemais some small help. Nor were the kings on such friendly terms with them that they could hope for any advantage from them. Both those kings were in the condition of wrestlers who find their strength failing and yet are ashamed to yield, and so put off the fight by idling and lying still as long as they can. The only hope left to them was from the kings of Egypt, and from Ptolemy Lathyrus, who now held Cyprus; he had come to Cyprus when he was driven from the government of Egypt by his mother Cleopatra. So the people of Ptolemais sent to this Ptolemy Lathyrus and asked him to come as their ally and deliver them, now that they were in such danger, out of the hands of Alexander. The envoys gave him hope that if he would cross over into Syria, he would have the people of Gaza on the side of the people of Ptolemais; and they said that Zoilus too, and the Sidonians besides, and many others, would help him. So he was elated at this and got his fleet ready as fast as he could. [c]

But in the meantime Demaenetus, a man able to persuade people to do what he wanted and a leader of the populace, made the people of Ptolemais change their minds. He told them that it was better to take their chances against the Jews, whatever the outcome might be, than to accept certain slavery by handing themselves over to a master; and besides, they would then have not only the present war but a much greater one to expect from Egypt. For Cleopatra would not overlook an army being raised by Ptolemy for himself in her neighborhood, but would come against them with a great army of her own, since she was working to drive her son out of Cyprus too. As for Ptolemy, if his hopes failed, he could still retire to Cyprus, but they would be left in the greatest danger possible. Now Ptolemy, although he heard on the voyage of the change in the people of Ptolemais, still went on with it, landed at the place called Sycamine, and put his army ashore there. His army, horse and foot together, numbered about thirty thousand, and with it he marched near Ptolemais and pitched his camp there. But when the people of Ptolemais would neither receive his envoys nor listen to what they had to say, he was very worried. [d]

But when Zoilus and the people of Gaza came to him and asked for his help, because their country was being laid waste by the Jews and by Alexander, Alexander raised the siege for fear of Ptolemy. When he had drawn his army back into his own country, he used a stratagem afterward: he secretly invited Cleopatra to come against Ptolemy, while publicly pretending to want a treaty of friendship and mutual help with him. He promised to give him four hundred talents of silver, and asked in return that he remove Zoilus the tyrant and give his country to the Jews. Then indeed Ptolemy gladly made such a treaty of friendship with Alexander and subdued Zoilus. But when he heard afterward that Alexander had secretly sent to his mother Cleopatra, he broke the treaty with him, though he had confirmed it with an oath, and attacked Ptolemais and besieged it, because it would not receive him. Leaving his generals with part of his forces to carry on the siege, he went at once with the rest to lay Judea waste. When Alexander learned that this was Ptolemy’s intention, he too gathered about fifty thousand soldiers from his own country, or, as some writers have said, eighty thousand. Then he took his army and went to meet Ptolemy. But Ptolemy fell suddenly upon Asochis, a city of Galilee, and took it by storm on the sabbath day, and there he took about ten thousand captives and a great deal of other plunder. [e]

He then tried to take Sepphoris, a city not far from the one he had sacked, but lost many of his men. Even so he then went to fight Alexander. Alexander met him at the Jordan River, near a place called Asophon, not far from the river, and pitched his camp near the enemy. He had, however, eight thousand men in his front rank, whom he called the hundred-fighters, with shields faced with bronze. The front-rank soldiers of Ptolemy also had shields covered with bronze. But Ptolemy’s soldiers were inferior in other respects, and so they were more cautious about running risks. Philostephanus, however, his tactician, put great courage into them and ordered them to cross the river, which lay between their camps. Nor did Alexander think fit to hinder their crossing; for he thought that once the enemy had the river at their backs, he would take them prisoner more easily, since they could not flee from the battle. At the beginning of the battle the deeds of both sides, in strength of hand and in eagerness, were alike, and there was great slaughter in both armies. Alexander was getting the upper hand, until Philostephanus skillfully divided his forces and brought help to those who were giving way. But since no one came to help the part of the Jewish line that was giving way, it happened that they fled, and those next to them did not help them but fled along with them. Ptolemy’s soldiers did quite the opposite. They followed the Jews and killed them, until at last, when they had put them all to flight, they pursued them and went on killing them so long that their iron weapons were blunted and their hands were worn out with the slaughter. For the report was that thirty thousand men were killed then; Timagenes says fifty thousand. Of the rest, some were taken captive and the others ran away to their own homes. [h]

After this victory Ptolemy overran the whole country, and when night came on he stayed in certain villages of Judea. When he found them full of women and children, he ordered his soldiers to cut their throats and chop them in pieces, then throw them into boiling cauldrons and devour their limbs as sacrifices. This order was given so that those who fled from the battle and came to them might suppose their enemies were cannibals who ate human flesh, and might be still more terrified of them at such a sight. Both Strabo and Nicolaus affirm that they treated these people in this way, as I have already related. Ptolemy also took Ptolemais by storm, as we have shown elsewhere. [k]