The Sack of Gaza

When Cleopatra saw that her son was growing powerful, that he was laying Judea waste without hindrance, and that he had brought the city of Gaza under his power, she resolved to overlook him no longer, now that he was almost at her gates. She concluded that, being so much stronger than before, he would be very eager for rule over the Egyptians. So she marched against him at once with a fleet at sea and an army of foot soldiers on land, and made Chelcias and Ananias, the Jews, generals of her whole army; and she sent the greater part of her wealth, her grandsons and her will to the people of Cos for safekeeping. Cleopatra also ordered her son Alexander to sail along the coast to Phoenicia with a great fleet, and she herself came with her whole army to Ptolemais; and because the people of Ptolemais would not receive her, she besieged the city. But Ptolemy left Syria and hurried to Egypt, supposing that he would find it empty of troops and take it quickly; but he was disappointed in his hopes. At this time Chelcias, one of Cleopatra’s two generals, happened to die in Coele-Syria while pursuing Ptolemy. [a]

When Cleopatra heard of her son’s attempt, and that his Egyptian expedition had not gone as he expected, she sent part of her army there and drove him out of that country. So when he had come back out of Egypt, he spent the winter at Gaza. In that time Cleopatra took the garrison in Ptolemais by siege, as well as the city. When Alexander came to her, he brought her presents and showed her such respect as was only fitting, since under the miseries he had suffered from Ptolemy he had no other refuge but her. Some of her friends urged her to seize Alexander, to overrun the country and take possession of it, and not to sit still and see so great a multitude of brave Jews subject to one man. But Ananias gave the opposite advice. He said she would be doing an unjust thing if she deprived a man who was her ally of the authority that belonged to him, and a man who is our kinsman besides. “For I would not have you ignorant of this,” he said, “that the injustice you do to him will make all of us who are Jews your enemies.” Cleopatra complied with this request of Ananias and did Alexander no injury, but made a treaty of mutual help with him at Scythopolis, a city of Coele-Syria.

So when Alexander was freed from his fear of Ptolemy, he at once marched against Coele-Syria. He took Gadara after a ten months’ siege. He also took Amathus, the strongest fortress of those who lived beyond the Jordan, where Theodorus, the son of Zeno, kept his finest treasure and what he valued most. This Theodorus fell unexpectedly upon the Jews, killed ten thousand of them, and plundered Alexander’s baggage. Yet this misfortune did not frighten Alexander. He marched against the coastal parts of the country, Raphia and Anthedon, whose name King Herod later changed to Agrippias, and took that city too by storm. But when Alexander saw that Ptolemy had withdrawn from Gaza to Cyprus, and that his mother Cleopatra had returned to Egypt, he grew angry with the people of Gaza because they had invited Ptolemy to help them, and he besieged their city and ravaged their country. Apollodotus, the general of the army of Gaza, fell upon the camp of the Jews by night with two thousand mercenaries and ten thousand servants. As long as the night lasted the men of Gaza had the upper hand, because the enemy was made to believe it was Ptolemy who was attacking them. But when day came and that mistake was exposed, the Jews learned the truth of the matter, rallied, fell upon the men of Gaza, and killed about a thousand of them. But the men of Gaza held out stoutly and would not give in, either for their want of supplies or for the great number of their dead; for they would rather suffer any hardship whatever than come under the power of their enemies. Aretas, king of the Arabians, who was expected to come to their aid, also stirred up their eagerness. But it happened that before he came Apollodotus was killed. His brother Lysimachus envied him for the great reputation he had gained among the citizens, so he killed him, gathered the soldiers together, and handed the city over to Alexander. When Alexander first came in, he kept quiet, but afterward he let his army loose on the people of Gaza and gave them leave to punish them. So some went one way and some another, killing the inhabitants of Gaza. Yet they were not cowards; they resisted those who came to kill them and killed as many Jews as they lost. Some of them, when they saw themselves left alone, burned their own houses so that the enemy might get none of their spoils. Some even killed their own children and wives with their own hands, having no other way than this to save them from slavery to their enemies. But the council members, five hundred in all, fled into the temple of Apollo, for the attack happened to come while they were in session; and Alexander killed them. When he had utterly overthrown their city, he returned to Jerusalem, having spent a year on that siege. [c]

About this very time Antiochus, who was called Grypus, died. His death was caused by the treachery of Heracleon, when he had lived forty-five years and reigned twenty-nine. His son Seleucus succeeded him in the kingdom and made war on Antiochus, his father’s brother, who was called Antiochus Cyzicenus, and beat him, took him prisoner, and killed him. But not long after, the son of Cyzicenus, Antiochus, who was called the Pious, came to Aradus, put the diadem on his own head, made war on Seleucus, beat him, and drove him out of all Syria. Seleucus fled into Cilicia, and when he came to Mopsuestia he again levied money on the people; but the people of Mopsuestia were indignant at what he did, burned down his palace, and killed him along with his friends. While Antiochus, the son of Cyzicenus, was king of Syria, Antiochus, the brother of Seleucus, made war on him, and was defeated and destroyed, he and his army. After him his brother Philip put on the diadem and reigned over some part of Syria. But Ptolemy Lathyrus sent for the third of their brothers, Demetrius, who was called Akairos, from Cnidus, and made him king of Damascus. Antiochus opposed both these brothers vigorously, but soon died. For he came as an ally to Laodice, queen of the Samenians, when she was making war on the Parthians, and as he was fighting bravely he fell. Then the two brothers, Demetrius and Philip, held Syria, as has been related elsewhere. [f]

As for Alexander, his own people rose against him. At a festival then being celebrated, when he stood at the altar about to sacrifice, the nation rose against him and pelted him with citrons; for the law of the Jews required that at the Feast of Tabernacles everyone should have branches of the palm tree and the citron tree, which we have related elsewhere. They also reviled him as descended from a captive and therefore unworthy of his office and of sacrificing. At this he was enraged and killed about six thousand of them. He also built a wooden barrier around the altar and the temple, as far as the partition inside which only the priests were allowed to enter, and by this means he kept the multitude from getting at him. He also kept foreign troops from Pisidia and Cilicia; as for the Syrians, he was at war with them and so made no use of them. He also overcame the Arabians, that is, the Moabites and the Gileadites, and made them pay tribute. Moreover, he demolished Amathus, since Theodorus did not dare to fight him. But when he joined battle with Obedas, king of the Arabians, he fell into an ambush in rough country that was hard to pass through, and was driven by the mass of camels down into a deep ravine near Gadara, a village of Gilead, and barely escaped with his life. From there he fled to Jerusalem. There, on top of his other misfortunes, the nation attacked him, and he fought against them for six years and killed no fewer than fifty thousand of them. When he asked them to give up their hostility toward him, they hated him all the more because of what had already happened. When he asked them what they wanted, they all cried out that he should die. They also sent to Demetrius Akairos and asked him to make a treaty of mutual defense with them. [i]