Pompey Takes the Temple

Pompey pitched his camp near Jericho, where the palm tree grows, and the balsam, the finest of all ointments, which oozes out like a juice when the bushes are cut with a sharp stone; and in the morning he marched on Jerusalem. Then Aristobulus changed his mind and came to Pompey, offering him money and to receive him into Jerusalem, and begged him to stop the war and do whatever he wished peaceably. Pompey granted his plea and sent Gabinius with soldiers to collect the money and take over the city. But none of this was done. Gabinius came back shut out of the city and without the money, because Aristobulus’s soldiers would not let the agreement be carried out. Pompey was angry at this. He put Aristobulus under guard and came against the city himself. It was strong on every other side, and weak only on the north. For a wide and deep ravine runs around the city, taking in the temple, which was very strongly walled with a stone wall. [a]

Inside the city there was faction, for the people could not agree about what to do. Some thought it best to hand the city over to Pompey, but those of Aristobulus’s party urged them to shut the gates and fight, because he was being held in chains. These moved first and seized the temple and the bridge that ran from it to the city, and made ready for a siege. The others let the army in and handed over to Pompey both the city and the palace. Pompey sent his lieutenant Piso with an army, put garrisons in the city and the palace, and fortified the houses next to the temple and everything outside around it. At first he offered terms to those inside. When they would not agree to what he proposed, he walled in all the ground around, and Hyrcanus eagerly helped him in everything. At dawn Pompey pitched his camp on the north side of the temple, where it could be attacked. But even there great towers stood, and a trench had been dug, and a deep ravine ran around it; for the side toward the city was sheer as well, since the bridge had been torn down. There Pompey raised his earthwork, with great toil, day after day, while the Romans cut timber in the country around. When it was high enough — and the trench was barely filled, because of its immense depth — he brought up the siege engines and machines that had been fetched from Tyre, set them in place, and battered the temple with the stone-throwers. Had it not been the custom of our forefathers to rest every seventh day, the earthwork would never have been finished, for the defenders would have stopped it. The law allows us to defend ourselves against those who begin a fight and strike us, but it does not let us attack the enemy while they are doing anything else. [c]

The Romans understood this, and on those days, which we call Sabbaths, they neither shot at the Jews nor came to blows with them, but raised earthworks and towers and brought up their engines, so that these would be ready for use the next day. From this anyone may learn how exceedingly devoted we are to God and how carefully we keep the laws. The priests were not kept by fear of the siege from their sacred duties in the least, but went on offering the sacrifices on the altar twice a day, in the morning and about the ninth hour, and did not stop the sacrifices even when the attacks brought something grievous upon them. For when the city was taken, about the third month, on the day of the fast, in the hundred and seventy-ninth Olympiad, when Gaius Antonius and Marcus Tullius Cicero were consuls, and the enemy burst in and were butchering those in the temple, those at the sacrifices carried on with the sacred rites all the same. Neither fear for their lives nor the number of those already slaughtered could make them run away. They thought it better to suffer whatever they must right there at the altars than to leave out any of the things the law required. And that this is not just talk, a eulogy putting on a show of false piety, but the truth, is attested by all who have written the history of Pompey’s deeds, among them Strabo and Nicolaus, and besides them Livy, the writer of the history of Rome. [e]

When the engine was brought up, the greatest of the towers was shaken, fell, and broke open a section of the wall, and the enemy poured in. The first of them to mount the wall was Cornelius Faustus, the son of Sulla, with his soldiers; after him came Furius the centurion with his men on the other side, and through the middle Fabius, also a centurion, with a strong body of troops. Everywhere was full of slaughter. Some of the Jews were killed by the Romans, others by one another; some even threw themselves down the cliffs, or set fire to their houses and burned themselves inside, unable to endure what was happening. About twelve thousand of the Jews fell, but very few of the Romans. Absalom, who was both uncle and father-in-law of Aristobulus, was taken prisoner. [h]

No small outrage was done against the sanctuary, which in earlier times had been closed to all and unseen. For Pompey went into the interior, and not a few of those with him, and they saw what it was unlawful for any other men to see but the high priests alone. The golden table was there, and the holy lampstand, the libation vessels and a great quantity of spices, and besides these, in the treasuries, about two thousand talents of sacred money. Yet he touched none of it, out of reverence, and in this too he acted in a way worthy of his own virtue. The next day he ordered the temple servants to cleanse the temple and to bring God the offerings the law required. He restored the high priesthood to Hyrcanus, both for the other services he had done him and because he had kept the Jews in the countryside from fighting on Aristobulus’s side. Those who had caused the war he executed with the axe. Faustus and the others who had been so eager to scale the wall he honored with the rewards for valor they deserved.

He made Jerusalem pay tribute to the Romans. He took away from the inhabitants the cities of Coele-Syria they had conquered earlier and placed them under the Roman governor, and he confined the whole nation, which before had raised itself so high, within its own borders. He rebuilt Gadara, which had been destroyed a little earlier, as a favor to his freedman Demetrius of Gadara. The other cities — Hippos, Scythopolis, Pella, Dium, Samaria, Marisa, Ashdod, Jamnia and Arethusa — he gave back to their own inhabitants. These were inland, not counting those that had been destroyed. On the coast there were Gaza, Joppa, Dor and Strato’s Tower; this last Herod later rebuilt magnificently and adorned with harbors and temples, and it was renamed Caesarea. All these Pompey left free and attached to the province.

Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, by their faction against each other, brought this disaster on Jerusalem. We lost our freedom and became subjects of the Romans, and we were forced to give back to the Syrians the land we had won from them by our arms. On top of that, the Romans exacted from us more than ten thousand talents in a short time, and the kingship, which had formerly been given to those who were high priests by birth, became the honor of commoners. But of these things we will speak in their proper place. Pompey handed over Coele-Syria and the rest of Syria as far as the river Euphrates and Egypt to Scaurus, with two Roman legions, and set off for Cilicia, hurrying to Rome. He took Aristobulus with him in chains, along with his family; for he had two daughters and as many sons. Of the sons Alexander escaped, but the younger, Antigonus, was carried off to Rome with his sisters. [k]