Gabinius Rebuilds Judea

Scaurus now marched against Petra in Arabia, and because the city was hard to take, he laid waste the country around it. His army was suffering from famine, and Antipater, on Hyrcanus’s orders, supplied him with grain from Judea and whatever else he lacked. Scaurus also sent Antipater as his envoy to Aretas, because of the ties of hospitality between them. Antipater persuaded Aretas to pay a sum of silver so that his country would not be laid waste, and himself stood guarantor for three hundred talents. On these terms Scaurus ended the war, wanting it ended no less than Aretas did. [a]

Some time later, when Alexander the son of Aristobulus was raiding Judea, Gabinius came from Rome to Syria as its general. He did many notable things, and in particular he marched against Alexander, since Hyrcanus was no longer able to hold out against Alexander’s strength. Hyrcanus was already trying to raise again the wall of Jerusalem that Pompey had pulled down, but the Romans there stopped him. Alexander, meanwhile, went all around the country arming many of the Jews, and quickly gathered ten thousand heavy infantry and fifteen hundred cavalry. He fortified Alexandrium, the fortress near Coreae, and Machaerus, near the mountains of Arabia. So Gabinius came against him, sending Mark Antony ahead with other officers. They armed the Romans who followed them, and with them the Jews who were subject to Rome, led by Pitholaus and Malichus; they also took along Antipater’s company of friends, and went to meet Alexander, while Gabinius followed with his main force. Alexander fell back to the neighborhood of Jerusalem. There they met, and in the battle that followed the Romans killed about three thousand of the enemy and took as many alive. [d]

Then Gabinius came to Alexandrium and invited those inside to come to terms, promising to pardon their past offenses. But a large force of the enemy was encamped in front of the fortress, and when the Romans went up against them, Mark Antony fought brilliantly, killed many, and was thought to have won the prize for valor. Gabinius left part of his army there until the place should be taken by siege, and went himself through the rest of Judea, ordering every city he found destroyed to be rebuilt. So Samaria, Ashdod, Scythopolis, Anthedon, Raphia, Adora, Marisa, Gaza and not a few others were rebuilt. And since the people obeyed what Gabinius commanded, those cities, which had lain desolate a long time, came at that time to be securely inhabited. [g]

When he had done this in the country, he went back to Alexandrium. As he pressed the siege, Alexander sent envoys to him, begging pardon for his offenses and handing over the fortresses of Hyrcania and Machaerus, and later Alexandrium too. Gabinius demolished them all. Then Alexander’s mother came to him. She was on the Romans’ side, since her husband and her other children were being held at Rome, and he granted her all she asked. When he had settled matters with her, he brought Hyrcanus back to Jerusalem to have charge of the temple. He then set up five councils and divided the nation into the same number of equal parts. Some were governed from Jerusalem, some from Gadara, some from Amathus, the fourth from Jericho, and the fifth from Sepphoris in Galilee. So the people, freed from the rule of a single prince, lived under an aristocracy. [i]