Antipater Serves Caesar

After the death of Pompey and Caesar’s victory over him, when Caesar was at war in Egypt, Antipater, the governor of the Jews, made himself very useful to him, on Hyrcanus’s orders. Mithridates of Pergamum was bringing up auxiliary troops but could not make his way past Pelusium and was waiting at Ashkelon. Antipater came to him with three thousand Jewish heavy infantry, and arranged for the men in power in Arabia to come as allies. Because of him all the rulers in Syria sent help too, not wanting to fall behind in zeal for Caesar: Iamblichus the prince, Ptolemy the son of Soemus, who lived on Mount Lebanon, and nearly all the cities. Mithridates marched out of Syria and came to Pelusium, and when the people would not let him in, he laid siege to the city. Antipater won the prize for valor, for he tore down a section of the wall and opened a way for the rest to break into the city. So Pelusium was taken. But as Antipater and Mithridates marched on toward Caesar, the Jews who lived in the district called Onias’s tried to stop them. Antipater persuaded them too to take their side, as men of the same race, chiefly by showing them letters from Hyrcanus the high priest, in which he urged them to be friends of Caesar and to provide his army with gifts and everything it needed. When they saw that Antipater and the high priest were of one mind, they did as they were asked. And when the Jews around Memphis heard that these had come over, they too invited Mithridates to come to them; he came and took them over as well. [a]

When Mithridates had marched all around the region called the Delta, he joined battle with the enemy near the place called the Camp of the Jews. Mithridates held the right wing and Antipater the left. When they closed, Mithridates’s wing gave way and was in danger of suffering terribly, had not Antipater, who had already beaten the enemy facing him, come running along the riverbank with his own soldiers, rescued Mithridates, and put to flight the Egyptians who had been winning. He kept up the pursuit and took their camp as well, and he called back Mithridates, who had been driven a long way off in the rout. Of Mithridates’s men eight hundred fell; of Antipater’s, fifty. Mithridates wrote to Caesar about this, declaring that Antipater was the cause both of their victory and of their safety. So Caesar praised him at the time, and all through the war used Antipater for the most dangerous tasks; and in those engagements he happened to be wounded.

When Caesar had brought that war to an end some time later and sailed for Syria, he honored Antipater greatly. He confirmed Hyrcanus in the high priesthood, and gave Antipater Roman citizenship and exemption from taxes everywhere. Many say that Hyrcanus took part in this campaign and came into Egypt himself. Strabo of Cappadocia bears out my account, when he says, quoting Asinius, “After Mithridates, Hyrcanus the high priest of the Jews also invaded Egypt.” The same Strabo says again elsewhere, quoting Hypsicrates, “Mithridates went out alone at first, but Antipater, the governor of Judea, was called by him to Ashkelon, and furnished him with three thousand soldiers and urged the other princes to join; and Hyrcanus the high priest also took part in the campaign.” That is what Strabo says. [e]

Antigonus the son of Aristobulus also came to Caesar at this time. He lamented his father’s fate, saying that it was because of Antipater that Aristobulus had died by poison and that his brother had been put to death with the axe by Scipio. He begged Caesar to take pity on him, since he had been thrown out of the rule; and besides all this he accused Hyrcanus and Antipater of leading the nation by violence and of treating him lawlessly. Antipater was present, and defended himself against the charges he saw had been brought against him. He showed that Antigonus and his followers were revolutionaries and men of faction. He reminded Caesar of how much he himself had toiled and helped in his campaigns, speaking of things Caesar had witnessed with his own eyes. He said that Aristobulus had been rightly taken off to Rome, as one who had always been an enemy and never a friend of the Romans, and that his brother, punished by Scipio for robbery, had got what he deserved, and had suffered nothing by the violence or injustice of the man who did it.

When Antipater had made this speech, Caesar appointed Hyrcanus high priest and let Antipater have whatever position he himself might choose. Antipater left the choice to Caesar, and Caesar appointed him procurator of Judea. He also permitted Hyrcanus, at his request, to raise again the walls of his native city, for they still lay in ruins where Pompey had thrown them down. Caesar wrote to the consuls at Rome to have this inscribed in the Capitol. The decree passed by the senate runs as follows: “Lucius Valerius, son of Lucius, praetor, consulted the senate on the Ides of December in the temple of Concord. Present at the writing of the decree were Lucius Coponius, son of Lucius, of the Colline tribe, and Papirius of the Quirine tribe. Concerning the matters raised by Alexander son of Jason, Numenius son of Antiochus, and Alexander son of Dorotheus, envoys of the Jews, good men and allies, who came to renew the goodwill and friendship with the Romans that existed before, and brought a gold shield as a token of the alliance, worth fifty thousand gold pieces, and asked that letters be given them to the self-governing cities and to the kings, so that their country and their harbors might be safe and suffer no wrong: it was resolved to make friendship and goodwill with them, to provide them with whatever they asked, and to accept the shield they had brought. This was done in the ninth year of Hyrcanus, high priest and ethnarch, in the month of Panemus.” [f]

Hyrcanus also received honors from the people of Athens, having himself been of service to them in many ways. They sent him a decree which reads as follows: “In the prytany and priesthood of Dionysius son of Asclepiades, on the fifth day before the end of the month of Panemus, a decree of the Athenians was delivered to the generals. When Agathocles was archon, Eucles son of Menander, of Halimus, being secretary, in the month of Munychion, on the eleventh day of the prytany, at an assembly held in the theater, the presiding officer Dorotheus of Erchia and his fellow presiding officers put the question to the people. Dionysius son of Dionysius made the motion. Whereas Hyrcanus son of Alexander, high priest and ethnarch of the Jews, continues to show goodwill to our people as a whole and to each of our citizens in private, and treats them with every kindness, and when any Athenians come to him, whether on an embassy or on their own business, receives them warmly and sends them on their way with care for their safe return; and whereas testimony was given about these things before: it is now also resolved, on the proposal of Dionysius son of Theodorus, of Sunium, who reminded the people of this man’s virtue and of his wish to do us whatever good he can, to honor the man with a gold crown, the prize of merit according to the law, and to set up a bronze statue of him in the precinct of the People and of the Graces; and to proclaim the crown in the theater at the Dionysia, when the new tragedies are performed, and at the Panathenaea and the Eleusinia and the athletic games; and that the generals see to it, as long as he continues and keeps his goodwill toward us, that whatever we can devise be done to honor and thank the man for his zeal and generosity, so that by these things our people may be seen to welcome good men and to count them worthy of a fitting return, and that he may strive to equal the zeal toward us of those already honored; and to choose envoys from all the Athenians to carry this decree to him and to urge him to accept the honors and to try always to do some good to our city.” So by these documents we have shown the honors given to Hyrcanus the high priest by the Romans and by the people of Athens.