The Parthians Take Jerusalem

After this, when Antony came into Syria, Cleopatra met him in Cilicia and made him fall in love with her. Now a hundred of the most powerful Jews came to him again to accuse Herod and those around him, and they put forward the most eloquent men among them to speak. But Messala answered them on behalf of the young men, and all this in the presence of Hyrcanus, who was already Herod’s father-in-law. When Antony had heard both sides at Daphne, he asked Hyrcanus which party governed the nation best. He replied that Herod and his friends did. Then Antony, because of the old friendship and hospitality he had formed with their father Antipater when he was with Gabinius, made both Herod and Phasael tetrarchs and entrusted the public affairs of the Jews to them, and he wrote letters to that effect. He also put fifteen of their opponents in chains and was about to kill them, but Herod’s party obtained their pardon. [a]

Even so, these men did not stay quiet when they came back from the embassy, but a thousand of the Jews came to Tyre to meet him there, where it was reported he would come. But Antony had been corrupted by the money that Herod and his brother had given him. So he ordered the governor of the place to punish the Jewish ambassadors, who were bent on revolution, and to settle the government on Herod. Herod went out quickly to them, with Hyrcanus beside him (for they were standing on the shore in front of the city), and told them to go away, because great harm would come to them if they went on with their accusation. But they would not give way. At that the Romans rushed on them with their daggers, killed some, and wounded more; the rest fled home and lay quiet in great alarm. And when the people raised an outcry against Herod, Antony was so provoked that he killed the prisoners.

In the second year after this, Pacorus, son of the king of Parthia, and Barzapharnes, a Parthian satrap, took possession of Syria. Ptolemy son of Mennaeus had also died by now, and Lysanias his son, who took over his government, made a league of friendship with Antigonus son of Aristobulus, and to obtain it he made use of that satrap, who had great influence with him. Antigonus had promised to give the Parthians a thousand talents and five hundred women if they would take the government away from Hyrcanus and give it to him, and kill Herod and his party as well. And although he did not give them what he had promised, the Parthians made an expedition into Judea on that account and brought Antigonus with them, Pacorus going by the coast and the satrap Barzapharnes through the interior. The people of Tyre shut Pacorus out, but those of Sidon and Ptolemais received him. Pacorus, however, sent a troop of horsemen into Judea to view the state of the country and to help Antigonus, under the command of the king’s cupbearer, who had the same name as himself. When the Jews who lived around Mount Carmel came to Antigonus, ready to invade Judea with him, Antigonus hoped to gain some part of the country with their help. The place is called Drymi. When some others came and met them, the men broke through to Jerusalem; and as more joined them, they gathered in great numbers, came against the royal palace, and besieged it. But as Phasael’s and Herod’s party came to its rescue, a battle was fought in the marketplace, and the young men beat their enemies and pursued them into the temple. They sent some armed men into the houses nearby to hold them; but these, having no one to support them, were burned to death together with the houses by the people, who rose up against them. A little later, Herod took revenge on these rebellious opponents for the wrong they had done him, when he fought them and killed a great number of them. [c]

While there were skirmishes every day, the enemy waited for the crowds to come in from the country for Pentecost, a feast of ours so called. When that day came, many tens of thousands of people gathered about the temple, some armed and some not. Those who had come held both the temple and the city, except for the palace, which Herod guarded with a few of his soldiers. Phasael had charge of the wall, while Herod with a company of his men sallied out against the enemy, who were in the suburbs. He fought bravely and put many tens of thousands to flight, some fleeing into the city, some into the temple, and some into the outer fortifications, for there were some fortifications of that kind there. Phasael also came to his help. Then Pacorus, the general of the Parthians, was admitted into the city at Antigonus’s request with a few of his horsemen, on the pretext of putting down the uprising, but in reality to help Antigonus win the government. When Phasael met him and received him as a guest, Pacorus persuaded him to go himself as an ambassador to Barzapharnes, which was a trick he had devised. Phasael, suspecting no harm, agreed to his proposal. Herod did not approve of what was being done, because of the treachery of these foreigners, but urged Phasael instead to attack Pacorus and those who had come into the city. [e]

So both Hyrcanus and Phasael went on the embassy. Pacorus left with Herod two hundred horsemen and ten of those called the freemen, and escorted the others on their journey. When they were in Galilee, the enemy’s men in command there met them under arms. Barzapharnes received them cheerfully at first and gave them presents, though afterward he plotted against them. Phasael and his party were then taken, with horsemen, to a place by the sea. But when they heard that Antigonus had promised the Parthians a thousand talents and five hundred women to help him against them, they soon grew suspicious of the foreigners. Moreover, someone told them that a plot was being laid against them by night, with a guard secretly placed around them; and they would have been seized then, had the Parthians not been waiting until those around Jerusalem had seized Herod, for fear that, if Hyrcanus and Phasael were killed first, he would hear of it and escape them. This was how matters stood, and they could see who their guards were. Some people urged Phasael to ride off at once and not wait any longer. Ophellius in particular pressed him to do it, above all the rest, for he had heard of this treachery from Saramalla, the richest man in Syria at that time; and Ophellius also promised to provide ships to carry him away, since the sea was close by. But Phasael would not desert Hyrcanus, nor put his brother in danger. Instead he went to Barzapharnes and told him that he was not acting justly in laying such a plot against them: if it was money he wanted, he would give him more than Antigonus; and besides, it was a terrible thing to kill men who had come to him on the security of his oaths, and who had done him no wrong. The foreigner swore to him that there was no truth in any of his suspicions, but that he was troubled by nothing but false notions, and then he went away to Pacorus. [f]

As soon as he was gone, some men came and bound Hyrcanus and Phasael, while Phasael bitterly reproached the Parthians for their perjury. The eunuch who had been sent against Herod had orders to lure him outside the walls of the city and seize him. But messengers had been sent by Phasael to tell Herod of the Parthians’ treachery, and when Herod learned that the enemy had seized the messengers, he went to Pacorus and to the most powerful of the Parthians, as the masters of the rest. They knew the whole matter, but they dealt with him deceitfully, and said that he ought to go out with them in front of the walls to meet those who were bringing him his letters; for, they said, these had not been taken by his opponents, but were coming to report the success Phasael had had. Herod did not believe what they said, for he had heard from others too that his brother had been seized. The daughter of Hyrcanus, whose daughter he was betrothed to, also warned him, which made him still more suspicious of the Parthians; for although others paid no attention to her, he trusted her as a woman of very great good sense. [g]

The Parthians were still deliberating what to do, for they did not think it wise to make an open attempt on a man of his standing, and they put off the decision to the next day. Herod, meanwhile, was in great distress of mind, and inclined to believe the reports he had heard about his brother and the Parthians rather than what was said on the other side. He decided that when evening came he would use it for his flight, and not delay any longer as though the danger from the enemy were still uncertain. So he set out with the armed men he had with him. He put the women on the pack animals — his mother, his sister, the girl he was about to marry, the daughter of Alexander son of Aristobulus, and her mother, Hyrcanus’s daughter — and took his youngest brother, all their servants and the rest of the crowd that was with him; and without the enemy’s knowledge he took the road to Idumea. No enemy of his who saw him in that state could have been so hardhearted as not to pity his fortune, as the women led their infant children along and left their own country and their friends in chains, with tears and sad lamentations, expecting nothing but further misery. [h]

But Herod himself rose above the misery of his situation and kept up his courage in the midst of his misfortunes. As he passed along, he told each of them to take heart and not to give way to grief, because that would hinder their flight, which was now their only hope of safety. So they tried to bear their calamity patiently, as he urged them to do. Yet he once very nearly killed himself, when a wagon overturned and his mother was in danger of being killed. This was for two reasons: his great concern for her, and his fear that by this delay the enemy would overtake him in their pursuit. But as he was drawing his sword to kill himself with it, those who were present held him back, and being so many, they overpowered him. They told him that he ought not to desert them and leave them a prey to their enemies, for it was not the part of a brave man to free himself from his own distress and abandon his friends who were in the same distress. So he was compelled to give up that terrible attempt, partly out of shame at what they said to him, and partly because of the great number of those who would not let him do what he intended. He comforted his mother, took all the care of her that the time allowed, and went on his way with the utmost haste toward the fortress of Masada. And although he had many skirmishes with the Parthians who attacked and pursued him, he was victorious in them all.

Nor was he safe from the Jews in the course of his flight. When he had gone about seven miles from the city and was on the road, they fell on him and fought him hand to hand. He put them to flight and defeated them, not like a man in distress and need, but like one excellently prepared for war and well supplied with everything he required. In the very place where he defeated the Jews he later, when he was king, built a magnificent palace with a city around it, and called it Herodium. When he came to a place in Idumea called Thressa, his brother Joseph met him. He then held a council about all his affairs and what should be done in his circumstances, since he had a great multitude following him besides his mercenary soldiers, and the place he meant to flee to, Masada, was too small to hold so great a multitude. So he sent away the greater part of his company, more than nine thousand, telling them to go some one way and some another and save themselves in Idumea, and he gave them money to buy provisions on their journey. But he took with him those who were least encumbered and closest to him, and came to the fortress. There he placed the women and his followers, about eight hundred in number, since the place had enough grain and water and other necessities, and he went on directly to Petra in Arabia. When day came, the Parthians plundered all Jerusalem and the palace, keeping their hands off nothing except Hyrcanus’s money, which was about three hundred talents. Much of Herod’s wealth escaped them, especially everything the man had been so provident as to send ahead into Idumea. Nor was what they found in the city enough for the Parthians; they went out into the country and plundered it, and destroyed the powerful city of Mareshah. [i]

In this way Antigonus was brought back into Judea by the king of the Parthians, and he received Hyrcanus and Phasael as his prisoners. But he was greatly cast down because the women had escaped, whom he had intended to give the enemy, having promised them to the Parthians, along with the money, as their reward. Being afraid that Hyrcanus, who was under the guard of the Parthians, might have the kingdom restored to him by the people, he cut off his ears, and so made sure that the high priesthood could never come to him again, because he was maimed; for the law required that this office belong only to those whose bodies were whole. But one cannot help admiring the courage of Phasael here. When he saw that he was going to be put to death, he did not think death a terrible thing at all; but to die in this way, at his enemy’s hands, he thought most bitter and shameful. And since he did not have his hands free, but the chains he was in kept him from killing himself with them, he dashed his head against a great stone and so took his own life. He thought it the best thing he could do in such distress, and it put it out of the enemy’s power to bring him to whatever death he pleased. It is also reported that when he had made a great wound in his head, Antigonus sent physicians, as if to cure it, and killed him by ordering them to put poison into the wound. Phasael, however, heard from a certain woman before he was quite dead that his brother Herod had escaped the enemy, and he met his death cheerfully, since he now left behind him one who would avenge his death and was able to punish his enemies. [k]