Asineus and Anileus

At this time a terrible disaster struck the Jews who were in Mesopotamia, and especially those who lived in Babylonia. It was second to none of the disasters that had gone before, and it came with a great slaughter of them, greater than any on record before. I will speak accurately about all of it, and will explain the causes from which these miseries came upon them. There was a city of Babylonia called Neerda, not only very populous but with a good, large territory around it, and, besides its other advantages, full of men. It was also not easy for enemies to attack, since the river Euphrates surrounded it on every side and walls had been built around it. There was also the city of Nisibis, situated on the same course of the river. For this reason the Jews, relying on the natural strength of these places, deposited in them the two-drachma offering that each of us, by the custom of our country, offers to God, and other things dedicated to him as well. They used these cities as a treasury, from which the offerings were sent to Jerusalem at the proper time; and many tens of thousands of men escorted these gifts, for fear of raids by the Parthians, to whom the Babylonians were then subject. Now there were two men, Asineus and Anileus, natives of the city of Neerda, who were brothers. They had lost their father, and their mother put them to learn the weaver’s trade, for among them it was not thought a disgrace for men to be weavers of cloth. The man who taught them the trade and was set over them complained that they came late to their work, and punished them with a beating. But they took this just punishment as an insult. They carried off all the weapons that were kept in that house, which were not a few, and went to a place called the Parting of the Rivers, which was naturally suited to give good pasture and the fodder that is laid up for winter. The poorest of the young men also flocked to them. The brothers armed them with the weapons they had taken and became their captains, and nothing stopped them from leading them into mischief. For as soon as they had become unbeatable and had built themselves a stronghold, they sent to the herdsmen and ordered them to pay a tribute from their flocks large enough for their maintenance. They offered to be their friends if they submitted and to defend them from all their other enemies on every side, but said they would kill the cattle of any who refused to obey. So the herdsmen accepted these terms, since they could do nothing else, and sent them as many sheep as were demanded. In this way their forces grew larger, and they became masters over whomever they pleased, because they marched suddenly and did harm, so that everyone who had dealings with them chose to show them respect. They became formidable to any who came to attack them, until the report of them reached the ears of the king of Parthia himself. [a]

When the governor of Babylonia learned of this, he wanted to stop them before they grew greater and before greater harm came from them. He gathered as large an army as he could, both of Parthians and of Babylonians, and marched against them, intending to attack and destroy them before anyone could bring them word that he had raised an army. He surrounded the marsh and lay still. On the next day — it was the sabbath, which among the Jews is a day of rest from every kind of work — he supposed that the enemy would not dare to fight him, but that he could take them and carry them off as prisoners without a fight. So he advanced little by little, intending to fall on them suddenly. Now Asineus was sitting with the rest, their weapons lying beside them, when he said, “Men, I hear the neighing of horses — not of horses at pasture, but of horses with men on their backs. I also hear such a noise of bridles that I am afraid some enemies are coming upon us to surround us. But let someone go and look around, and report what the real state of things is; and may what I have said prove a false alarm.” When he had said this, some of them went out to see what was happening. They came back at once and said to him, “You were not mistaken in telling us what our enemies were doing, and those enemies will not let us go on harming people any longer. We have been caught by their scheming like dumb animals. A large body of cavalry is marching on us, and we have no hands to defend ourselves with, because the prohibition of our law, which obliges us to rest, forbids us to do it.” But Asineus by no means agreed with his scouts’ opinion of what was to be done. He thought it more in keeping with the law to take heart in the extremity they had fallen into, and to break the law by fighting back, even if they died in the action, than to please their enemies by doing nothing and letting themselves be killed. So he took up his weapons and filled those with him with courage to act as bravely as himself. They fell on their enemies and killed a great many of them, because the enemy despised them and came as if to a certain victory; and they put the rest to flight. [d]

When the news of this battle reached the king of Parthia, he was surprised at the daring of these brothers and wanted to see them and speak with them. So he sent the most trusted of all his guards to say this to them: “King Artabanus, although he has been wrongly treated by you, who have made an attempt against his rule, still has more regard for your courage than for the anger he feels toward you. He has sent me to give you his right hand and a pledge of safety. He allows you to come to him safely, without any violence on the road, and he wants you to approach him as friends; he means no trickery or deceit toward you. He also promises to give you presents and to show you such honor as will add his power to your courage, and so be to your advantage.” Asineus himself put off the journey, but sent his brother Anileus with all the presents he could get together. So Anileus went and was admitted to the king’s presence. When Artabanus saw Anileus come alone, he asked why Asineus had avoided coming with him; and when he learned that he was afraid and had stayed in the marsh, he swore by the gods of his country that he would do them no harm if they came to him on the assurances he gave, and he gave him his right hand. Among all these barbarians this is of the greatest force, and gives firm security to those who deal with them. None of them will deceive you once they have given you their right hand, nor will anyone doubt their good faith once it is given, even if they were suspected of wrongdoing before. When Artabanus had done this, he sent Anileus away to persuade his brother to come to him. The king did this because he wanted to win these Jewish brothers as friends, so that their courage might serve as a curb on his provincial governors, who were in revolt or minded to revolt, and against whom he was about to march. He was also afraid that while he was busy with a war to subdue the governors who had revolted, the party of Asineus and those in Babylonia would grow stronger, and would either make war on him when they heard of that revolt, or, if they were disappointed in that, would not fail to do him further harm. [f]

With these intentions, the king sent Anileus away, and Anileus persuaded his brother, after telling him of the king’s goodwill and the oath he had sworn. So they hurried to Artabanus, who received them gladly when they came. He admired Asineus’s courage in the deeds he had done, all the more because he was a small man to look at, who at first sight seemed contemptible, someone one might think of no account at all. He said to his friends that, by comparison, the man showed his soul to be in every respect superior to his body. Once, as they were drinking together, he pointed Asineus out to Abdagases, the commander of his army, told him his name, and described the great courage he showed in war. Abdagases asked permission to kill him, and so to punish him for the injuries he had done to the Parthian government. The king replied, “I will never give you leave to kill a man who has relied on my good faith, especially not after I have sent him my right hand and tried to win his trust by oaths sworn by the gods. But if you are a true warrior, you have no need of my perjury. Go, then, and avenge the Parthian government: attack this man after he has gone back, and conquer him with the forces under your command, without my knowledge.” Early the next morning the king called for Asineus and said to him, “It is time, young man, for you to go home, and not provoke the indignation of my generals here any further, or they may try to murder you, and that without my approval. I entrust the country of Babylonia to you, so that by your care it may be kept free from robbers and from other harm. I have kept my faith with you unbroken, and that not in trifles but in matters that concerned your life; so it is right that you should show me goodwill.” When he had said this and given Asineus some presents, he sent him away at once. When Asineus got home, he built fortresses, strengthened those he already had, and became great in a short time, and he managed things with such courage and success as no one before him who had so humble a beginning had ever done. The Parthian governors sent to that region also paid him great respect, and the honor the Babylonians paid him seemed to them too small and beneath his merits, although he held no small rank and power there. Indeed, all the affairs of Mesopotamia depended on him, and he flourished more and more in this happy state for fifteen years. [h]

But while their affairs were in so flourishing a state, a disaster sprang up among them on the following occasion. Once they had turned aside from the course of virtue by which they had gained such great power, they insulted and transgressed the laws of their forefathers and fell under the rule of their cravings and pleasures. A certain Parthian who came into those parts as general of an army had a wife following him who was greatly renowned for her other accomplishments, and was admired above all other women for her beauty. Anileus, the brother of Asineus, either heard of her beauty from others or perhaps saw her himself as well, and so became at once her lover and her enemy: partly because he could not hope to have this woman except by gaining power over her as a captive, and partly because he thought he could not master his desire for her. So as soon as her husband had been declared their enemy and had fallen in battle, the widow of the dead man was taken captive and married to her lover. But this woman did not come into their house without bringing great misfortunes both on Anileus himself and on Asineus too; she brought great harm on them in the following way. When she was led away captive after her husband’s death, she hid the images of the gods of her country, which she and her husband had worshiped in common. For it was the custom of that country for everyone to keep the idols they worship in their own houses, and to carry them along when they go into a foreign land; and in keeping with this custom of theirs she carried her idols with her. At first she worshiped them privately; but when she had become Anileus’s wife, she worshiped them in her accustomed way, and with the same set ceremonies she had used in her former husband’s days. At this their most respected friends at first blamed him for not acting in the manner of the Hebrews, and not doing what agreed with their laws, in marrying a foreign wife, one who broke the exact rules of their sacrifices and religious ceremonies. They told him to take care that he did not, by indulging himself in many pleasures of the body, lose his rule for the sake of a wife’s beauty, along with the high authority he had reached by God’s blessing. When they made no headway with him at all, he killed one of them, a man he greatly respected, because of the freedom with which he spoke to him. As he was dying, out of regard for the laws, this man called down a punishment on his murderer Anileus, and on Asineus too, and prayed that all their companions might meet a like end at the hands of their enemies: the two brothers as the chief authors of this wickedness, and the rest as men who would not help him when he suffered in defense of their laws. These others were deeply grieved, yet they put up with these doings, because they remembered that they had reached their present prosperity by no other means than the brothers’ strength. But when they also heard of the worship of the gods whom the Parthians adore, they thought the injury Anileus was doing to their laws was no longer to be borne. A larger number of them came to Asineus and complained loudly about Anileus. They told him that it would have been well if he had seen for himself what was good for them; but that in any case it was now high time to correct what had been done wrong, before the crime that had been committed proved the ruin of himself and all the rest of them. They added that the marriage with this woman had been made without their consent and without regard to their ancient laws, and that the worship this woman practiced was an insult to the God whom they worshiped. Asineus was well aware of his brother’s offense, that it had already been the cause of great harm and would be so in time to come. Yet he put up with it out of goodwill toward so close a relative, forgiving it because his brother had been overcome by his craving, an evil too strong for him. But as more and more people gathered around him every day, and the outcry about it grew louder, he finally spoke to Anileus about the outcry, rebuking him for what he had done and urging him to stop for the future and send the woman back to her relatives. But nothing came of these rebukes. For the woman saw what an uproar the people were making on her account, and was afraid for Anileus, that he might come to some harm for his love of her; so she put poison into Asineus’s food and so did away with him. She was now sure of winning, since her lover would be the judge of what was to be done about her. [i]

So Anileus took the leadership on himself alone, and led his army against the villages of Mithridates, a man of the highest authority in Parthia, who had married King Artabanus’s daughter. He plundered them, and among the spoil was found much money, many slaves, and a great number of sheep, as well as many other things whose possession makes men’s condition prosperous. When Mithridates, who was there at the time, heard that his villages had been taken, he was very much displeased that Anileus had been the first to injure him and to insult him in his present rank, when he had done him no injury beforehand. He gathered the largest body of horsemen he could, choosing from them those of an age fit for war, and came to fight Anileus. When he reached a certain village of his own, he halted there, intending to fight him on the following day, because it was the sabbath, the day on which the Jews rest. Anileus was informed of this by a Syrian stranger from another village, who not only gave him an exact account of everything else but told him where Mithridates would be feasting. So he took his supper at the proper time and marched by night, intending to fall on the Parthians while they were unprepared. He attacked them about the fourth watch of the night. Some he killed while they slept, and others he put to flight; and he took Mithridates alive and set him naked on a donkey, which among the Parthians is thought the greatest disgrace possible. When he had brought him into a wood with this intention, and his friends urged him to kill Mithridates, he at once told them his own mind to the contrary. He said it was not right to kill a man who belonged to one of the leading families among the Parthians and was greatly honored by marriage into the royal family. What they had done so far could be tolerated; for although they had injured Mithridates, if they spared his life, he would remember this kindness to the advantage of those who had shown it. But if he were once put to death, the king would not rest until he had made a great slaughter of the Jews who lived in Babylon. “We ought to have regard for their safety, both because of our kinship with them and because, if any misfortune comes on us, we have no other place to retreat to than their community, with its great numbers of men in their prime.” By this reasoning, and by this speech of his in council, he persuaded them to act accordingly, and Mithridates was let go. But when he had got away, his wife reproached him: although he was the king’s son-in-law, he neglected to avenge himself on those who had injured him and took no trouble about it, but was content to have been made a captive by the Jews and to have escaped them. She told him either to go back like a man of courage, or else — and she swore it by the gods of their royal family — she would certainly dissolve her marriage with him. So, partly because he could not bear the daily trouble of her taunts, and partly because he was afraid of her arrogance and that she might really dissolve their marriage, he reluctantly and against his inclination gathered again as large an army as he could and marched with it, himself thinking it no longer to be borne that he, a Parthian, should owe his life to the Jews, when they had got the better of him in war.

As soon as Anileus learned that Mithridates was marching against him with a great army, he thought it too disgraceful to linger in the marshes and not take the first opportunity of meeting his enemies. He hoped, with the good fortune he had had before, to do as well again, believing that valor belongs to those who dare and are used to being bold. So he led out his army, and a great many more joined it, in order to give themselves to plundering the people and to frighten the enemy again by their numbers. But when they had marched about eleven miles, the road having run through dry places, and it was about the middle of the day, they had become very thirsty. Then Mithridates appeared and fell on them while they were in distress for lack of water, so that, for that reason and because of the time of day, they were not able to bear their weapons. So Anileus and his men were put to a shameful rout, since men in despair had to attack those who were fresh and in good condition. A great slaughter was made, and many tens of thousands of men fell. Anileus, and all who stood firm with him, fled as fast as they could into a wood, and gave Mithridates the pleasure of having won a great victory over them. But now a flood of bad men came in to Anileus, men who cared little for their own lives if only they might gain some ease for the present, so that by coming to him they made up for the number of those who had died in the battle. Yet these men were not like those who had fallen, for they were untrained in war. Still, with them he fell on the villages of the Babylonians, and a great devastation of everything was made there by the injuries Anileus did them. So the Babylonians, and those who had already been in the war, sent to the Jews at Neerda and demanded Anileus. The Jews did not agree to their demands — for even if they had been willing to hand him over, it was not in their power to do so — yet they wanted to make peace with them. The others replied that they too wanted to settle terms of peace with them, and the Jews sent men along with the Babylonians, who talked with Anileus about it. But the Babylonians, after looking over his position and learning where Anileus and his men were lying, fell on them secretly by night while they were drunk and asleep, killed all of them they caught, without any fear, and killed Anileus himself as well. [j]

The Babylonians were now freed from Anileus’s heavy raids, which had been a great restraint on the effects of the hatred they bore the Jews. For they were almost always at odds because of the opposition between their laws, and whichever party grew bolder than the other attacked it. At this time in particular, upon the ruin of Anileus’s party, the Babylonians attacked the Jews. This made those Jews resent the injuries they received from the Babylonians so bitterly that, being neither able to fight them nor willing to live with them, they went to Seleucia, the chief city of those parts, which was built by Seleucus Nicator. Many Macedonians lived there, but more Greeks, and not a few Syrians as well. There the Jews fled, and they lived there five years without any misfortune. But in the sixth year a plague struck those at Babylon, which caused new movements of people out of that city; and because they came to Seleucia, a still heavier disaster came on them for that reason, which I am about to relate.

The way of life of the people of Seleucia, who were Greeks and Syrians, was generally quarrelsome and full of discord, though the Greeks had the upper hand over the Syrians. So when the Jews had come there and were living among them, civil strife broke out, and the Syrians got the upper hand over the others with the help of the Jews, who are men that despise danger and are very ready to fight on any occasion. When the Greeks had the worst of this strife, they saw that they had only one way of recovering their former authority, and that was to break up the agreement between the Jews and the Syrians. So each of them talked with those of the Syrians who had formerly been his acquaintances, and promised to be at peace and friendship with them. The Syrians gladly agreed to do so; and when this had been done by the leading men of both peoples, they quickly came to a reconciliation. Once they were agreed, both sides knew that the chief purpose of their union would be their common hatred of the Jews. So they fell on them suddenly and killed more than fifty thousand of them. Indeed, the Jews were all destroyed, except a few who escaped through the compassion of friends or neighbors who let them get away. These went to Ctesiphon, a Greek city situated near Seleucia, where the king lives every winter, and where the greater part of his wealth is stored. But the Jews had no secure settlement here, since the people of Seleucia had little regard for the king’s honor. The whole nation of the Jews was in fear both of the Babylonians and of the Seleucians, because all the Syrians who live in those places sided with the Seleucians in the war against the Jews. So most of them gathered together and went to Neerda and Nisibis, and found safety there in the strength of those cities, besides the fact that their inhabitants, who were very many, were all warlike men. This was the state of the Jews in Babylonia at this time. [l]