Herod Avenges Joseph

Meanwhile Herod’s affairs in Judea took a bad turn. He had left his brother Joseph in charge of everything, with orders to make no move against Antigonus until he returned, since Machaeras, judging by what he had already done, was not an ally to be relied on. But as soon as Joseph heard that his brother was very far away, he ignored his orders and marched toward Jericho with five cohorts that Machaeras had sent along with him. He meant to seize the grain, for it was now the height of summer. But the enemy attacked him in the mountains and in rough country, and he himself was killed after fighting with great courage in the battle, and the whole Roman force was destroyed. These cohorts were newly raised in Syria, and none of the so-called veterans had been mixed in with them to support men who had no experience of war.

Antigonus was not content with his victory. His rage went so far that he even abused Joseph’s dead body. When he had the bodies of the slain in his power, he cut off Joseph’s head, though Joseph’s brother Pheroras offered fifty talents as ransom for it. After Antigonus’s victory the upheaval in Galilee was so great that Antigonus’s partisans took the leading men who favored Herod out to the lake and drowned them. Much of Idumea also changed sides, where Machaeras was rebuilding the walls of one of the fortresses, called Gittha. Herod had not yet heard of any of this. After the capture of Samosata, Antony had put Sosius in charge of Syria, with orders to help Herod against Antigonus, and had gone off to Egypt. Sosius sent two legions ahead into Judea to support Herod, and followed close behind with the rest of his army. [a]

Herod was at Daphne near Antioch when clear dreams foretold his brother’s death, and as he leaped from his bed in alarm, messengers came in with news of the disaster. He mourned his loss only briefly, put off most of his grieving until later, and hurried against his enemies, pushing his march beyond his strength. When he reached Lebanon, he took on eight hundred men from around the mountain as allies, and joined one Roman legion to them. With these, not waiting for daylight, he burst into Galilee, met the enemy, and drove them back to the stronghold they had come from. He attacked the fortress without letup, but before he could take it a violent storm forced him to camp in the nearby villages. A few days later the second legion from Antony joined him, and the enemy, afraid of his strength, abandoned the stronghold under cover of night. [c]

From there he went on through Jericho, hurrying as fast as he could to punish his brother’s murderers. There something happened to him that seemed a portent from heaven, and his unexpected escape won him the name of a man very dear to God. That evening many of the men in authority had dined with him, and when the feast had broken up and everyone had gone out, the house at once collapsed. He judged this to be a sign both of the dangers and of the deliverance he would meet in the coming war, and at dawn he set the army moving. About six thousand of the enemy came running down from the mountains and attacked his front ranks. They did not quite dare to close with the Romans hand to hand, but pelted them from a distance with stones and javelins and wounded a good many. In this action Herod himself, as he rode along the line, was hit in the side by a javelin.

Antigonus wanted to seem superior not only in his men’s daring but in their numbers, so he sent Pappus, one of his companions, with an army against Samaria. Machaeras was given the task of opposing him. Herod meanwhile overran enemy territory, destroyed five small towns, killed two thousand of the men in them, burned their houses, and returned to his camp. His headquarters were near the village called Cana.

Every day a great crowd of Jews joined him, from Jericho itself and from the rest of the country. Some came out of hatred for Antigonus, some because they were stirred by Herod’s successes, but most were driven by an unreasoning desire for change. Herod was eager to engage, and Pappus and his men, afraid neither of his numbers nor of his eagerness, came out readily to meet him. When the lines met, the other parts of the enemy held out for a short time. But Herod, risking everything as he remembered his murdered brother and sought vengeance on the men who had caused his death, quickly overcame those opposite him, and after them he kept turning on whatever part still held together, and put them all to flight. There was great slaughter. Some were driven back into the village they had come out of, while Herod pressed on the hindmost and killed vast numbers. He burst into the village together with the enemy. Every house was packed with armed men, and the roofs above were crowded with men fighting back. When he had overcome those outside, he tore the houses apart and dragged out those within. On many of them he brought the roofs crashing down and killed them in heaps, and those who escaped from the ruins the soldiers met with drawn swords. So many bodies were piled up that the streets were blocked to the victors. The enemy could not bear this blow. Their forces that were gathering again, when they saw the slaughter in the village, scattered in flight. Emboldened by this victory, Herod would have marched straight on Jerusalem if a very violent storm had not stopped him. That was what stood in the way of his complete success and of Antigonus’s defeat; for Antigonus was already thinking of abandoning the city. [d]

Toward evening Herod dismissed his friends, worn out as they were, to rest and refresh themselves, and he himself, still hot from fighting in his armor, went to bathe like a common soldier, with only one servant attending him. Before he went into the bath, one of the enemy ran out in front of him with a sword in his hand, then a second and a third, and then more. They had fled from the battle into the bath in their armor, and had been cowering there out of sight. When they saw the king, they were struck with terror and ran trembling past him, though he was unarmed, and made for the exits. As it happened, no one else was at hand to seize them, and Herod was content to have come to no harm, so they all got away. [g]

The next day Herod cut off the head of Pappus, Antigonus’s general, who had been killed in the battle, and sent it to his brother Pheroras as vengeance for their murdered brother; for Pappus was the man who had killed Joseph. When the winter weather eased, Herod marched on Jerusalem and led his army up to the wall. It was now the third year since he had been proclaimed king at Rome. He camped in front of the temple, for that was the side from which the city could be attacked, and where Pompey had taken it before. He divided the army into work parties, cleared the suburbs, and ordered them to raise three earthworks and to build towers on them. He left the most energetic of his companions in charge of the works and went himself to Samaria to fetch the daughter of Alexander son of Aristobulus, who had been promised to him, as we have said. He made the wedding a sideline of the siege, for by now he held his enemies in contempt. [h]

After marrying Mariamne he came back to Jerusalem with a larger army. Sosius also joined him with a very large force of horse and foot, which he sent ahead through the interior while he himself marched by way of Phoenicia. When the whole army was assembled, eleven regiments of infantry and six thousand horsemen, besides the Syrian allies, who were no small part of it, they camped near the north wall. Herod relied on the decrees of the Senate by which he had been made king, and Sosius on Antony, who had sent the army under his command to Herod’s support.