The Earthquake and the Arab War

When the war of Actium broke out, Herod made ready to join Antony, for he was now free of his other troubles in Judea and had taken Hyrcania, a stronghold that Antigonus’s sister had held. But Cleopatra cunningly shut him out from sharing Antony’s dangers. Plotting against the kings, as we have said, she persuaded Antony to entrust the war against the Arabs to Herod, so that if he won she would become mistress of Arabia, and if he lost, of Judea; and she would destroy one of the two rulers by means of the other. [a]

But the scheme turned out in Herod’s favor. First he carried off plunder from the enemy in reprisal, and gathered a large body of cavalry and launched it against them near Diospolis. He defeated them, though they fought back stubbornly. This defeat set the Arabs in great commotion, and they gathered in countless numbers at Canatha in Coele-Syria to wait for the Jews. Herod arrived there with his forces and tried to conduct the war with more forethought, ordering them to fortify a camp. But the rank and file would not obey. Emboldened by their earlier victory, they rushed at the Arabs, routed them at the first charge, and pursued them. In the pursuit, though, Herod was betrayed. Athenion, one of Cleopatra’s generals and always hostile to him, let loose the local people of Canatha against him. At their attack the Arabs took heart again and turned back. Joining their great numbers together on rocky, broken ground, they routed Herod’s men and slaughtered a great many of them. Those who escaped from the battle fled to Ormiza, but the Arabs surrounded their camp there and took it with every man in it. [b]

Shortly after this disaster Herod arrived with help, too late to be of use. The cause of the blow was his officers’ disobedience; for if the battle had not been joined so suddenly, Athenion would never have found the chance for his treachery. Still, Herod took his revenge on the Arabs afterward, raiding their country again and again, so that many times they had cause to regret their single victory. But while he was punishing his enemies, another calamity fell on him from heaven. It was the seventh year of his reign, when the war of Actium was at its height. At the beginning of spring the earth was shaken, and a countless number of cattle and thirty thousand people were killed; but the army was unharmed, for it was camped in the open. Meanwhile the report of the earthquake raised the Arabs to greater boldness, for rumor always adds something worse to bad news. Thinking that all Judea had been thrown down and that they would take over an empty land, they marched into it, after first slaughtering as a sacrifice the envoys whom the Jews had happened to send to them. The people were stunned by the invasion, and broken by the weight of one disaster after another. Herod gathered them and tried to rouse them to defend themselves, speaking like this: [d]

“The fear that has gripped you now seems to me entirely unreasonable. It was natural to lose heart at blows from heaven, but to feel the same at an attack by men is cowardly. Far from cowering before the enemy after the earthquake, I believe that God has set this out as bait for the Arabs, so that they will pay the penalty to us. They have come not because they trust so much in their weapons or their own hands, as in our chance misfortunes. But a hope that hangs not on one’s own strength but on another’s bad luck is a slippery thing. [e]

“Neither bad fortune nor its opposite is fixed among men; you can see fortune swing from one side to the other. You may learn this from your own experience. In the last battle, when we were winning, the enemy beat us; and very likely they will now be caught when they think they are sure to win. Too much confidence leaves men off their guard, while fear teaches forethought. So even from your fear I take courage. When you were bolder than you should have been and charged the enemy against my judgment, Athenion’s ambush found its chance. But now your hesitation, and what looks like low spirits, is my pledge of victory.

“It is right to feel this way until the moment comes. But in action you must raise your spirits, and convince these most godless men that no evil, whether from men or from heaven, will ever humble the courage of the Jews while there is breath in them, and that none of them will stand by and see an Arab become master of his goods, a man he has so often nearly taken captive.

“Do not let the shaking of lifeless things disturb you, and do not imagine the earthquake is the sign of some further disaster. The disturbances of the elements are natural, and they bring men no more than the damage they do in themselves. A plague, a famine or an earthquake may perhaps be preceded by some slight sign, but these things themselves have their limits. What greater harm can the war do us, even if it goes against us, than the earthquake has done?

“But our enemies have been given the greatest sign of their downfall, and it came neither by chance nor from any outside hand. Against the law of all mankind they have savagely killed our envoys, and garlanded such victims for God as sacrifices for this war. They will not escape his great eye or his unconquerable right hand. They will soon pay us the penalty, if we now summon up our fathers’ spirit and rise to avenge the broken truce. Let every man go out to fight, not for his wife, or his children, or his endangered country, but for our envoys. They will lead this war better than we who are alive. I will go into danger first myself, if you will follow my orders; for you know well that your courage is irresistible, unless some rashness does you harm.”

When Herod had roused the army with these words and saw that they were eager, he sacrificed to God, and after the sacrifice he crossed the river Jordan with his forces. He camped near Philadelphia, close to the enemy, and skirmished with them for a stronghold that lay between the two armies, wanting to bring on a battle quickly; for the enemy too had sent some men ahead to seize the stronghold. The men the king sent quickly drove them off and held the hill. Every day Herod led out his army, drew it up for battle, and challenged the Arabs. But none of them came out, for a terrible dread had seized them, and their general Elthemus, more than any of his men, was frozen with fear. So Herod went up to their camp and began tearing down its palisade. At this they were forced to come out to fight, in disorder, the infantry mixed up with the cavalry. They outnumbered the Jews but fell short of them in spirit, although their very despair of victory made them reckless too. [h]

So while they held their ground not many of them were killed; but once they turned their backs, many were killed by the Jews and many trampled to death by their own side. Five thousand fell in the rout. The rest of the crowd got inside the palisaded camp first. Herod surrounded and besieged them, and before they could be taken by force of arms, thirst overtook them, as their water ran out. The king scorned their envoys, and when they offered five hundred talents as ransom, he pressed them all the harder. Burning with thirst, they came out in crowds and gave themselves up to the Jews of their own accord, so that in five days four thousand were made prisoners. On the sixth day the rest came out in despair to fight, and Herod engaged them and killed about seven thousand more. With so heavy a blow he took vengeance on Arabia, and so crushed the spirit of its men, that the nation chose him as its protector. [j]