Pretenders to the Crown

Meanwhile the countryside too was in turmoil in many places, and the moment persuaded many to try for a crown. In Idumea two thousand of Herod’s former soldiers banded together under arms and fought against the king’s troops. Achiabus, the king’s cousin, fought them from the strongest positions, avoiding an engagement on the open plains. At Sepphoris in Galilee, Judas, the son of Hezekiah — the robber chief who once overran the country and was subdued by King Herod — gathered a sizable crowd, broke open the royal armories, armed his followers, and attacked the others who were striving for power. [a]

In Perea, Simon, one of the king’s slaves, relying on his good looks and his great size, put a diadem on his own head. He went about with a band of robbers he had gathered, burned down the royal palace at Jericho and many other costly country houses, and easily took plunder for himself out of the fire. He would soon have burned every fine building there was, had not Gratus, the commander of the king’s infantry, taken the Trachonite archers and the most warlike of the men of Sebaste and gone out to meet him. Many of the Pereans fell in the battle. As Simon himself was escaping up a steep ravine, Gratus cut him off, and as he fled struck him on the neck from the side and broke it. The royal palace near the Jordan at Betharamptha was also burned, by some other rebels from Perea. [c]

At that time a shepherd too dared to lay claim to the throne. He was called Athronges. His hopes were fed by his bodily strength and a soul that despised death, and besides these by four brothers like himself. He put an armed company under each of them and used them as his generals and satraps in his raids, while he himself, like a king, handled the weightier affairs. It was then that he put a diadem on his head, and afterward he went on for no short time overrunning the country with his brothers. Their chief aim was to kill Romans and the king’s men, but no Jew escaped them either if he fell into their hands carrying anything worth taking. Once they dared to surround a whole company of Romans near Emmaus who were carrying grain and weapons to their legion. They shot down the company’s centurion, Arius, and forty of the bravest men with javelins; the rest, in danger of the same fate, escaped when Gratus came to their aid with the men of Sebaste. The brothers did many such things to their own countrymen and to foreigners throughout the whole war, until in time three of them were subdued: the eldest by Archelaus, the next two when they fell into the hands of Gratus and Ptolemy. The fourth surrendered to Archelaus on the pledge of his right hand. That was the end that awaited them later; but for the present they filled all Judea with a robbers’ war. [d]