Aristobulus Kills His Brother

After their father’s death the elder of them, Aristobulus, changed the government into a kingdom and was the first to put on a diadem, four hundred and seventy-one years and three months after the people came down into this country, freed from their slavery in Babylon. Of his brothers, he seemed to love Antigonus, the next in age, and treated him as his equal; the others he put in chains and imprisoned. He also put his mother in chains, because she disputed the government with him — John had left her mistress of the whole state — and he went so far in cruelty that he starved her to death in prison. [a]

But the punishment for these crimes came round to him through his brother Antigonus, whom he loved and had made his partner in the kingship. Him too he killed, on the strength of slanders that the wicked men of the court made up against him. At first Aristobulus did not believe what was said, both because he loved his brother and because he put most of the talk down to envy. But Antigonus came back in splendor from a campaign for the feast at which it is our ancestral custom to make tents for God. It happened that Aristobulus was ill in those days, and at the end of the feast Antigonus went up to the temple with his armed men about him, dressed as finely as he could, to worship, chiefly on his brother’s behalf. At this point the wicked men went to the king and told him about the parade of armed men and Antigonus’s bearing, which was too proud for a private person. He had come, they said, with a very large band to kill him; he could not bear to have only the honors of royalty when he could seize the kingship itself.

Little by little, and against his will, Aristobulus came to believe them. He took care not to show his suspicion openly, yet to guard himself against the unknown. He was lying ill in the fortress called the Baris, which was later renamed Antonia, and he stationed his bodyguards in one of the dark underground passages, with orders to leave Antigonus alone if he came unarmed, but to kill him if he came in armor. He also sent messengers to tell Antigonus beforehand to come unarmed. But the queen arranged things very cunningly with the plotters. They persuaded the messengers to keep silent about the king’s message, and instead to tell Antigonus that his brother had heard he had had very fine armor and military ornaments made for himself in Galilee, and that his illness had kept him from looking at it all; “but now, since you are about to go away, he would be very glad to see you in your armor.” [b]

When Antigonus heard this, his brother’s affection led him to suspect nothing wrong, and he went in his armor, as if to show it off. But when he reached the dark passage called Strato’s Tower, he was killed by the bodyguards. He became clear proof that slander cuts through all goodwill and natural affection, and that none of our good feelings is strong enough to hold out against envy forever.

One might well wonder at Judas in this affair. He was an Essene, and had never once failed or been proved false in his predictions. When he saw Antigonus passing through the temple, he cried out to his companions — not a few of his pupils were sitting with him — “Alas! It would be good for me to die now, since truth has died before me and one of my predictions has proved false. This Antigonus is alive today, though he was to have been killed today. The place fated for his slaughter was Strato’s Tower, which is seventy-five miles from here, and four hours of the day are already gone. The time makes the prophecy impossible.” When he had said this, the old man sat on, gloomy and lost in thought. A little later came the news that Antigonus had been killed in the underground place that was itself also called Strato’s Tower, the same name as Caesarea on the coast. It was this that had confused the seer. [c]

Remorse for his foul deed at once brought on Aristobulus’s illness. His mind was always troubled by the thought of the murder, and he wasted away, until his inner organs were torn by unrelieved grief and he brought up a great quantity of blood. One of the servant boys who waited on him was carrying it out when, by divine providence, he slipped at the very spot where Antigonus had been slaughtered, and spilled the murderer’s blood over the stains of the murder that could still be seen. At once a wail went up from those who saw it, as though the boy had poured out the blood there on purpose. The king heard the cry and asked the reason. When no one dared to tell him, he pressed all the harder to know, and at last, under threats and compulsion, they told him the truth. His eyes filled with tears, and groaning with all the strength he had, he said: “So I was not to escape the great eye of God after my lawless deeds. Swift justice is pursuing me for the murder of my own kin. How long, most shameless body, will you hold on to a soul condemned for a brother and a mother? How long shall I pour out my blood to them as an offering, drop by drop? Let them take it all at once, and let the Deity no longer be mocked with libations from my bowels.” As soon as he had said this he died, having reigned no more than a year. [d]