The Reign of Alexander Jannaeus

The king’s widow released his brothers and made Alexander king, since he seemed to stand first among them both in age and in moderation. When he came to power he killed one of his brothers, who was aiming at the throne, but held the remaining one in honor, since he was content to live without meddling in affairs of state. He fought a battle against Ptolemy, surnamed Lathyrus, who had taken the city of Asochis. He killed many of the enemy, but the victory leaned to Ptolemy. When Ptolemy, pursued by his mother Cleopatra, withdrew into Egypt, Alexander besieged and took Gadara, and Amathus, the greatest of the fortresses beyond the Jordan, where Theodorus son of Zeno kept his most valuable possessions. Theodorus fell on him suddenly, recovered his own property, captured the king’s baggage, and killed as many as ten thousand of the Jews. But Alexander got the better of the blow, turned to the coast, and took Gaza, Raphia, and Anthedon, which King Herod later renamed Agrippias. [a]

After he had enslaved these cities, the Jewish people rose against him at a festival — it is at their feasts above all that revolt flares up — and it seemed that he could not have survived the plot if his foreign troops had not come to his help. These were Pisidians and Cilicians; he would not accept Syrians as mercenaries, because of their inborn hostility to the nation. He killed more than six thousand of the rebels and then attacked Arabia. There he subdued the Gileadites and the Moabites, laid tribute on them, and turned back to Amathus. Theodorus, dismayed by his successes, had abandoned the fortress, and Alexander found it empty and razed it. [b]

Next he fought Obedas, king of the Arabians, who had laid an ambush near Gaulane. Caught in the trap, he lost his whole army, which was crowded into a deep ravine and crushed by the multitude of camels. He himself escaped to Jerusalem, but the size of the disaster roused the nation, which had long hated him, to revolt. Once again he had the upper hand, and in battle after battle he killed no fewer than fifty thousand Jews in six years. Yet he took no joy in his victories, since he was consuming his own kingdom. So he laid down his arms and tried to come to terms with his subjects by talking with them. But they hated his change of heart and the inconsistency of his conduct all the more. When he asked them the reason, and what he could do to calm them, they told him: by dying — even dead, they could hardly be reconciled with a man who had done so much. At the same time they called in Demetrius, surnamed Akairos. He readily agreed, in the hope of greater gains, and came with an army, and the Jews joined these allies near Shechem. [c]

Alexander met both forces with a thousand horsemen and eight thousand mercenary foot soldiers; he also had with him about ten thousand of the Jews who were loyal to him. The other side had three thousand horsemen and fourteen thousand foot. Before they came to blows, the kings made proclamations and tried to bring about desertions in each other’s ranks, Demetrius hoping to win over Alexander’s mercenaries, and Alexander the Jews who were with Demetrius. But since neither would the Jews give up their fury nor the Greeks their loyalty, they closed and settled the matter with their weapons. Demetrius won the battle, though Alexander’s mercenaries gave many proofs of courage and strength. Yet the outcome surprised both sides. Those who had called Demetrius in did not stay with him, though he was the victor; and six thousand Jews, out of pity for Alexander’s reversal, joined him when he fled to the mountains. Demetrius could not bear this turn of the scale. Supposing that Alexander was already a match for him again and that the whole nation was flowing back to him, he withdrew.

Yet the rest of the people did not lay aside their quarrel when their allies withdrew. They kept up a constant war against Alexander, until he had killed very many of them and driven the rest into the city of Bemeselis. He overthrew that city and brought the captives up to Jerusalem. His cruelty, out of the excess of his rage, went as far as impiety. Of those he had taken he crucified eight hundred in the middle of the city, and butchered their wives and children before their eyes; and he watched all this while drinking and reclining with his concubines. Such terror seized the people that eight thousand of his opponents fled out of Judea altogether that very night, and their exile ended only with Alexander’s death. By such deeds, late and with difficulty, he brought quiet to his kingdom and rested from war. [e]

Then Antiochus, surnamed Dionysus, became the source of fresh troubles. He was the brother of Demetrius and the last of the line of Seleucus. Alexander feared him when he set out against the Arabians, and so he cut a deep trench across the ground between the foothills above Antipatris and the beaches of Joppa, raised a high wall in front of the trench, and built wooden towers to block the easy approaches. Even so he could not shut Antiochus out. Antiochus burned the towers, filled in the trench and marched through with his army; and putting off his revenge on the man who had tried to stop him, he went straight on against the Arabians. The Arab king withdrew into the parts of the country better suited for battle; then he suddenly wheeled his cavalry about — they were ten thousand in number — and fell on Antiochus’s men while they were in disorder. A hard battle followed. As long as Antiochus lived, his army held out, though the Arabians were cutting it down freely. But when he fell — for he always put himself in danger at the front, bringing help to those who were giving way — they all broke. Most of them were destroyed on the battlefield or in the flight; the rest took refuge in the village of Cana, where all but a few perished for lack of provisions. [f]

After this the people of Damascus, out of hatred for Ptolemy son of Mennaeus, brought in Aretas and made him king of Coele-Syria. He marched against Judea, defeated Alexander in battle, and withdrew on terms. Alexander took Pella and went on to Gerasa, still coveting the possessions of Theodorus; he walled in the garrison with a triple wall and took the place by assault. He also overthrew Gaulane and Seleucia and the place called the Valley of Antiochus, and took besides the strong fortress of Gamala, where he removed Demetrius, its commander, from office on many charges. He returned to Judea after three full years of campaigning. The nation welcomed him gladly because of his success, but his rest from war became the beginning of illness. Troubled by quartan fevers, he thought he could shake off the illness by taking up affairs again. So he threw himself into untimely campaigns, and by forcing his body to exertions beyond its strength he brought about his end. He died, then, in the midst of turmoil, after reigning twenty-seven years. [g]