Alexandra and the Pharisees

Alexander left the kingdom to his wife Alexandra, convinced that the Jews would obey her more readily than anyone else, since she had kept far from his cruelty and had opposed his violations of the law, and so had won the people’s goodwill. Nor was he wrong in his hope. This woman held on to power through her reputation for piety: she kept the ancestral traditions of the law with the greatest strictness, and from the start she put out of office those who offended against the sacred laws. She had two sons by Alexander. The elder, Hyrcanus, she appointed high priest because of his age, and also because he was too sluggish to trouble anyone about affairs of state; the younger, Aristobulus, being hot-tempered, she kept in private life.

Alongside her the Pharisees grew up into power. They are a body of Jews with a reputation for being more religious than the rest and for interpreting the laws more exactly. Alexandra, being anxiously devout, paid them extraordinary attention, and little by little they crept up on the woman’s simplicity until they were in effect the administrators of the whole state, banishing and recalling whom they pleased, loosing and binding. In short, the enjoyments of royal power were theirs; its costs and burdens were Alexandra’s. Yet she was clever at managing large affairs. She was always recruiting: she doubled the army and gathered a large force of foreign troops, so that she not only strengthened her own nation but made it formidable to foreign rulers. She ruled the others, and the Pharisees ruled her. [a]

So they themselves killed Diogenes, a prominent man who had been a friend of Alexander, accusing him of having advised the king to crucify the eight hundred. They also urged Alexandra to put to death the others who had incited Alexander against those men; and as she gave way out of superstition, they killed whomever they wished. The most prominent of those in danger fled to Aristobulus, and he persuaded his mother to spare the men because of their rank, but to send them out of the city if she did not think them innocent. So they were granted safety and scattered through the country. Alexandra sent an army to Damascus — the pretext was that Ptolemy was always oppressing the city — but it came back without doing anything worth mentioning. Tigranes, king of Armenia, was encamped before Ptolemais, besieging Cleopatra; Alexandra won him over with agreements and gifts. But he had to break off in haste because of troubles at home, for Lucullus had invaded Armenia. [d]

Meanwhile Alexandra fell ill, and Aristobulus, the younger of her sons, seized the moment. With his servants — he had many, all devoted to him for his fiery spirit — he took control of all the fortresses, used the money he found in them to hire mercenaries, and proclaimed himself king. When Hyrcanus complained of this, his mother took pity on him and shut up Aristobulus’s wife and children in the Antonia. This was a fortress adjoining the north side of the temple. It was formerly called the Baris, as I have said, but took this name later, when Antony was master, just as the cities of Sebaste and Agrippias were named after Sebastos and Agrippa. But Alexandra died before she could punish Aristobulus for overthrowing his brother, having governed for nine years. [f]