The Brothers and Pompey

Hyrcanus was heir to the whole realm, and his mother had entrusted the kingdom to him while she was still alive; but Aristobulus was his superior in power and in spirit. When the two fought a battle near Jericho to decide the whole issue, most of Hyrcanus’s men deserted him and went over to Aristobulus. Hyrcanus fled ahead of them, with those who stayed by him, to the Antonia, and got control of hostages for his safety: Aristobulus’s wife and children. In the end they came to terms before anything irreparable happened. Aristobulus was to be king, and Hyrcanus was to step down but enjoy all his other honors as the king’s brother. On these terms they were reconciled in the temple and embraced each other warmly while the people stood around them; and they exchanged houses, Aristobulus going to the palace and Hyrcanus moving into Aristobulus’s house.

Aristobulus’s unexpected victory struck fear into his other opponents, and above all into Antipater, whom he had long hated. Antipater was an Idumean by race, and the foremost man of his nation by reason of his ancestry, his wealth and his power in other ways. He persuaded Hyrcanus to take refuge with Aretas, king of Arabia, and recover the kingdom; and he persuaded Aretas to receive Hyrcanus and restore him to power. He spoke much against Aristobulus’s character and much in praise of Hyrcanus, and urged Aretas to take him in, saying how fitting it would be for the ruler of so splendid a kingdom to hold out his hand to the wronged; and Hyrcanus was wronged, robbed of the rule that belonged to him by right as the elder. When he had prepared them both, he took Hyrcanus by night, slipped away from the city, and in hard flight got safely to the place called Petra, the royal city of Arabia. There he put Hyrcanus into Aretas’s hands, and by much talk and many gifts he won him over to give Hyrcanus an army to restore him. It numbered fifty thousand foot and horse. Aristobulus could not stand against it; he was beaten in the first encounter and driven into Jerusalem. He would soon have been taken by storm, if Scaurus, the Roman general, had not seized on their crisis and lifted the siege. Pompey the Great had sent him into Syria from Armenia, where he was at war with Tigranes. Scaurus arrived at Damascus, which had recently been taken by Metellus and Lollius, and had them moved elsewhere; and when he heard how things stood in Judea, he hurried there as to a windfall. [a]

As soon as he entered the country, envoys came from both brothers, each asking for his help. But Aristobulus’s three hundred talents counted for more than justice. On receiving that sum, Scaurus sent a herald to Hyrcanus and the Arabians, threatening them with the Romans and Pompey unless they raised the siege. Aretas, terrified, withdrew from Judea to Philadelphia, and Scaurus went back to Damascus. Aristobulus was not content with escaping capture. He gathered all his forces, followed the enemy, engaged them near the place called Papyron, and killed more than six thousand of them, among them Antipater’s brother Phallion. [b]

Cut off from the Arabians, Hyrcanus and Antipater transferred their hopes to the other side. When Pompey, advancing through Syria, came to Damascus, they took refuge with him. Without any gifts, but with the same pleas of justice they had used with Aretas, they begged him to hate Aristobulus’s violence and to restore to the kingdom the man whom both character and age entitled to it. Nor did Aristobulus lag behind, relying on the bribe Scaurus had taken; he too was there, decked out as royally as he could. But he thought it beneath his dignity to pay court, and could not bear to serve his own needs in a manner humbler than his rank, so he left Diospolis. [c]

Pompey was angry at this, and at the many entreaties of Hyrcanus’s party he set out against Aristobulus with the Roman army and many Syrian allies. Passing Pella and Scythopolis, he came to Coreae, where the territory of the Jews begins as one goes up through the interior. There he heard that Aristobulus had fled to Alexandrium, one of the most lavishly equipped fortresses, standing on a high mountain, and he sent and ordered him to come down. Summoned so imperiously, Aristobulus was inclined to risk battle rather than obey. But he saw that the people were terrified, and his friends urged him to consider that the power of Rome was irresistible. He took their advice, came down to Pompey, made a long defense of his right to rule, and went back to the fortress. When his brother challenged him again, he came down, argued the rights of the case, and went away without hindrance from Pompey. He was torn between hope and fear. He would come down to shame Pompey into handing everything over to him, and go back up to the citadel so as not to seem to be giving up his position in advance. But Pompey ordered him to give up the fortresses; and since their commanders had instructions to obey only letters in his own handwriting, he forced him to write to each of them to withdraw. Aristobulus did what he was ordered, but in his anger he went away to Jerusalem and prepared to fight Pompey. [d]

Pompey gave him no time for preparations but followed at once. He was spurred on by news of the death of Mithridates, which reached him near Jericho. There the richest land in Judea produces a great many palm trees, and balsam too. They cut its stems with sharp stones and gather the balsam as it weeps out at the cuts. Pompey camped one night in that place and at dawn hurried on toward Jerusalem. Alarmed at his approach, Aristobulus came to meet him as a suppliant, and by promising money and surrendering himself together with the city he calmed Pompey’s anger. Yet none of the terms was carried out. When Gabinius was sent to collect the money, Aristobulus’s supporters would not even let him into the city. [e]