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THE SELEUCID EMPIRE. 358-251 BC. HOUSE OF SELEUCUS

CHAPTER 26.

ANTIOCHUS V EUPATOR AND THE ADMINISTRATION OF LYSIAS

When Antiochus Epiphanes left Syria in 166-165 the government of the West was confided, as has been said, to Lysias, one of those who held the rank of Kinsmen. It was in the early days of his administration that the first attempt of any importance was made to quell the Jewish insurrection. The matter having proved too great for the troops on the spot, the forces of the Coele-Syrian province had to be concentrated to deal with it. Under the authority of the strategos of Coele-Syria and Phoenicia, Ptolemy the son of Dorymenes, an army was launched upon Judaea, commanded by Nicanor and Gorgias. Such complete confidence was felt in the Gentile cities as to the result of the expedition that the force was followed by a great company of merchants, alert to buy up the numbers of Jewish prisoners who would be thrown upon the slave-market. The way of approach chosen was one of the western valleys which run down from the Judaean upland to the Philistine plain. At Emmaus, in the valley of Ajalon, the force encamped before making the ascent.

It was the first great ordeal through which the new Jewish army was to pass, and many lost heart as the crisis approached and slunk away. Judas with those who remained took up a position on the slopes to the south of Emmaus.

It was resolved in the camp of Nicanor, our account says, to avoid one of those surprises, in which the Jews—irregulars fighting in their own country—had shown themselves so deft, by the royal forces effecting a surprise themselves. Gorgias was detached with about an eighth of the entire force to make a night attack on the enemy's encampment. Men from Jerusalem were ready to act as guides. Judas, however, got wind of the design, and moving out by the hill-paths, evaded the attacking force. Gorgias reached the camping-place to find it deserted. He then committed the indiscretion of pressing on into the hills, whither he conceived the enemy had retired, without ascertaining his real whereabouts. Judas suddenly flung himself at daybreak on the main body at Emmaus, which, taken completely unawares, fled down past Gezer into the Philistine plain. Gorgias was still wandering about in the hills when the columns of smoke rising from Emmaus told their tale. He at once withdrew his men, without risking an engagement, to join the fugitives in the plain. The Jews fell upon the deserted camp, and “got much gold and silver and blue and sea-purple and great riches”. They returned up the valley, intoning the ancient burden of their psalms, “Because He is good and His mercy endureth for ever”.

The provincial forces had proved inadequate to the task of suppressing the Jewish revolt.

The regent Lysias must now take the matter into his own hands. In 165 he moved from Antioch at the head of a larger army than had yet been put into the field against the Jews. Lysias resolved to attack from the south where the Judaean upland falls by gentle degrees towards Hebron. These slopes as far north as Beth-sur were peopled, not by Jews, but by Idumaeans, and at Beth-sur the edge of the plateau was already gained. Beth-sur itself seems to have been held by a company of Jews. It was attacked by the royal forces.

The engagements which took place between the troops of Lysias and the insurgents are represented in the Books of the Maccabees in the guise of a notable victory of Judas. But in view of the ease with which even distinct defeats are seen to be transfigured in the imagination of the Jewish writers into victories, it may be questioned whether much damage was inflicted upon the regent's army. Before, however, any decisive result was reached, it was known in Antioch and in the camp of Lysias that Antiochus Epiphanes was no more. It was possibly this material change in the situation which inclined Lysias to make terms with the nationalist Jews.

Nor were the nationalists unwilling to avail themselves of a way of escape from the predicament in which the presence of such an army as the regent's had placed them. Their envoys, John and Absalom, carried to Lysias a written statement of their desires. At the same time they entreated the good offices of some Roman commissioners who were in the neighborhood—on their way presumably from Alexandria to Antioch. The requests of the insurgents were referred to the court at Antioch, and supported, it appears, by the Roman commissioners. Possibly Lysias himself, who had on his own authority made some concessions, advised conciliation. At any rate, the policy of Antiochus Epiphanes was now definitely renounced by the Council of the boy-king, Antiochus Eupator. The rescript sent in reference to the questions submitted by Lysias conceded to the Jews full liberty for the exercise of their ancestral religion, the restoration of the old Jewish institutions in Jerusalem, and amnesty for all those returning to Jerusalem within a given time. But the nationalists do not seem to have had it all their own way. They were probably obliged to agree to some modus vivendi with their fellow-countrymen who had attached themselves to Hellenism and the Seleucid house. It is remarkable that Menelaus, who of all men was most odious to the nationalists, remained in power. Seeing how things were tending, he had made himself the spokesman of Jewish feeling at Antioch, and was deputed by the court to direct the work of pacification. The garrison, of course, remained in the akra.

These rescripts mark the end of the first phase in the Maccabaean struggle. The ban was now taken off the Jewish religion; the cause for which the nationalists had hitherto been fighting, the liberty of Judaism, was won. Thenceforward, when they took the sword, it was to fight, not for religious, but for political, freedom.

The Hasmonaean family and the people who followed them had now access to Jerusalem. The refugees returned to their homes. In the following December (164) the restoration of the old worship in the Temple ensued. The altar of Zeus was broken up and the stones cast into an unclean place. The old altar of burnt offering, upon which the heathen altar had been erected, could not be used again. Its stones were put away in a place on the Temple hill, “until there should come a prophet to give an answer concerning them”. A new altar was made, and on the 25th of Ghislev the smoke of the first sacrifice went up from it to the Lord—on the very day when the profanation had taken place some years before. For eight days the ceremonies of rededication went on. It was a moment to be remembered, and in years to come the anniversary was celebrated by Israel in the Feast of the Dedication.

By the death of Antiochus Epiphanes the young Antiochus Eupator, now a boy of nine years, became sole king. The administration was, of course, in the hands of those whom the ill-regulated favor of Antiochus Epiphanes had raised to power, wretched men like Heraclides of Miletus and his brother Timarchus under whose extortionate rule the eastern provinces groaned. The drastic policy of Antiochus Epiphanes was given up; the kingdom entered on a period of inertia and abasement. This result was contemplated with extreme satisfaction at Rome, and there was no relaxing of the grasp which held the rightful heir to the Seleucid throne, Demetrius the son of Seleucus, a prisoner.

The history of those days in Syria is preserved for us only in so far as the Jews are concerned. They show us the new military power created by the Hasmonaean brethren engaged in conflict with all the neighboring peoples. In the picture we get of southern Syria the power of the Seleucid court seems to be of a shadowy kind. Only in the Philistine plain is it substantial; there Gorgias, the captain unsuccessful at Emmaus, holds Jamnia (on the great road north of Azotus) with a royal garrison. The Idumaeans (Edomites), the peoples between Jordan and the eastern wilderness, the Arab tribes, appear practically independent.

Nearly all these races, however, are united in sympathy with the Seleucid government by their common hatred of the Jews. The division in this conflict is not between Hellene and Asiatic, but between Israel and the nations. It is true that the zeal with which the heathen nations of Syria adopted the Hellenic culture focussed in the new cities may have had something to do with their hatred of the race who remained stubbornly "barbarian". It is noteworthy that the Nabataean Arabs, who had perhaps been the least affected by the Hellenistic movement, were friendly to the Jewish rebels. But in the cities of Syria the successes of the nationalists, and above all the restoration of the old ritual, roused a flame of anti-Jewish rage. The little communities of Jews who resided among the heathen found themselves in danger of massacre. In the district of Tob, beyond Jordan (mod. Tayziba, opposite Beth-shan?) a massacre actually took place. In Idumaea an outbreak occurred, and parties of Jews were besieged in the fortresses where they had taken refuge. Travelling companies of Jews were cut up on the road by the marauding tribe of the Beni-Baian.

But Judaism did not lack a champion. The Hasmonaean brethren made a series of avenging raids into the surrounding countries. The chronology of these “Neighbour Wars” is perplexed. They possibly began before the return of the nationalists to Jerusalem. But their character is more plain. In contrast with later Hasmonaean wars their object is the concentration, not the expansion, of Judaism. Jewish colonies are not established in the Gentile lands, but the Jewish communities actually residing in them are brought back en masse to Judaea. Gentile communities which had not shown any hostility to the Jews do not seem to have been molested. The case of the Nabataeans has been mentioned. The Greek colony of Scythopolis (Beth-shan) protected the resident Jews and received the thanks of Judas when he passed with his bands that way. On the other hand, wherever the Jews had been persecuted, scenes of frightful carnage took place. At Bosra and Maspha it is expressly stated that Judas put all males to the sword.

While the King’s peace was thus broken in southern Syria by the agitation against the Jews and the sanguinary reprisals, the nationalists and the friends of the Seleucid government were not living happily together in Jerusalem.

The former had the upper hand and things went hard with their adversaries. It was now the turn of the nationalists to persecute. Those guilty of Hellenizing were put to death and their possessions seized by the dominant party. The remnant of the Hellenizing party fled. Some took refuge in the akra. Others were received in the strongholds of Idumaea. Their cries reached the court of Antioch. Were the loyalists to be abandoned to the vindictiveness of the rebels? The Seleucid court was bound in honor to protect those who maintained its cause.

It was obvious that the concordat arranged by Lysias had broken down, and the court was angry with Menelaus, who had been more or less responsible for it. Nor was it only for the sake of the loyalists that the Seleucid government must take action. The garrison in the akra, its one hold left in Judaea, was hard pressed by Judas. He had begun a regular siege, and held the garrison strongly invested.

In 163 an army greater than the last moved out from Antioch, complete even to the corps of elephants. It was led by Lysias, and accompanied by the boy-king himself. The line of attack chosen was again by the south, and once more the frontier fortress of the Jews, Beth-sur, was besieged. Judas came as in former years to battle But against the real force of the kingdom his bands could not make head. He was defeated at Beth-Zachariah near Beth-sur. His brother Eleazar was among the slain. Eleazar had fallen, the story says, in an attack upon one of the elephants, which he supposed to carry the King. Judas fell back, leaving the way open, to the neighborhood of Gophna. The King and Lysias advanced to Jerusalem and laid siege to the nationalist fortress on Mount Zion, while part of the royal army was left to prosecute the siege of Beth-sur. There was a great scarcity of food in Judaea, both because of the number of refugees brought in during the last years, and because at that moment a Sabbath year was in course. Beth-sur was compelled by famine to surrender, and a royal garrison took the place of the Jewish one.

But once more the nationalists were saved from a desperate predicament by outside events. A certain Philip who had been with Antiochus Epiphanes in Persis, and received from the dying king, it was said, the diadem and seal which carried the chief authority in the kingdom, now set himself up against Lysias in Antioch. It was imperative for Lysias to come to terms quickly with the Jews. What the terms of the agreement were it is impossible to make out precisely. Liberty for the Jewish worship had been already conceded in 164, and the question since then had been whether equal liberty was to be given by the nationalists to Hellenism, or whether the Hasmonaean party were exclusively to possess the state. It would appear that Lysias must now have abandoned the Hellenizers and offered the friendship of the Seleucid government to the Hasmonaeans, if they on their part would recognize the Seleucid supremacy. Judas was to hold the chief power in Judaea, but hold it as the King’s strategos. Menelaus, the head of the Hellenizing party, the old instrument of the Seleucid court, Lysias made haste to destroy. He had presented himself in the royal camp with the petition to be re-instated in the high-priesthood. Instead of this, after the compact with the Hasmonaeans, Lysias took him back with the army on his return, and at Beroea in northern Syria (Aleppo) he was cast into the fiery furnace.

The Seleucid King entered Jerusalem as a friend and made an offering in the Temple. But the garrison was left in the Akra, and before he departed the nationalist fortress in Jerusalem was dismantled. The situation now created there—the Hasmonaeans in power, but trammelled by an irksome allegiance and overlooked by a garrison—had no promise of stability. And now we turn away our eyes for a while from Judaea to northern Syria.

As soon as Lysias returned with the King to the north, a trial of strength took place between him and Philip. In this Philip was worsted, and, flying to Ptolemy Philometor, disappears from history. The palace gang to which Lysias belonged were now absolute. How reckless their administration was is shown by the fact that they committed some crime (perhaps the murder of queen Antiochis whilst she was residing in her old home), which utterly alienated the Cappadocian court, and undid the alliance which had been part of the policy of Antiochus Epiphanes.

In Rome it was resolved to take advantage of the weakness of the Seleucid kingdom to cripple it still further. A mission was dispatched in 164, soon after the death of Antiochus Epiphanes was known, consisting of Gnaeus Octavius, Spurius Lucretius and Lucius Aurelius, to “regulate the affairs of the kingdom”. By regulating its affairs the Senate understood the destruction of the newly-formed fleet and the corps of elephants, both of which contravened the provisions of the Peace of Apamea. It was believed that the gang would agree to anything, however disastrous or dishonorable to the kingdom, so long as they might hold their places and be secured against the thing they dreaded—the return of Demetrius. The mission moved slowly, looking into other matters in the eastern countries on its way. In 163 apparently they had come to Cappadocia, and now the fruits of the fatuous policy of Lysias showed themselves. The throne was held no longer by Ariarathes IV Eusebes, but by his son Mithridates, who had taken the name of Ariarathes on his accession, Ariarathes V Eusebes Philopator. He threw himself heart and soul into any project for humiliating the Seleucid court. He drew a lively picture of the misgovernment and weakness of Lysias and the gang, and offered military support to the Roman envoys. So mean an opinion, however, had the envoys of the present government in Syria that they thought military support quite unnecessary.

Their estimate was right as far as Lysias and his associates were concerned. They raised no objection to the destruction of the fleet and elephants. But Octavius had left out of account the popular feeling, which was stirred to frenzy at the sight. And he paid the penalty. At Laodicea, whither the envoys had come (to destroy the ships in the harbor or embark on their further journey to Egypt), Octavius, while taking his exercise in the public gymnasium, was set upon by a citizen, called Leptines, and killed. The man instantly became a hero, and went about Laodicea declaring that he had acted under divine inspiration. Among the loudest voices raised in his glorification was that of Isocrates, a professor of letters from Greece, who was now swept by the wave of popular excitement into politics. He began to clamor that the other envoys should share Octavius' fate. He gave voice to all that bitterness against Rome which had become general among Greek idealists. But the colleagues of Octavius made good their escape (163-162).

The government, of course, was horror-struck at the tragedy. Ostentatious honors were shown to the body of the murdered envoy, and ambassadors went in haste to Rome to assure the Senate that the court was entirely innocent of any share in the crime. But the Senate was not in a hurry to acquit. It maintained that impressive reserve (often the consequence of ignorance or indecision) which so puzzled and frightened the Greeks. It was not, however, from the Senate that the doom of Lysias and the gang came.