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

CHAPTER 27.

DEMETRIUS THE SAVIOUR

All this while the boy who had been growing up in Italy had not lost the hope of coming to his own. When the news of his uncle's death arrived in Rome (164) he had approached the Senate with fair words, begging to be possessed of his inheritance. The Senate need have no doubt that a friendly king would sit upon the Seleucid throne; Demetrius assured them that he actually felt one of themselves, that he looked upon the Senators as his fathers and the young Roman nobles as his brothers. The Senate, Polybius says, was made uncomfortable by this appeal; they had a bad conscience, but they thought they understood Roman interests better than Demetrius, and preferred a powerless child and a palace camarilla to an active prince, however friendly. So the mission was sent to destroy the ships and the elephants.

Demetrius at that time was twenty-three years old. He bore his captivity impatiently. But it had been a magnificent school. As in the case of Antiochus Epiphanes, to have been educated in Rome, not in a Syrian palace, meant a great deal to the ruler of a kingdom. It was not only that he had grown up in contact with the finest aristocracy and the most vigorous political system of the world, but there met in Rome—as captives, ambassadors, teachers—the greatest of the contemporary Greeks. The circle of Scipio Aemilianus comprised the philosopher Panaetius and the historian Polybius. For the friendship of Demetrius with Polybius we have the authority of Polybius himself. The Achaean statesman and the Seleucid prince were both enthusiastic sportsmen, and this in the first instance had drawn them together. How much Demetrius owed to his intercourse with this man, the widest observer of contemporary politics, the most original historian since Thucydides, we can only speculate. Something the younger man, spirited and sanguine, must have gained from the manifold experience, the matured reflection of the elder—from long conversations as they rode or drove home together through the declining afternoons from hunting the pig in the woods of Anagnia.

Another acquaintance whom Demetrius made in Rome was his cousin, the best of the Ptolemies, Philometor. In 163 Philometor came to Italy as a suppliant. For the double kingship established in Egypt since the invasions of Antiochus Epiphanes had not worked well, and Philometor had now been driven out by his brother Euergetes. He landed with three slaves and a eunuch only. People arrived in Rome with the news that they had seen the King of Egypt tramping along the road on foot with this poor attendance. Impulsively Demetrius hurried to meet him, with royal apparel and a magnificent horse, richly caparisoned. He was received with a smile. He must not spoil a calculated stage effect. Ptolemy begged his cousin to wait with his horse and royal robes in one of the towns on the road; he himself proceeded as he had begun, entered Rome, a pathetic figure, and took up his lodging with a penurious Greek painter in an attic. He was restored after this by Roman authority to Egypt, although he was obliged to surrender Cyrene to Euergetes.

It was only a short time after the visit of Ptolemy Philometor that the startling news of the murder of Octavius came to Rome, and was immediately followed by the ambassadors sent from the court at Antioch (162). How would this affect the disposition of the Senate to the existing government and to Demetrius? Polybius tells us that Demetrius came to him in high excitement. Would not Polybius advise him to approach the Senate once more? “Polybius told him”, the historian writes of himself, “not to stumble twice at the same stone”. Demetrius would never induce the Senate to move in his favor, but if he took the matter into his own hands and acted boldly, the hour was favorable. Demetrius understood, but he said nothing. Presently he consulted a friend of his own age, Apollonius, who had, Polybius explains, an innocent and childlike belief in the part played by logic in practical politics, and, since it was unreasonable for Demetrius to be a hostage for the son of Antiochus Epiphanes, advised him to try the Senate again. Demetrius did. The Senate showed a disconcerting impassivity to argument—as Polybius had foreseen.

The resolution of the young prince, who had plenty of high courage and determination, now began to rise to the pitch of independent action. The man who had nurtured him in boyhood, Diodorus, had recently returned from Syria, whither he had gone to spy out the situation. Demetrius took him into confidence, and the report of Diodorus confirmed his purpose. The incidents of the Roman mission and the murder of Octavius had led to a profound breach between the people and the palace gang. The people mistrusted Lysias, and Lysias the people. Let Demetrius appear there, were it but with one attendant, and the kingdom would be his! This clinched his resolve. Polybius received a summons to come and see him, and was then asked to deliberate on ways of escape.

It occurred to Polybius that the man who must help them was Menyllus of Alabanda. Menyllus was now in Rome as the ambassador of Ptolemy Philometor; Polybius knew him well and trusted him absolutely. He introduced him to Demetrius, and Menyllus was let into the plot. The ambassador soon had a plan ready. He went down to Ostia and found a state-vessel of Carthage, carrying the customary offering to the gods of the mother-city, Tyre, in the harbor. Menyllus saw the captain, told him he was shortly returning to Alexandria, and made arrangements for himself and his party to be taken on board.

Before the ship sailed, Diodorus was sent on ahead to Syria to watch the drift of public feeling in the great cities. Demetrius made his final preparations. The only persons in the plot beside Polybius and Menyllus were Apollonius and two sons of that older Apollonius who had been of influence in the court of Seleucus IV, called Meleager and Menestheus.

The night came, in which the escape was to be made. Demetrius dined that afternoon with one of his friends, not at his own house, where he always kept a large table, and the presence of numbers would be inconvenient. It was given out that the prince would hunt next day at Anagnia, and a tent was pitched for him that night without the city; those in the plot had already sent on their slaves to make preparations. Only one slave was to accompany each of them in the voyage. The arrangement was that on leaving the banquet they should proceed with all secrecy and speed to the ship.

At this critical moment Polybius was confined to his bed by an illness. It was a great annoyance to him to be cut off from participation in the action, but Menyllus came regularly to his bedside to report every fresh development. On the final evening he knew that Demetrius was making merry with his friends; he knew also that Demetrius had all the buoyant carelessness of youth and drank freely in his convivial hours. The thought of possible indiscretions which might wreck the enterprise tormented him. He lay fretting on his bed, lest Demetrius should drink too deep into the night. At last he took a tablet, wrote upon it a few words, sealed it, and gave it to a slave to carry to the house where the feast was going on. It was now growing dark. The slave had orders to ask at the door for the prince’s cup-bearer, and deliver him the tablet to give Demetrius, but he was on no account to say who he was or from whom he came. In the tablet were no compromising names; nothing but certain proverbial verses from the poets :

“He that acts carries away the prize from him that tarries.

Night bringeth the same to all, but they that adventure get more profit of it.

Make a venture, hazard, act, fail

Or succeed — anything rather than let thyself be carried by chance.

Be sober and remember to mistrust : these are the hinges of the soul”.

The tablet was soon in the hands of Demetrius, and he recognized the sententious tone of his old friend. Presently he rose, said that he felt sick and left the house. His friends escorted him to the tent. There he chose the slaves to take the nets and the dogs to Anagnia for tomorrow’s sport. The rendez-vous was appointed them and they were sent off. Some others of his friends, including Nicanor, were now admitted to the plot They were all instructed to go to their several places of abode, send off their slaves to join the others at Anagnia, and change their dining garb for such clothes as men wore hunting—or on a journey. Having done this they were to return each one to the tent.

At last all were assembled, and in the dead of night the party hurried down to Ostia. Menyllus had been before them with a story to satisfy the people of the ship. A communication, he said, had just come from King Ptolemy which would cause him to prolong his stay in Rome, but he wished to dispatch some trusty young men who would take secret intelligence to Alexandria concerning the movements of Euergetes. The young men would present themselves about midnight. All that the people of the ship cared about was the passage money, and when Menyllus assured them that the original sum stipulated for would still be given, they asked no more questions. Everything on board was in readiness for departure. Towards the end of the third watch Demetrius and his company appeared, eight men, five grown slaves and three boys. There was some talk with Menyllus apart; then he showed them the provisions got ready for the voyage, and introduced them with earnest words to the captain and the crew. In the grey of the dawn the vessel loosed her moorings and glided out to sea. The steersman had no inkling whom he carried; he never doubted but they were soldiers in the Egyptian service going to King Ptolemy.

For some time Demetrius was not missed. His friends in Rome thought him at Anagnia; his servants at Anagnia thought him on the way from Rome. But on the fourth day his disappearance became patent. On the fifth day a meeting of the Senate was called to consider the matter. But by that time Demetrius must have passed the Straits of Messina. To try to arrest him and fail would, they thought, be undignified. In a few days they had fallen upon the inevitable expedient of a mission—an expedient which always deferred the trouble of a decision. Tiberius Gracchus and two colleagues were chosen to go and watch events in the East.

In this first-hand narrative, which stands out in ancient literature for its vividness and authenticity, we are brought close to the actors and know them for persons of flesh and blood. It is a moment of life long ago handed down still living to our own day. But the illumination ends. Once more we perceive through bad or fragmentary records only the outline of events; the person of Demetrius recedes, becomes doubtful; the warm-blooded youth who hunted at Anagnia and drank carelessly with his friends we feel we know, but the King is far removed; we can see the general figure of his public action, but what heart he now bears beneath it we are too far off to discern.

The Carthaginian vessel touched at Tripolis on its way, and here Demetrius and his friends left it. In this Phoenician city Demetrius published his advent and assumed the diadem. The news travelled rapidly over Syria, and it soon appeared that Diodorus had not exaggerated the unpopularity of the present government. Everywhere the people rose for Demetrius. Almost automatically, and without, it would seen, a blow struck, he found himself master of the country. In Antioch the troops declared for him. They seized the sons of Antiochus Epiphanes and Lysias, and set off to deliver them up to Demetrius. Fresh from the open-hearted convivialities of his life in Rome, the young man had to begin the life of kingship with a deed of blood. There could be no question, from the point of view of the worldly politician, that the boy who had usurped the name of King Antiochus and the minister who had supported him must be put out of the way. Demetrius wished at any rate to have the thing done before he had any personal contact with his cousins. He sent a message to the troops who were bringing their prisoners, “Show me not their faces”. And the army slew them. And Demetrius sat upon the throne of his kingdom, 162.

In Syria the old régime collapsed instantly on the appearance of Demetrius, but in the eastern provinces Timarchus the Milesian, although unpopular, was not so easily displaced. When the system to which he belonged broke up, he followed the precedent of Molon and took the diadem.

Whatever success Demetrius had won, he was dogged by the displeasure of Rome, an impalpable disability, but one which counted for a great deal in the East. Timarchus, on the other hand, reckoned upon Rome’s friendship, not only because he was a counterpoise to Demetrius, but because he had often gone with his brother as ambassador to Rome in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes, and not a few of the Senators had swallowed his golden baits. Demetrius was hardly established in Syria when Timarchus appeared in Rome. He had come now to ask for a kingdom, to be recognized by Rome as King of the Medes. The Senate graciously handed him a piece of paper which announced that “as far as Rome was concerned Timarchus was King”. That was enough; Timarchus went back happy with his piece of paper to display it to the other Eastern powers. Artaxias of Armenia, whom Antiochus Epiphanes had compelled a few years before to do homage to the Seleucid throne, gave Timarchus his alliance. The new King multiplied his forces. He subjugated many of the surrounding peoples.

Demetrius, who had set out in defiance of Rome, was not frightened by Timarchus’ piece of paper, nor even by his military establishment. It would seem that Timarchus was advancing to the invasion of Syria, making for the Zeugma upon the Euphrates, when Demetrius encountered him. And once more at the advent of the Seleucid the ground gave way under the feet of the rebel. Timarchus, who had followed the example of Molon, shared his fate. In Babylonia, Demetrius was received with transports of joy. After the tyranny of the base man, Seleucia hailed the true King with the shout of Saviour. It is the surname by which he is known (about 160)

While Demetrius was fighting Timarchus, he also labored to rid himself of the ban fastened upon him by Rome. Its practical inconvenience was seen when he attempted to renew the alliance with the Cappadocian court. Ariarathes V had been alienated by Lysias, and it might be thought that he would be ready to welcome the overthrower of that criminal administration. He was a man of whom our authorities speak highly, as having inherited from his mother Antiochis a love of Hellenic culture without her unscrupulous ambition. The Cappadocian court now for the first time attracted Greek men of letters. Ariarathes himself seems to have studied philosophy, and even applied its precepts to his practice. When discord broke out in the family which ruled Sophene—the house of Zariadris—the rival claimants betook themselves to the two neighbouring kings—Mithrobuzanes to Ariarathes, and the other to Artaxias of Armenia. Ariarathes brought back Mithrobuzanes into the principality with a Cappadocian army. Artaxias now proposed to him that they should each make away with his protégé and divide Sophene between them. Ariarathes rejected the suggestion with loathing. Nay, more, his representations were so powerful with Artaxias, that the young man whom Artaxias had proposed to murder found himself treated with more courtesy than before.

Demetrius, soon after coming to Syria, made overtures to his cousin, the king of Cappadocia. He offered him the hand of his sister. But Ariarathes thought to win the favor of Rome by repelling these advances. He refused the Seleucid princess. Naturally, any possibility of friendship between the two courts instantly vanished.

Demetrius left nothing undone to conciliate Roman opinion. The embassy, headed by Tiberius Gracchus, dispatched in 162 after his flight, arrived, perhaps not till the following year, in Cappadocia. It was here met by Menochares, the ambassador of Demetrius. Menochares was probably instructed to ascertain its intentions, and he returned to Antioch to report the result of his interview. Could Demetrius win the commission to his cause? Fortunately Gracchus himself was well disposed to him, and Demetrius plied the envoys with fresh deputations before they reached Syria. They were met in Pamphylia, and again in Rhodes, with assurances that Demetrius would do everything to meet the wishes of Rome. Let only Rome utter the word “King Demetrius!”. The friendship of Gracchus stood Demetrius in good stead. His report was favorable, and the momentous word was uttered. But Demetrius, although recognized as King, had not yet won confidence. In fact the Senate could not have confidence in any possessor of the Seleucid throne unless he were a nonentity.

Envoys of Demetrius could now be received in Rome, and immediately on his recognition (160) Demetrius sent Menochares to convey a “crown” of 10,000 gold pieces —a “thank-offering” for his nurture—and the slayer of Octavius. Beside Leptines, who had done the deed, there was sent the unhappy rhetorician, Isocrates, who had glorified it Leptines maintained the calm confidence of the fanatic to the end. He had presented himself to Demetrius soon after his accession, begged him to hold the city of Laodicea in no wise responsible for what had occurred, and stated that he was perfectly ready to go and convince the Senate that he had been inspired. His enthusiasm was so evidently genuine that it was deemed superfluous to fetter or guard him. Isocrates on the other hand was put into a wooden collar and chains, and abandoned himself to despair. Polybius, who describes the arrival of the pair in Rome, writes no doubt of what he saw. Isocrates had hardly eaten for months. He made a marvellous figure. For more than a year he had not washed or cut his hair or his nails. Through the matted growth which covered his head his eyes glared and rolled strangely. “A man who has lost his humanity”, the sententious historian observes in this connection, “is more frightful than a beast”. Leptines was still quite happy; he felt quite sure that the Senate had only to hear him to set him free.

The Senate was thrown into some embarrassment by the embassy, as they did not want to make up their quarrel with the Seleucid King. They decided, however, to receive the gold, but they refused the murderer. They did not at all want to seem, by executing justice, to have settled their score. They returned Demetrius a frigid answer: “he would meet with consideration if his conduct were satisfactory to the Senate”.

This was high language; it might be thought to argue that the days of independent states in the eastern Mediterranean were already numbered, that Syria was practically a province of Rome. But, as a matter of fact, we see in the period of nearly a hundred years, which opens with the return of Demetrius, a great waning of Roman influence. In 162 Rome by its commissions dictated to Cappadocia, destroyed the material of war in the Seleucid kingdom, apportioned the dominions of the Ptolemies. It seemed on the point of assuming the formal sovereignty in these regions. But from the return of Demetrius its overt domination ceases. The eastern powers are once more left for the most part to their own devices. The family quarrels of the houses of Seleucus and Ptolemy are fought out with no interference from Rome, no repetition of the diplomacy of Popillius.

The cause of this retrogression is the change which passed over the ruling aristocracy. In the day of adversity, when Hannibal was at the door, the Roman aristocracy had showed inflexible resolution; it was rapidly becoming corrupt and indolent in the day of prosperity. No settled policy could coexist with the corruption which became every day more flagrant. Decrees of the Senate could be procured by the highest bidder; an offender against the majesty of Rome could buy himself off. The prestige of Rome was impaired when it was found to issue declarations which it did not enforce. It had given its countenance, if not its friendship, to Timarchus; he had perished unsupported and unavenged. It had refused its countenance to Demetrius, and he had established himself without it. When Rome once more imposed its will upon the nations, the power was wielded by the aristocracy no longer. It was then in the hands of this or that great general, who used his legions for his own ends. It was the state of things which became regularized in the monarchy of the Caesars.

But even during the period of oligarchic misrule Rome maintained a certain influence in the East, and that in two ways. In the first place, much of the prestige it had acquired by the overthrow of Antiochus III and of the Macedonian kingdom kept its hold upon the minds of men. The world is always ruled half by imagination. In the second place, the functions it had come to exercise as universal arbitrator and regulator gave it a commanding position for diplomatic intrigue, and without any overt intervention it could play off one potentate against another, promote all elements of intestine discord, and in fine make it very unpleasant for anyone who had incurred its ill-will. Naturally this subterranean influence of Rome may often be suspected rather than proved.

The Senate continued therefore to trade upon the terror of the Roman name, to issue decrees and send out interminable commissions to arbitrate the affairs of the nations. Its countenance and favor continued to be worth seeking, and the ambassadors of eastern princes did not cease to bring their crowns of gold and elaborate flatteries. But at home the same princes took their own way with little restraint.

Demetrius, with the friends of Rome looking askance upon him, was thrown upon his own resources. But his resolution was only stiffened by his isolation. Was it impossible for a strong ruler to restore even now the Seleucid kingdom to strength, independence and glory?

The internal government of Demetrius Soter we can gauge by what took place in Judaea. An unstable compromise was what we saw result in that quarter from the feeble administration of Lysias; the Hasmonaean party had been left in power. But it was quite obvious that the Hasmonaean house, stimulated by the glory it had won in the war for religion, would rest short of nothing but its own absolute supremacy within the Jewish state, and the emancipation of that state from any outside control. From the point of view of a statesman whose object was to hold together the Seleucid kingdom, the Hasmonaean house must certainly be deposed. A statesman would, of course, spare in every possible way the religious sensibilities of the Jews, but to leave the Hasmonaean house in power would be blind folly. His task would be the easier in that the object for which the Hasmonaeans now contended—their own supremacy—did not command the same passionate adherence on the part of the more earliest spirits of the nation that the cause of religion had done. The Hasidim were satisfied if the Law was safe.

These considerations perhaps hardly needed to be pressed upon Demetrius by the man who soon after his accession presented himself in Antioch. He called himself Alcimus, after the sound of his Hebrew name Jakim. He belonged to the priestly tribe, the house of Aaron, and he was come to claim the high-priesthood from King Demetrius. According to one account he had already at some period in those days of confusion officiated as High-priest. But he had associated himself with the Hellenists, and since the Hasmonaeans had got the upper hand had been driven out of the country together with every other prominent person of that party. Alcimus had a long story of all that the friends of the Seleucid government had suffered at the hands of their countrymen; it was easy for him to convince the King that a government which abandoned its adherents was not likely to serve its own cause. Bacchides was charged to instate Alcimus as High-priest in Jerusalem by military force.

Alcimus came to Jerusalem as the legitimate High-priest of the family of Aaron. Possibly the functions had been usurped of late by the Hasmonaean brethren. If so, it would account for the fact that their old associates, the Hasidim, had been stumbled by this violation of the Mosaic order, and were prepared to receive the Aaronic High-priest with good-will.

Their only stipulation was that the blood-feud between the two parties should not now be continued by reprisals upon those faithful to the Law. This condition Alcimus thought it politic to agree to, and equally politic to violate soon after. He thought the opposition would be broken by a fresh proscription. Bacchides also did some killing on his own account before leaving. The anti-Hasmonaean party, who had been scattered abroad, flocked home again.

Judas and the nationalists had been driven out of Jerusalem, but they had not been crushed. They were still at large, and their flying raids made them a terror in the open country. It became unsafe for the partisans of the High-priest to venture outside the walled towns. Alcimus felt the scale turning against him, and within twelve months of his instatement carried a fresh appeal to Antioch.

The task of crushing the Hasmonaeans was entrusted by Demetrius to Nicanor, whom one seems to see through the more or less distorting medium of our Jewish records as a bluff, outspoken, simple-hearted man. He began by inviting Judas to a personal interview; and when the Jewish patriot and the Macedonian captain came face to face, the result was that the two men became friends. In Jerusalem, Nicanor gave the nationalists his favor. His idea seems to have been that if they were not worried, the Hasmonaean brethren would follow his advice to settle down in quiet domestic life, and everything would go happily. He dismissed the levies from the neighboring countries whom he had gathered about him. Judas showed himself openly in Jerusalem by Nicanor’s side, and indeed, we are told, took a wife, as Nicanor wished, and began family life.

The turn things were taking could not but be very disquieting to Alcimus. It can hardly be doubted that he was justified in questioning the possibility of “killing home rule by kindness”. On his representations to the court an order came to Nicanor to apprehend Judas and send him a prisoner to Antioch. This was hard on Nicanor, but he was a soldier and knew his duty. He was, however, too transparent for Judas not to divine at once by his manner what had happened. Judas instantly vanished, and Nicanor found himself placed in an ugly position with regard to the court. He had no idea of how to attain his object except by direct vehemence, and he felt sure that the priests were secretly in league with Judas. He knew at any rate that it was through the Temple and the sacred ritual that the Jews' most sensitive point could be reached. To the Temple he went, and ordered the priests, whom he found officiating, to deliver Judas into his hands. Naturally he was only answered by blank looks and protestations of ignorance. He believed that this was all cunning, and then took place that scene which stamped itself upon the recollection of the Jews—Nicanor standing in the Temple court, his arm stretched out toward the House of the Lord, and protesting that if the man were not given up he would lay it even with the ground and erect in its place a temple to Dionysus.

Meanwhile Judas was gathering his forces in the country, and Nicanor presently learnt that the man he was ordered to seize was surrounded by his armed bands. There was nothing for it but to go out and engage him in battle. But Nicanor had dismissed a great part of his troops; he was obliged to rely to a certain extent upon the Jewish levies who followed him by constraint. And these were an obstacle rather than a help. They refused to attack when ordered to do so on the Sabbath, and talked to him about the Sovereign in heaven. “And I”, cried the plain man in extremity, “am a sovereign on earth, who command you to take up your arms and do the King’s business”.

With such forces as these Nicanor closed with the bands on Judas at Adasa (about 3,5 miles north-east of Beth-horon) on the 13th of Adar (March) 161. The victory of Judas was signal and complete. Nicanor was found on the field “lying dead in full armor”. His head and the arm which he had stretched out against the Temple were cut off and carried by Judas in triumph to Jerusalem to be hung up over against the sanctuary. It was the last victory of Judas, and, in respect of the high standing of Nicanor, his greatest. The anniversary of the battle was kept as a day of rejoicing. It is only within the last few centuries that the Jews have forgotten “Nicanor’s day”.

It was significant of the transference of the nationalist struggle from the plane of religious enthusiasm to that of worldly policy that Judas now looked about for a foreign alliance. And, like Timarchus, he looked to Rome. Rome had not yet in 161 recognized Demetrius as King. Eupolemus and Jason, two members of the nationalist party who had nevertheless learnt to speak Greek, were sent to declare to the Senate the desire of the Jewish people for separation from the Seleucid kingdom, and to invoke the influence of Rome on their behalf. The Senate, welcoming at this moment any opportunity of furthering the disintegration of the kingdom of Demetrius, concluded an alliance with “the nation of the Jews”, which yet was so framed as to leave Rome a loophole of escape from its obligations should they prove inconvenient.

Before, however, the effect of the Jewish embassy could be known in Syria, Demetrius had disconcerted all the designs of the nationalists by his promptitude of action. There was now a government which was not put off its purpose by a single check. No sooner was the news of Nicanor’s disaster come to Antioch than an adequate army under Bacchides was sent to deal with the situation. About a month after the battle of Adasa, Bacchides was in Jerusalem (April 161). The nationalists were perfectly aware of the different character of this expedition, and their self-confidence deserted them. When Bacchides established his camp in Berea (Bi'r-az-Zait, north-west of Gophna?) the bands of Judas began to melt away. The tactics of the King's general reduced him to the alternative of flight or the risking of an immediate battle. Judas, in spite of the entreaties of his friends, disdained the former, and with forlorn heroism his little band charged the royal army. At the end of the day Judas himself lay dead upon the field of Eleasa. His last followers were scattered in flight. Demetrius had taken speedy recompense for Nicanor.

Alcimus, who since the battle of Adasa had fled to Antioch, was now once more restored to power in Jerusalem. The anti-Hasmonaean party came again into the ascendant. But the vital problem—that of subjugating the country districts, where the Hasmonaean power had its roots—required more drastic measures than had hitherto been used. The organization of the country in the government interest must succeed the dispersion of the rebels, and the wandering remnants of the bands of Judas be cleared out of it. Bacchides chose members of the party of the High-priest to rule in the country with the King’s authority, and to track down on the spot the adherents of the Hasmonaeans. Jonathan, Simon and John, the brothers of Judas, were still alive to take the place of the fallen leader. They drew off with their followers into the wilderness of Tekoah, the bare pastoral country by the Dead Sea, and mingled in the petty warfare of Arab or Ammonite tribes, which went on without interference from the government in these regions. The Jewish bands raided, and were themselves raided, by turns; they lost one of their leaders, the Hasmonaean John, in some obscure affray. Bacchides attempted to follow them up and exterminate them, but they escaped across the marshes where the Jordan falls into the Dead Sea. The wilderness has in all ages limited the success of the royal governments in Asia.

But Judaea at any rate Bacchides cleared of rebels, and he adopted the only measure likely to ensure permanent tranquillity—planting strong posts around all its approaches. The akra in Jerusalem, Gezer and Beth-sur, where garrisons already sat, were furnished with fresh supplies and strengthened. New posts were fixed at Bethel, on the northern entrance into Judaea from Samaria, at Emmaus and Beth-horon to guard the western defiles, at Jericho to command the ascent from the Jordan valley, and in certain other places whose sites cannot be identified. As an additional security the sons of the principal men were lodged in the akra. Bacchides then returned home. The aspect of Judaea with its chain of military posts itself declared the difference between the government of Demetrius and that of Lysias.

As for Alcimus, he did not enjoy his elevation long. He died, just before Bacchides left Judaea, of a paralytic stroke. His countrymen saw in this a judgment for his impiety in beginning some alterations in the Temple buildings which involved a disturbance of the “works of the prophets”.

In 160, as we saw, Demetrius obtained the recognition, though not the favor, of Rome. The principle once given him by Polybius, “Do boldly, and Rome will acquiesce in the accomplished fact”, seemed to have been justified by its success. And if he had got his kingdom in spite of Rome's veto, it was possible that the veto might be as safely disregarded in an attempt to restore the Seleucid influence in lands whence it had been excluded since Antiochus the Great King. On the north the Cappadocian kingdom adjoined the Seleucid across the barrier of the Taurus. To make Cappadocia once more a vassal state would be a great step towards the recovery of Asia Minor. Beside this, Demetrius had to show Ariarathes that a Seleucid princess could not be slighted with impunity even by a friend of Rome. The situation in Cappadocia soon of itself invited interference.

If there is one characteristic feature of this final period of decline in the kingdoms of the Nearer East which were formed out of the break-up of Alexander’s Empire it is the universal domestic quarrels. We have just seen how the quarrel of Philometor and Euergetes in Egypt gave an opening for Roman interference. The domestic wars of a kingdom are invariably used at this time by its neighbors for their own advantage. A principal weapon one power employs against another is a rival claimant.

A quarrel broke out in the royal house of Cappadocia. Ariarathes V had, as we saw, two elder brothers, or putative brothers, one of whom, Orophernes, had been educated in Ionia. Demetrius entered into an agreement with Orophernes to set him instead of Ariarathes upon the Cappadocian throne for the sum of 1000 talents. Once more, therefore, a Seleucid army appeared north of the Taurus and drove the king of Cappadocia from his throne. Orophernes was successfully instated in his place.

Ariarathes carried his cry to Rome, but there also came ambassadors from Orophernes and ambassadors from Demetrius to tell a very different story from that told by Ariarathes to the Senate. The Senate, of course, had no means of judging what was true, but the multitude of voices told more forcibly than the one, and the fugitive King made but a poor figure to the gorgeous ambassadors (157 BC). The Senate decided haphazard that Ariarathes and Orophernes should divide the kingdom between them. And even so it does not appear to have done more than issue a paper decree.

Demetrius had reached the zenith of his fortunes. The eyes of the eastern kings began to be fixed with alarm upon the resuscitated power. There was once more a man on the throne of Seleucus who did as he would in the East, who helped more effectually than Rome, and against whom the protection of Rome availed nothing. There were many men living who remembered the days of Antiochus the Great King before Rome had intervened in the East, and now that the vigor of Rome seemed to be waning, was it impossible that the grandson of Antiochus might yet again restore the Seleucid Empire?

But no personal ability and vigor in Demetrius could compensate for some of the essential weaknesses in his position. Philip of Macedon could make a strong state because he had the hardy Macedonian stock to build upon as a foundation; but what empire could be based upon the hybrid population of Syria, pleasure-loving and fickle, in whom Greek lightness and Oriental indolence were combined? Demetrius had none of the unfastidious bonhomie of his uncle Antiochus. He was not, as we saw in Rome, averse to conviviality, but he made distinctions as to his company. He despised the race which was found in Antioch and the Syrian cities, and did not take pains to conceal what he felt. Naturally this did not make him popular. Antiochus Epiphanes had been a typical representative in his character and manners of Syrian Hellenism; the Antiochenes had felt him one of themselves, but Demetrius withdrew from contact with them; he built himself a square tower outside Antioch, wherein he sat inaccessible to brood over schemes of conquest. His eagle face, rarely shown, his hauteur, his demand upon them for serious national effort, vexed the Syrians and made them ripe for revolt.

There was also another circumstance against him, that the neighboring kings, however much they may have disliked their position as vassals of Rome, much preferred it to being vassals of the Seleucid King. Rome was farther off and apparently growing indolent. In proportion as Demetrius grew strong there was added to disaffection at home hostility abroad. Orophernes only might be counted his ally, and had Fate given him in Orophernes an ally of any worth, things might have taken a very different course. But Orophernes proved a ruler of the worst kind. He wrung all the money he could from the country by the most violent extortion, and lavished what he got upon favourites and strangers. His manners, acquired in Ionia, outraged the feelings of the Cappadocian barons. He trampled upon their religious and moral traditions, and they were shocked to see him following wild and dissolute cults unknown to their fathers. It was impossible that the protégé of Demetrius should hold his throne long.

In Pergamos the interference of Demetrius in Cappadocia had been very ill received. Eumenes ' at once struck a blow on his own account. We have seen that one of the chief weapons with which a king was attacked was a rival claimant. The world soon learnt that the second son of Antiochus Epiphanes, Alexander, had been secretly conveyed away when Eupator was put to death, had been discovered by Eumenes in Smyrna, brought to Pergamos, and there crowned with the diadem as the genuine Seleucid King. On the other hand the court of Antioch asserted, and many well-informed persons believed, that it was a trick of Eumenes, who had bethought him of supplying the required claimant artificially, and had picked out some good-looking boy of fourteen who bore an accidental resemblance to the late King of Syria. Eumenes sent the boy on to Cilicia, placing him under the protection of Zenophanes, a chieftain friendly to himself who maintained in the hills his independence against the Seleucid government. Here Alexander was like the sword of Damocles over the head of Demetriua Zenophanes industriously circulated the report that the son of Antiochus was about to cross the Amanus to claim his own. The expectation served to keep alive the unrest in Syria. At the same time, should any outbreak occur, Alexander was at hand.

Almost immediately after his elevation of Alexander, Eumenes died (159). But his brother, Attalus II Philadelphus, who succeeded him, prosecuted his plans against Demetrius with vigor. When it appeared two years later that Rome was not prepared to give Ariarathes anything but platonic benevolence, Attalus invited him to return to Asia and avail himself of a more effectual champion. Ariarathes was glad enough to do so. But his journey home was not unattended with danger. The ambassadors of Orophernes dogged him from Rome, and in Corcyra formed a design to kill him; but Ariarathes was beforehand with them, and they were dead men before their plot had come to a head. Again at Corinth agents of Orophemes were about him, and he had a hair’s-breadth escape.

Attalus escorted him with Pergamene troops to Cappadocia, the Senate perhaps blessing the enterprise from afar. The power of Orophernes was already tottering. Not only had he alienated his subjects, but he had no money left, after his lavish expenditure, to pay his mercenaries. They were on the brink of mutiny. In this extremity he pillaged the great temple of the Cappadocian Zeus on Mount Ariadne, which had been inviolate from time immemorial. On the attack of Attalus his defence collapsed. He fled to Antioch and Ariarathes was reinstated in the kingdom.

Demetrius had encountered an ominous check in Asia Minor. Two fragments of Polybius throw a momentary light upon his schemes in another direction. The island of Cyprus, long coveted by the Seleucid kings, was about this time the battle-ground of the two brother Ptolemies. Demetrius sent a secret offer to Archias, who commanded there for Philometor, of 500 talents and high honors at the Seleucid court if he would put the island into his hands (154). Archias consented, but before the arrangement could be carried out, the plot was discovered by Philometor, and Archias was arrested. He hanged himself with the rope of a curtain. Demetrius had turned another cousin into an enemy.

The smouldering discontent in Syria was receiving fresh fuel. We have a record of one of the incidents which served to increase it. Among the condottieri in the King's service at Antioch was a certain Andriscus of Adramyttium, who professed to be the son of Perseus, called himself Philip, and expressed his hope of being restored by Demetrius, "his kinsman", to the throne of his fathers. He roused a strong sensational interest in the populace of Antioch, and calls began to come to Demetrius from the "Macedonians" of the street that he should set King Philip in the ancestral kingdom. It was not the defect of Demetrius to lack enterprise, but he treated this demand with the contempt it deserved. Then the clamour grew; crowds surged about the palace doors. A cry arose that Demetrius must restore his cousin or give up the pretence of being a king. Demetrius saw he must take drastic steps. He caused Andriscus to be seized at night and sent to Rome (about 151-150)

The isolation of Demetrius became daily more patent. Even Orophernes, residing at Antioch under his protection, conceived the idea of turning the general sedition to his own profit and supplanting his patron. He entered into secret negotiations with the leaders of the Antiochene mob. Demetrius penetrated his designs, and put him under close guard at Seleucia, upon the loyalty of which town he could perhaps better depend. As the rival claimant to Cappadocia he might again be useful some day, and was therefore not put to death.

But already the danger from Alexander, the would-be son of Antiochus, had taken a far more menacing form. He was no longer threatening from the Cilician hills. In the summer of 153 he had appeared in Rome with Laodice, the daughter of Antiochus. They were conducted by the old intriguer, Heraclides of Miletus, who had now the grateful task of damaging his brother's destroyer. For a long time the party resided in Rome, making such a figure as was best calculated to impress public opinion before Heraclides thought the psychological moment come to approach the Senate. Nor did he during that time forget the old art by which he had made his way in Rome. At last the two children of Antiochus were brought before the Senate. Alexander spoke first—a formal speech about the cordial relations which had subsisted between his father and Rome, and so on. Then Heraclides made a moving oration. He began with an encomium of Antiochus Epiphanes, went on to denounce Demetrius, and finally delivered an appeal in the lofty name of Justice for the restoration of the true-born issue of the late King. It was all beautifully staged, and the Senate was immensely impressed. Only a few of the shrewder heads, Polybius says, saw through the business. A decree was made to the effect: “Whereas Alexander and Laodice, the children of a king who was sometime our friend and ally, have approached the Senate and represented their cause, the Senate has given them authority to return to the kingdom of their father, and has decreed that they shall receive assistance, as they have required”. It was a triumph for Heraclides. He returned to Asia with his charges, and fixed his headquarters at Ephesus, to prepare for the invasion of Syria. The condottieri of most renown in the Hellenic world received a summons to take service under a king approved by Rome.

The children of Antiochus would not want for allies. The policy of Demetrius had brought about a coalition against him of his three neighbour kings. Attalus, Ariarathes and Ptolemy Philometor. Alexander was “girt with the might of all the (Nearer) East”. And Demetrius had no security at home. Antioch was almost in open rebellion. That he knew how desperate the struggle was which lay before him is shown by his sending two of his sons, Demetrius and Antiochus, out of the country.

The first move in the attack was for Alexander to make a descent upon the coast town of Ptolemais. It was held by the garrison of Demetrius, but they had been infected by the prevailing sedition and opened to Alexander. Alexander had thus got a footing in his “paternal realm”, and in Ptolemais he set up his rival court till his cause should have made further progress. There were now two kings in the country, each bidding for the support of its various communities and races.

Our scanty authorities do not permit a connected narrative of the war. The Book of Maccabees and Josephus, who follows it, make no mention of the allied kings at all. But the expressions of Justin, Appian and Eusebius imply that the allied kings took a principal part. In the first battle, Justin says, Demetrius was victorious. Possibly Alexander risked a battle with his mercenaries before his allies arrived upon the scene. In the final battle Demetrius had, no doubt, the whole forces of the coalition against him. Undaunted to the end, he was still able to make a good fight. His left wing routed the enemy's right, and pursued it for a long way, inflicting heavy loss. Even the camp of the enemy was sacked. But the right, where Demetrius himself was, gave way. He found himself almost alone among the enemy. In those days of close fighting, a single expert horseman could do some damage. But, charging hither and thither, Demetrius rode his horse into some boggy ground, where it plunged and threw him. Then the enemy made a ring about him, and he became the mark for missiles from all sides. Showing no sign of surrender, he sank at last full of wounds, dying worthily of the race of fighters from which he sprang (150).