Attalus, king of Pergamus, died about the time of which we now speak. His nephew who bore the same name, and was also called Philometor, succeeded him. As the latter was very young when his father Eumenes died, he had been under the tuition of his uncle, to whom the crown was also left by the will of Eumenes. Attalus gave his nephew the best education he could, and at his death bequeathed the throne to him, though he had sons of his own; a proceeding as rare as it was laudable, most princes thinking no less of transferring their crowns to their posterity than of preserving them to themselves during their lives.

This prince's death was a misfortune to the kingdom of Pergamus. Philometor governed it in the most extravagant and pernicious manner. He was scarcely upon the throne before he stained it with the blood of his nearest relations and the best friends of his family. He caused almost all who had served his father and uncle with extreme fidelity to be murdered, under pretence that some of them had killed his mother Stratonice, who died of a disease in a very advanced age, and others his wife Berenice, who died of an incurable distemper, with which she had been seized very naturally. He put others also to death upon suspicions entirely frivolous, and with them their wives, children, and whole families. He caused these executions to be committed by foreign troops, whom he had expressly sent for, from the most savage and cruel nations, to make them the instruments of his enormous barbarity.

After having massacred and sacrificed to his fury, in this manner, the most deserving persons of his kingdom, he ceased to show himself abroad. He appeared no more in the city, and ate no longer in public. He put on old clothes, let his beard grow without taking any care of it, and did every thing which persons accused of capital offences used to do in those days, as if he intended thereby to acknowledge the crimes which he had just perpetrated.

From hence he proceeded to other species of folly. He renounced the cares of state, and retired into his garden, and engaged in digging the ground himself, and then sowed all sorts of venomous as well as wholesome herbs; then, poisoning the good with the juice of the bad, he sent them in that manner as presents to his friends. He passed all the rest of his reign in cruel extravagances of the like nature, which, happily for his subjects, was of no long duration, for it lasted only five years.

He had taken it into his head to practice the trade of a founder, and formed the model of a monument of brass to

a A. M 3866. Ant. J. C. 138. Justin. xxxvi. c. 4. Strab. l. xiti. p. 624, Plut. in Demet. p. 897. Diod. in Excerpt. Vales, p. 370.

be erected to his mother. a Whilst he was at work in casting the metal, on a hot summer's day, he was seized with a fever, which carried him off in seven days, and freed his subjects from an abominable tyrant.

He had made a will, by which he appointed the Roman people his heirs. Eudemus of Pergamus carried this will to Rome. The principal article was expressed in these terms, & LET THE ROMAN PEOPLE INHERIT ALL MY EFFECTS. As soon as it was read, Tiberius Gracchus, tribune of the people, always attentive to conciliate their favour, took hold of the occasion, and, ascending the tribunal, proposed a law to this effect: That all the ready money which should arise from the succession to this prince should be distributed among the poor citizens, who should be sent as colonies into the country bequeathed to the Roman people, in order that they might have wherewithal to support themselves in their new possessions, and to supply them with the tools and other things necessary in agriculture. He added, that, as to the cities and lands which were under that prince's government, the senate had no right to pass any decree in regard to them, and that he should leave the disposal of them to the people; which extremely offended the senate. That tribune was killed some small time after.

Aristonicus, however, who reported himself of the blood, royal, was actively employed in preparing to take possession of Attalus's dominions. He was indeed the son of Eumenes, but by a courtezan. He easily engaged the majority of the cities in his party, because they had been long accustomed to the government of kings. Some cities, through fear of the Romans, refused at first to acknowledge him, but were compelled to it by force.

d As his party grew stronger every day, the Romans sent the consul Crassus Mucianus against him. It was observed of this general, that he was so perfectly master of all the dialects of the Greek tongue, which in a manner formed five different languages, that he pronounced his decrees according to the particular idiom of those who pleaded before him, which made him very agreeable to the states of Asia Minor. All the neighbouring princes in alliance with the Roman people, the kings of Bithynia, Pontus, Cappadocia, and Paphlagonia, joined him with their troops.

t

Notwithstanding such powerful supports, having engaged in a battle with disadvantage, his army, which he com

a A. M. 3871. Ant. J. C. 133.

Plut. in Gracch. Flor. l. ii. c. 20. Justin. 1. xxxvi. c. 4. et xxxvii. c. 1. Vell. Patere. I. ii. c. 4. Strab. I. xiv. p. 646. Oros. l. v. c. 8-10. Eutrop. 1. iv.

Val. Max, l. iii. c. 2.

c A. M 3879) Ant. J. C. 132.

e A. M. 3874.

d A. M. 3873. Ant. J. C. 131. Ant. J.C. 130.

manded then in quality of proconsul, was defeated, and himself made prisoner. He avoided the shame of being put into the victor's hands by a voluntary death. His head was carried to Aristonicus, who caused his body to be interred at Smyrna.

The consul Perpenna, who had succeeded Crassus, soon revenged his death. Having made all haste into Asia, he gave Aristonicus battle, entirely routed his army, besieged him soon after in Stratonice, and at length made him prisoner. All Phrygia submitted to the Romans.

a He sent Aristonicus to Rome, in the fleet which he loaded with Attalus's treasures. Manius Aquilius, who had lately been elected consul, was hastening to take his place, in order to put an end to this war, and deprive him of the honour of a triumph. He found Aristonicus set out; and some time after Perpenna, who had begun his journey, died of a disease at Pergamus. Aquilius soon terminated this war, which had continued almost four years. Lydia, Caria, the Hellespont, Phrygia, in a word, all that composed the kingdom of Attalus, was reduced into a province of the Roman empire, under the common name of Asia.

The senate had decreed, that the city of Phocæa, which had declared against the Romans, as well in this last war as in that against Antiochus, should be destroyed. The inhabitants of Marseilles, which was a colony of Phocæa, moved as much with the danger of their founders as if the fate of their own city had been in question, sent deputies to Rome, to implore the clemency of the senate and people in their favour. Just as their indignation was against Phocæa, they could not refuse that favour to the ardent solicitations of a people, whom they had always held in the highest consideration, and who rendered themselves still more worthy of it, by the tender concern and gratitude they expressed for their forefathers and founders.

Phrygia Major was granted to Mithridates Evergetes, king of Pontus, in reward for the aid he had given the Romans in that war. But after his death they dispossessed his son, Mithridates the Great, of it, and declared it free.

Ariarathes, king of Cappadocia, who died during this war, had left six children. Rome, to reward in the sons the services of the father, added Lycaonia and Cilicia to their dominions. They found in queen Laodice not the tenderness of a parent, but the cruelty of a step-mother. To secure all authority to herself, she poisoned five of her children, and the sixth would have shared the same fate, if his relations had not taken him out of the murderous hands of that Me

a A. M. 3875. Ant. J. C. 129.

gæra, on whose crimes the people soon took vengeance by a violent death,

a Manius Aquilius, at his return to Rome, received the honour of a triumph. Aristonicus, after having been shown there for a sight to the people, was carried to prison, where he was strangled. Such were the consequences of king Attalus's will.

b

Mithridates, in a letter which he wrote afterwards to Arsaces, king of Parthia, accuses the Romans of having forged a false will of Attalus's, in order to deprive Aristonicus, the son of Eumenes, of his father's kingdom, which appertained to him of right; but it is an avowed enemy who charges them with this. It is more surprising that Horace, in one of his odes, seems to make the Roman people the same reproach, and to insinuate, that they had attained the succession by fraud:

c Neque Attali Ignotus hæres regiam occupavi.

Nor have I seiz'd, an heir unknown,

The Phrygian's kingdom for my own.

However, there remains no trace in history of any secret intrigue or solicitation to that effect on the side of the Ro

mans.

I thought it proper to relate all the consequences of this will without interruption. I shall now resume the thread of my history.

SECT. V.

Sidetes takes Jerusalem, and then makes war against the Parthians. Physcon's cruelty and death.

Simon having been slain by treachery, with two of his sons, John another of them, surnamed Hyrcanus, was proclaimed high-priest and prince of the Jews in his father's stead. Here ends the history of the Maccabees.

Antiochus Sidetes, king of Syria, made all possible haste to take the advantage which the death of Simon gave him, and advanced at the head of a powerful army to reduce Judæa, and unite it to the empire of Syria. Hyrcanus was obliged to shut himself up in Jerusalem, where he sustained a long siege with incredible valour. Reduced at length to the last

o A. M 3878 Ant. J. C. 126.

6 Simulatempio testamento. filium ejus (Eumenis) Aristonieum, quia patrium regnum petiverat, hostium more per triumphum duxere. Apud. Sallust. Hor Od. x viii. 1. ii. 1. 5.

in Fragm.

a A. M. 3869. Ant. J. C. 135. 1 Maccab. xvi. Joseph. Antiq. l. xiii. C, 16. Dice. Eclog. i. p. 901.

extremity for want of provisions, he caused proposals of peace to be made to the king. His condition was not unknown in the camp. Those who were about the king's person pressed him to take advantage of the present occasion for exterminating the Jewish nation. They represented to him, recurring to past ages, that they had been driven out of Egypt as impious wretches, hated by the gods and abhorred by men; that they were enemies to all the rest of mankind, as they had no communication with any but those of their own sect, and would neither eat, drink, nor have any familiarity, with other people; that they did not adore the same gods; that they had laws, customs, and a religion, entirely different from that of all other nations; that therefore they well deserved to be treated by other nations with equal contempt, and to be rendered hatred for hatred; and that all people ought to unite in extirpating them. Diodorus Siculus, as well as Josephus, says, that it was from the pure effect of the generosity and clemency of Antiochus, that the Jewish nation was not entirely destroyed on this occasion.

He was well pleased to enter into a treaty with Hyrcanus. It was agreed, that the besieged should surrender their arms; that the fortifications of Jerusalem should be demolished; and that a tribute should be paid to the king for Joppa and for the other cities which the Jews had out of Judæa: and peace was concluded upon these conditions. Antiochus also demanded, that the citadel of Jerusalem should be rebuilt, and would have put a garrison into it, but Hyrcanus would not consent to that, upon account of the miseries which the nation had suffered from the garrison of the former citadel, and chose rather to pay the king the sum of a 500 talents, which he demanded as an equivalent. The capitulation was executed, and, for those articles which could not be immediately fulfilled, hostages were given, amongst whom was a brother of Hyrcanus.

Scipio Africanus the younger, having gone to command in Spain, during the war with Numantia, Antiochus Sidetes sent him rich and magnificent presents. Some generals would have appropriated them to their own use. Scipio received them in public, sitting upon his tribunal in the view of the whole army, and gave orders that they should be delivered to the questore to be applied in rewarding the officers and soldiers who should distinguish themselves in the service. By such conduct a generous and noble soul is known. Demetrius Nicatord had been kept many years in capti

a Five hundred thousand crowns.

bA. M. 3870. Ant. J. C 134. Epit. Liv. 1. lvii.

The quæstor was the treasurer of the army.

d A. M. 3873. Ant. J. C. 131. Justin. ì. xxxxviii. c. 9. et 10. 1. xxxix. e. 1. Oros. 1. v. c. 1. Valer. Max. 1. ix. c. 1. Athen. l. v. p. 210. et l. x. p. 439, et i p. 549. Joseph. Antiq. xiii. c. 16. Appians in Syr. p. 132.