to the senate on these heads, they condemned all that had been done in such manner against the Jews from the treaty made with Simon, and resolved that Gazara, Joppa, and the rest of the places taken from them by the Syrians, or which had been made tributary, contrary to the tenor of that treaty, should be restored to them, and exempted from all homage, tribute, or other subjection. It was also concluded, that the Syrians should make amends for all losses which the Jews had sustained from them in contravention of the senate's regulations in the treaty concluded with Simon; in fine, that the kings of Syria should renounce their pretended right to march their troops upon the territories of the Jews.*

At the time we speak of, incredible swarms of grasshoppers laid Africa waste in an unheard-of manner. They eat up all the fruits of the earth, and afterwards, being carried by the wind into the sea, their dead bodies were thrown by the waves upon the shore, where they rotted, and infected the air to such a degree, that they occasioned a pestilence, which carried off in Libya, Cyrenaica, and some other parts of Africa, more than eight hundred thousand souls.t

We have said, that Cleopatra had possessed herself of part of the kingdom of Syria, at the death of Demetrius Nicator, her husband. He left two sons by that princess, the eldest of whom, called Seleucus, conceived hopes of ascending the throne of his father, and accordingly caused himself to be declared king. His ambitious mother was for reigning alone, and was very much offended with her son's intention of establishing himself to her prejudice. She had also reason to fear, that he might desire to avenge his father's death, of which it it was well known she had been the cause. She killed him with her own hands, by plunging a dagger into his breast. He reigned only one year. It is hardly conceivable, how a woman and a mother, could be capable of committing so horrid and excessive a crime; but when some unjust passion takes possession of the heart, it becomes the source of every kind of guilt. However gentle it may appear, it does not hesitate to arm itself with poniards, and have recourse to poison; because urgent for the attainment of its ends, it has a natural tendency to destroy every thing which opposes that view.

Zebina had made himself master of part of the kingdom of Syria. Three of his principal officers revolted against him, and declared for Cleopatra. They took the city of Laodicia, and resolved to defend that place against him. But he found means to reconcile them. They submitted, and he pardoned them with the most uncommon clemency and greatness of soul, and without doing them any hurt. This pretended prince had in reality an exceeding good heart. He received all who approached him in the most affable and engaging manner, so that he acquired the love of all men, and even of those who abhorred the imposture by which he had usurped the crown.

Mithridates Evergetes, king of Pontus, died this year; he was assassinated by his own servants. His son, who succeeded him, was the famous Mithridates Eupator, who disputed so long the empire of Asia with the Romans, and supported a war of almost thirty years duration against them. He was but twelve years of age when his father died. I shall make his history a separate article.

Cleopatra, after having killed her eldest son, believed it her interest to make a titular king, under whose name she might conceal the authority she intended to retain entirely to herself. She rightly distinguished, that a warlike people, accustomed to being governed by kings, would always regard the throne as vacant while filled only by a princess, and that they would not fail to offer it to any prince who would lay claim to it. She, therefore, caused her other son, Antiochus, to return from Athens, whither she had sent him for his education, and ordered him to be declared king as soon as he arrived. But that was no Joseph. Antiq. I. xiii. c. 17. † A. M. 3879. Ant. J. C. 125. Liv. Epist. l. lx. Oros. l. v. c. 11. Liv. Epist. 1. Ix. Justin. 1. xxxix, c. 1, 2. Appian in Syr. p. 132.

A. M. 3880. Ant. J. C. 124.

more than an empty title. She gave him no share in the affairs of the government; and as that prince was very young, being no more than twenty years of age, he quietly suffered her to govern for some time. To distinguish him from other princes of the name of Antiochus, he was generally called by the surname of Grypus,* taken from his great nose. Josephus calls him Philometer; but that prince in his medals took the title of Epiphanes.†

Zebina having well established himself, after the death of Demetrius Nicator, in the possession of part of the Syrian empire, Physcon, who looked upon him as his creature, insisted upon his doing him homage for it. Zebina refused in direct terms to comply with that demand. Physcon resolved to throw him down as he had set him up, and having accommodated all difference with his niece Cleopatra, he sent a considerable army to the assistance of Grypus, and gave him his daughter Tryphena in marriage. Grypus, by means of this aid, defeated Zebina, and obliged him to retire to Antioch. The latter formed a design of plundering the temple of Jupiter, to defray the expenses of the war. On its being discovered, the inhabitants rose, and drove him out of the city. He wandered some time about the country from place to place, but was taken at last, and put to death.‡

After the defeat and death of Zebina, Antiochus Grypus, believing himself of sufficient years, resolved to take the government upon himself. The ambitious Cleopatra, who saw her power diminished, and her grandeur eclipsed by that means, could not suffer it. To render herself again absolute mistress of the government of Syria, she resolved to rid herself of Grypus, as she had already of his brother Seleucus, and to give the crown to another of her sons by Antiochus Sidetes, under whom, being an infant, she was in hopes of possessing the royal authority for many years, and of taking such measures as might establish her during her life. This wicked woman prepared a poisoned draught for that purpose, which she presented to Grypus one day as he returned very warm from some exercise. But that prince, having been apprized of her design, desired her first, by way of respect, to drink the cup herself; and upon her obstinate refusal to do it, having called in some witnesses, he gave her to understand, that the only means she had to clear herself of the suspicion conceived of her, was to drink the liquor she had presented to him. That unhappy woman, who found herself without evasion or resource, swallowed the draught. The poison had its effect immediately, and delivered Syria from a monster, who, by her unheard-of crimes, had been so long the scourge of the state. She had been the wife of three kings of Syria, and the mother of four. She had occasioned the death of two of her husbands; and of her children, she had murdered one with her own hands, and would have destroyed Grypus by the poison he had made her drink herself. That prince afterwards applied himself with success to the affairs of the public, and reigned several years in peace and tranquillity, till his brother Antiochus of Cyzicum occasioned the troubles we shall relate hereafter.

Ptolemy Physcon, king of Egypt, after having reigned twenty-nine years from the death of his brother Philometer, died at last in Alexandria. No reign was ever more tyrannical, nor abounded more with crimes than his.¶

SECTION VI.—PTOLEMY LATHYRUS SUCCEEDS PHYSCON. CONTINUATION OF THE WARS IN SYRIA AND EGYPT.

PHYSCON at his death left three sons. The first, named Apion, was a natural son, whom he had by a concubine. The two others were legitimate, and the children of his niece Cleopatra, whom he married after having repudiated

* Feus, in Greek, signifies a man with an aquiline nose. †A. M. 3881. Ant. J. C. 123. t A. M. 3982. Ant. J. C. 122. The three kings of Syria, who had been her busbands, were Alexander Bala, Demetrius Nicator, and Antiochus Sidetes. Her four sons were Antiochus, by Alexander Bala; Seleucus and Antiochus Grypus, by Demetrius; and Antiochus the Cyzicenian, by Antiochus Sidetes.

A. M. 3384. Ant. J. C. 120

Porphyr. in Græc. Euseb. Scal. Hieron. in Dan. ix.

her mother. The eldest was called Lathyrus, and the other Alexander. He left the kingdom of Cyrenaica by will to Apion, and Egypt to his widow Cleopatra, and either of his two sons whom she should think proper to choose. Cleopatra, believing that Alexander would be the most subservient to her, resolved to choose him; but the people would not suffer the eldest to lose his right of birth, and obliged the queen to recall him from Cyprus, whither she had caused him to be banished by his father, and to associate him with her on the throne. Before she would suffer him to take possession of the crown, she obliged him to repudiate his eldest sister Cleopatra, whom he passionately loved, and to take Selena, his youngest sister, for whom he had no inclination. Dispositions of this kind promise no very pacific reign.*

At his coronation he took the title of Soter. Some authors give him that of Philometer; but the generality of historians distinguish him by the name of Lathyrus, a kind of nickname, nobody dared to give him in his own time. Antiochus Grypus, king of Syria, was making preparations for invading Judea, when a civil war broke out to employ him, fomented by Antiochus of Cyzicum, his brother by the mother's side. He was the son of Antiochus Sidetes, and born while Demetrius was prisoner among the Parthians. When Demetrius returned, and repossessed himself of his dominions after the death of Antiochus Sidetes, his mother, out of regard for his safety, had sent him to Cyzicum, a city situated upon the Propontis, in Asia Minor, where he was educated under the care of a faithful eunuch, named Craterus, to whom she had entrusted him. From thence he was called the Cyzicenian. Grypus, to whom he gave umbrage, wished to have him poisoned. His design was discovered, and the Cyzicenian was compelled to take up arms in his own defence, and to endeavour to make good his pretensions to the crown of Syria.

Cleopatra, whom Lathyrus had been obliged to repudiate, finding herself at her own disposal, married the Cyzicenian. She brought him an army for her dowry, to assist him against his competitor.§ Their forces by that means, being very nearly equal, the two brothers came to a battle, in which the Cy zicenian having the misfortune to be defeated, retired to Antioch. He left his wife for security in that place, and went himself to raise new troops for the reinforcement of his army.||

But Grypus immediately laid siege to the city, and took it. Tryphena, his wife, was very earnest with him to put Cleopatra, his prisoner, into her hands. Though her sister by father and mother, she was so excessively enraged at her for having married their enemy, and given him an army against them, that she resolved to deprive her of life. Cleopatra had taken refuge in a sanctuary, which was held inviolable; Grypus would not show a complaisance for his wife, which he saw would be attended with fatal effects from the violence of her rage. He alleged to her the sanctity of the asylum where her sister had taken refuge; and represented, that her death would neither be of use to them, nor prejudicial to the Cyzicenian; that in all the civil or foreign wars, wherein his ancestors had been engaged, it had never been known, after victory, that any cruelty had been exercised against the women, especially to near relations; that Cleopatra was her sister, and his near relation; that therefore he desired her to speak no more of her to him, because he could by no means consent to her being treated with any severities. Tryphena, far

Appian. in Mithrid. sub finem, et in Syr. p. Porphyr. in Græc. Euseb. Scalig. Joseph.

A. M. 3887. Ant. J. C. 117. Justin. 1. xxxix. c. 4, 5. 132. Strab. I. xvii. p. 795. Plin. 1. ii. c. 67. et l. vi. c. 30. Antiq. I. xiii. c. 18. Diod. in Excerpt. Vales. p. 385. ↑ Atugas signifies a kind of pea, called in Latin "cicer," from which came the surname of Cicero. Lathyrus must have had some very visible mark of this sort upon his face, or the name would have been inconsistent. A. M. 3890. Ant. J. C. 114. We find in the latter editions of Justin the following words; "Exercitum Grypi sollicitatum, velut dotalem, ad maritum deducit:" which shows that Cleopatra, having succeeded in corrupting part of the army of Grypus, carried it to her husband. Several editions read "Cypri" instead of "Grypi," which implies, that Cleopatra had an army in Cyprus. A. M. 3891. Ant. J. C. 11. Her father Physcon was the uncle of Cleopatra, the mother of Grypus,

from yielding to his reasons, became more violent by conceiving jealousy; and imagining that it was not from the motive of compassion, but love, that her husband took the part of the unfortunate princess in such a manner, she therefore sent soldiers into the temple, who could not tear her in any other manner from the altar, than by cutting off her hands with which she embraced it. Cleopatra expired, uttering a thousand curses against the parricides who were the authors of her death, and imploring the god, in whose sight so barbarous a cruelty was committed, to avenge her upon them.*

But, the other Cleopatra, the common mother of the two sisters, did not seem to be affected at all with either the fate of the one, or the crime of the other. Her heart, which was solely susceptible of ambition, was so taken up with the desire of reigning, that she had no other thoughts than of the means of supporting herself in Egypt, and of retaining an absolute authority in her own hands during her life. To strengthen herself the better, she gave the kingdom of Cyprus to Alexander, her youngest son, in order to draw from him the assistance she might have occasion for, in case Lathyrus should ever dispute the authority she was determined to keep.

The death of Cleopatra in Syria did not long remain unpunished. The Cyzicenian returned at the head of a new army, to give his brother battle a second time, defeated him, and took Tryphena, upon whom he inflicted the torments which her cruelty to her sister had well deserved.t

Grypus was obliged to abandon Syria to the victor. He retired to Aspendus in Pamphylia, which occasioned his being sometimes called in history the Aspendian, but returned a year after into Syria, and repossessed himself of it. The two brothers at length divided that empire between them. The Cyzicenian had Colosyria and Phoenicia, and took up his residence at Damascus. Grypus had all the rest, and kept his court at Antioch, with great luxury, and many other excesses.‡

While the two brothers were exhausting their forces against one another, or indolently dozing, after the peace, in luxurious ease, John Hyrcanus augmented his wealth and power; and seeing that he had nothing to fear from them, undertook to reduce the city of Samaria. He sent Aristobulus and Antigonus, two of his sons, to lay siege to that place. The Samaritans demanded aid of the Cyzicenian, king of Damascus, who marched thither at the head of an army. The two brothers quitted their lines, and a battle ensued, wherein Antiochus was defeated, and pursued as far as Scythopolis, escaping with great difficulty.§

The two brothers, after this victory, returned to the siege, and pressed the city so vigorously, that it was obliged a second time to send to the Cyzicenian, to solicit him to come again to its aid. But he had not troops enough to undertake the raising of the siege; and Lathyrus, king of Egypt, was treated with upon the same head, who furnished six thousand men, contrary to the opinion of Cleopatra his mother. As Chelcias and Ananias, two Jews, were her favourites, both ministers and generals, the sons of Onias, who built the temple of Egypt, these two ministers, who entirely governed her, influenced her in favour of their nation, and out of regard for them she would not do any thing to the prejudice of the Jews. She was almost resolved to depose Lathyrus for having engaged in this war without her consent, and even against her will.

When the auxiliary troops of Egypt arrived, the Cyzicenian joined them with his. He was afraid to attack the besieging army, and contented himself with flying parties and excursions, to ravage the country by way of diversion, and to compel the enemy to raise the siege, in order to defend themselves

Sed quanto Grypus abnuit, tanto furor muliebri pertinacia accenditur, rata non misericordiæ hæc verba, sed amoris esse.-Justin. †A. M. 3892. Ant. J. C. 112. A. M. 3894. Ant. J. C. 110 Joseph. Antia. 1. xiii. 17-19. A. M. 3895. Ant. J. C. 109.

A. M. 3893. Ant. J. C. 111.

256

at home. But seeing that the Jewish army did not move, and that his own was much diminished by the defeat of some parties, desertion, and other accidents, he thought it improper to expose his person by continuing in the field with an army so much weakened, and retired, to Tripoli. He left the command of his troops to two of his best generals, Callimander and Epicrates. The first was killed in a rash enterprise, in which his whole party perished with him. Epicrates, seeing no hopes of success, had no farther thoughts but of serving his private interest in the best manner he could in the present situation of affairs. He treated secretly with Hyrcanus, and, for a sum of money, put Scythopolis into his hands, with all the other places which the Syrians possessed in the country, without regard to his duty, honour and reputation; and all for a very inconsiderable sum.

Samaria, destitute of all appearance of relief, was obliged, after having sustained a siege for a year, to surrender at last to Hyrcanus, who immediately ordered it to be demolished. The walls of the city, and the houses of the inhabitants, were entirely razed and laid level with the ground; and, to prevent its being rebuilt, he caused large and deep ditches to be cut through the new plain where the city had stood, into which water was turned. It was not re-established till the time of Herod, who gave the new city which he caused to be rebuilt there, the name of Sebastos,* in honour of Augustus.

Hyrcanus saw himself at that time master of all Judea, Galilee, Samaria, and of many places upon the frontiers, and became thereby one of the most considerable princes of his time. None of his neighbours dared to attack him any more, and he passed the rest of his days in perfect tranquillity with regard to foreign affairs.

But toward the close of his life he did not find the same repose at home. The Pharisees, a violent and rebellious sect, gave him much difficulty. By an affected profession of an attachment to the law, and a severity of manners, they had acquired a reputation which gave them great sway among the people. Hyrcanus had endeavoured, by all sorts of favours, to engage them in his interests. Besides, having been educated among them, and having always professed to be of their sect, he had protected and served them upon all occasions; and to make them more firmly his adherents, not long before he had invited the heads of them to a magnificent entertainment, in which he made a speech to them, highly capable of affecting rational minds. He represented, that it had always been his intention, as they well knew, to be just in his actions toward men, and to do all things in regard to God that might be agreeable to him, according to the doctrine taught by the Pharisees: that he conjured them, therefore, if they saw that he departed in any thing from the great end he proposed to himself in those two rules, that they would give him their instructions, that he might amend and correct his errors. Such a disposition is highly laudable in princes, and in all men ; but it should be attended with prudence and discernment.*

The whole assembly applauded this discourse, and highly praised him for it. One man only, named Eleazar, of a turbulent and seditious spirit, rose up, and spoke to him to this effect: "Since you desire that the truth should be told you with freedom, if you would prove yourself just, renounce the highpriesthood, and content yourself with civil government." Hyrcanus was surprised, and asked him what reasons he had to give him such counsel. Eleazar replied, that it was known, from the testimony of ancient persons, worthy of belief, that his mother was a captive, and that, as the son of a stranger, he was incapable by the law of holding that office. If the fact had been true, Eleazar would have had reason; for the law was express in that point: but it was a false supposition, and a mere calumny; and all who were present extremely blamed him for advancing it, and expressed great indignation on that account.

* EBasos, in Greek, signifies Augustus.

A. M. 3899. Ant. J. C. 105.

Liv. xxiv. 15.