while the Romans were taking every precaution and making every preparation for a vigorous prosecution of the war."

Antiochus had strongly intrenched himself at the pass of Thermopylae; but he was defeated by the Romans with the loss of ten thousand men, slain and taken prisoners. He fled with only five hundred horsemen, whom he hastily collected, first to Elateia, and then to Chalcis, whence he set sail for Ephesus.†

Here he was again wasting his time with his youthful bride, till, by the urgent representations of Hannibal, he was made sensible of his danger and aroused from his lethargy. He gave orders for the raising of troops, and sailed in person to the Thracian Chersonesus, where he fortified Sestus, Abydos, and other places, and after having reinforced the garrison of Lysimachia, he returned to Ephesus. His admiral Polyxenidas was soon after defeated in a naval engagement near Corycus in Ionia, with the loss of twentythree ships.‡

Antiochus, who meanwhile had collected an army at Magnesia, as soon as he heard of this disastrous battle, hastened back to Ephesus, where the remnant of his fleet had taken shelter. During the winter he made every exertion to repair his losses and regain his strength.§

The next year, 190 B. C., Polyxenidas by a stratagem surprised the fleet of the Rhodians, which was sailing to aid the Romans, and destroyed or captured all but seven of their vessels. The Rhodians, exasperated by this loss, fitted out a still larger fleet, by which they raised the siege of Pergamus, repulsed Hannibal, who was conducting the Phenician shipping to the assistance of Antiochus, and kept him blockaded with his fleet in a harbour of Pamphylia.||

As the naval forces of the Romans were now collected, and in readiness to transport the army from Macedonia to Asia, Antiochus sent an embassy to Æmilius to propose peace. Æmilius replied that no negotiations could be entered into before the arrival of the consul Lucius Scipio. Antiochus then ventured upon another naval battle near Myonesus in Ionia, and was again defeated.

Antiochus now lost all presence of mind, and instead of fortifying the passes which led into his territories, he withdrew his garrisons from all the cities on the Hellespont, and in his precipitant flight left all his military stores behind him. In this manner he not only removed every thing which could obstruct the landing of the Romans, but by leaving his magazines untouched afforded a most important aid to their enterprise. He renewed his attempts to enter into negotiations

Diodor. Sic. Fragmenta xxvi. 39. Plutarch, Flaminius, xv. xvi.; Philopœmen, xvii.; Cato the Elder, xii. Livy, xxxvi. 11. Appian, Syriac. xv. 15; xvi. 70. Athenæus,

x. 12.

+ Diodor. Sic. xxvi. 41. Appian, Syriac. xvii. 75; xx. 70. Livy, xxxvi. 15, 16, 21.

Dan. xi. 18. Livy, xxxvi. 41-45. Plutarch, Cato the Elder, xiii. xiv. Appian, Syriac. xxi. 75-95; xxii. 1-35. Athenæus, x. 12.

Livy, xxxvii. 8. Appian, Syriac. xxii. 5-35. Livy, xxxvii. 8-12, 18, 23, 24. Appian, Syriac. xxiv. 65-95. Corn. Nepos, Hannibal, viii. Polybius, Legat.

for peace, but when he was required to relinquish all his possessions west of the Taurus, and defray the expenses of the war, he resolved to try his fortune once more in a battle by land.*

Antiochus brought into the field seventy thousand infantry, twelve thousand cavalry, and a great number of camels, elephants, and chariots armed with scythes. To these the Romans could oppose but thirty thousand men, and yet they gained a decisive victory. The chariot horses in the army of Antiochus being terrified, and rushing upon his own men, contributed not a little to his defeat. The Romans lost only three hundred and twenty-five men; while, of the forces of Antiochus, fifty thousand infantry, four thousand cavalry and fifteen elephants were left dead on the field; fifteen hundred men were made prisoners, and the king himself with great difficulty made his escape to Sardis. Perhaps Antiochus would have succeeded better could he have had the presence of Hannibal in the battle, but that hero was still held blockaded in Pamphylia by the Rhodians.†

Antiochus, by his ambassadors, now humbly sued for peace, and gladly accepted it on the same terms with which he had formerly refused compliance. He relinquished all his possessions west of the Taurus. The Romans gave the Greek cities their freedom, but delivered Caria and Lycia to the Rhodians, and the other provinces to Eumenes, as a reward for the services they had rendered during the war. The expenses of the war, amounting to fifteen thousand talents, Antiochus agreed to pay in Eubœan (the heaviest) weight, and in Attic (the finest) silver; five hundred talents were to be paid as soon as the negotiations were closed, two thousand five hundred more at the ratification of the treaty, and the remaining twelve thousand during the twelve following years at the rate of one thousand talents a year. He was also to deliver four hundred talents to Eumenes, and to make him compensation for all the corn for which he was indebted to Attalus, the father of Eumenes. He further obligated himself to keep no elephants, and not more than twelve ships. To secure the performance of these conditions the Romans required him to deliver up to them twelve hostages of their own selection, among whom was his son Antiochus, afterwards surnamed Epiphanes. Antiochus was further required to deliver into the hands of the Romans his most able generals, Hannibal, Thoas of Ætolia, Mnasimachus of Acarnania, Philo of Chalcis, and Eubulides. But they had prudently made their escape at the commencement of the negotiations.

By this expensive war, and by the large sums Antiochus was obliged to pay to the Romans, his treasury was completely drained. He, therefore, in the year 187 B. C., went into his eastern provinces for the purpose of replenishing his cof

Diodor. Sic. Fragmenta xxvi. 43. Livy, xxxvii. 31, 33-36. Appian, Syriac. xxviii. 80-105; xxix. 10-45. Justin, xxx. 7.

+ Dan. xi. 18, 19. Livy, xxxvii. 39-45. Polybius, Legat. ss. 22. 23. Appian, Syriac. xxx. 50; xxxvii. 65. Justin, xxxi. 8.

↑ Dan. xi. 19, and Jerome, Comment. in loc. Livy, Xxxvii. 45; xxxviii. 38. Appian, Syriac. xxxviii. 70; xxxix. 24. Diodor. Sic. Fragmenta xxvii. 46.

fers, but, by attempting to plunder the temple of Elymais, he provoked the people to an insurrection, in which he was slain, together with the soldiers who attended him; thus perished Antiochus the Great. Until the fiftieth year of his age he maintained the character of a just and judicious ruler, but he rapidly degenerated after his marriage with the young Eubia. He was succeeded by his son Seleucus Philopator, to whom he had committed the government on his departure for the eastern provinces.*

XC. THE JEWS, 221-187 B. C. According to the testimony of Josephus, the inhabitants of Judea and Cœlosyria suffered severely in the wars of Antiochus the Great with the kings of Egypt; with Ptolemy Philopator between the years 219 and 216 B. C., and with Ptolemy Epiphanes between 202 and 197 B. C. Their country was devastated, and to whichsoever side victory might incline they were equally exposed to injury. The same historian relates that, at the time when Antiochus gave his daughter Cleopatra in marriage to Ptolemy Epiphanes, (197 B. C.) the Samaritans laid waste the lands of the Jews, seized the persons of some of them by fraud, and sold them into slavery. Deducting the seven or eight years of these two wars, it appears that during the remaining twentysix or twenty-seven years of this period Judea was free from commotion.†

In the year 217 B. C. Simon II. succeeded Onias II. in the high priesthood. After the victory which Ptolemy Philopater gained over Antiochus the Great in 211 B. c. all the cities of that region sent ambassadors to Raphia to renew their homage to the Egyptian monarch. The Jews were not wanting in zeal on this occasion, and therefore Philopator visited Jerusalem as well as the other cities, offered sacrifices according to the Jewish law, and gave rich gifts to the temple. But when he ventured to violate the sanctuary, and attempted, notwithstanding the earnest expostulations of the high priest, to enter the holy of holies, it is said that he was suddenly seized with a supernatural terror and hastily rushed out of the temple; and that when he returned to Egypt, he vented his rage on the Jews of Alexandria. This story, however, is of doubtful authority, for it is mentioned by no writer except the author of the third book of Maccabees. The event which Josephus relates (against Apion, ii. 5,) of a somewhat similar character, belongs to the times of Ptolemy Physcon. The story might have originated in the circumstances which are related in the Chronicle of Eusebius, p. 185. It is worthy of remark in this place, that when the Egyptians rebelled against Philopator in the year 213 B. C., forty thousand Jews were massacred, who, in all probability, had taken part in the rebellion.

In the last wars of Antiochus the Great with Ptolemy Epiphanes, the inhabitants of these countries, and especially the Jews, appear to have

• Dan. xi. 20, and Jerome, Comment. in loc. Diodor. Sic. Fragmenta xxvi. 30, 49. Justin, xxxii. 2. Strabo, p. 744.

+ Joseph. Antiq. xii. 3. 2; 4. 1.

↑ Haggai ii. 7, 8. Alexand. Chron. Eusebius, Chron. Josephus, Antiq. xii. 4. 10. 3 Mace. i. ii.

suffered far more from the Egyptian than from the Syrian armies. Probably Scopas, the Egyptian commander, who, according to the testimony of Polybius, was excessively avaricious, had in the former wars been guilty of oppression, and now to cover his own extortions, permitted his soldiers to plunder the inhabitants without restraint. The Jews also might still remember with indignation, that their sanctuary had been violated by Ptolemy Philopator. Be this as it may, it is certain that in the last war of Ptolemy Epiphanes, the Jews favoured the cause of Antiochus the Great. After his victory over Scopas at Paneas, and after his conquest of Abila, Batannæa, Gadara, and Samaria, they voluntarily tendered him their submission, supplied his army with provisions, and assisted him in expelling the Egyptian garrison from the castle of Zion. This conduct of the Jews towards their old masters, the Egyptian monarchs, under whom they had lived for more than a century, and from whom they had received many favours, is mentioned by Josephus with approbation; but Daniel in his prophecy brands it as the conduct of robbers and

traitors.*

Antiochus liberally rewarded the Jews for their attachment to his cause. He was under great obligations to them, for in his oriental expeditions, those of that nation who were scattered in the east, had proved themselves very faithful and serviceable to him. Josephus introduces the two following edicts of Antiochus in favour of the Jews, the one directed to his governor Ptolemy, the other addressed to his subjects throughout his dominions.†

They are thus translated by Whiston :

King Antiochus to Ptolemy sendeth greeting. "Since the Jews, upon our first entrance on their country, demonstrated their friendship towards us; and when we came to their city (Jerusalem) received us in a splendid manner, and came to meet us with their senate, and gave abundance of provisions to our soldiers, and to the elephants, and joined with us in ejecting the garrison of the Egyptians that was in the citadel, we have thought fit to reward them, and to retrieve the condition of their city, which hath been greatly depopulated by such accidents as have befallen its inhabitants, and to bring those that have been scattered abroad back to the city. And in the first place, we have determined on account of their piety towards God to bestow on them, as a pension, for their sacrifices of animals that are fit for sacrifice, for wine and oil and frankincense, the value of twenty thousand pieces of silver, and six sacred artabrae of fine flour, and fourteen hundred and sixty medimni of wheat, and three hundred and seventy-five medimni of salt. And these payments I would have fully paid them as I have sent orders to you. I would also have the work about the temple finished, and the cloisters, and if there be any thing that ought to be rebuilt. And for the materials of wood, let it be brought them out of Judea itself and out of the other countries, and out of Libanus, tax free; and the same I would have observed

Polybius, xvii. 36. Josephus, Antiq. xii. 1.3. Dan. xi. 14. + Josephus, Antiq. xii. 3. 3.

as to those other materials which will be necessary, in order to render the temple more glorious. And let all of that nation live according to the laws of their own country: and let the senate, and the priests, and the scribes of the temple, and the sacred singers, be discharged from the pool money and the crown tax, and the other taxes also. And that the city may the sooner recover its inhabitants, I grant a discharge from taxes for three years to its present inhabitants and such as shall come to it until the month Hyperberetus. We also discharge them for the future from a third part of their taxes, that the losses they have sustained may be repaired. And all those citizens that have been carried away and are become slaves, we grant them and their children their freedom, and give order that their substance be

restored to them."

He also published a decree through all his kingdom in honour of the temple, which contained what follows:

"It shall be lawful for no foreigner to come within the limits of the temple round about, which thing is forbidden also to the Jews, unless to those who according to their own custom have purified themselves. Nor let any flesh of horses, or of mules, or of asses be brought into the city, whether they be wild or tame; nor that of leopards or foxes or hares; and in general, that of any animal which is forbidden for the Jews to

eat.

Nor let their skins be brought into it, nor let any such animal be bred up in the city. Let them only be permitted to use the sacrifices derived from their forefathers, with which they have been obliged to make acceptable atonements to God. And he that transgresseth any of these orders, let him pay to the priests three thousand drachmæ of silver."

Antiochus had such confidence in the Jews, that when he heard of the revolts which had broken out in Lydia and Phrygia, he wrote to his general Zeuxis to transport at the royal expense two thousand Jewish families from Babylonia and Mesopotamia, and place them in the fortified towns, where lands were to be assigned them with freedom from taxation for ten years. This was done that the country might be made secure by the fidelity of the new inhabitants.*

The high priest Šimon II. held his office from 217 to 195 B. C. At his death he was succeeded by his son Onias III., a worthy man who lived in times of great commotion.†

About the year 187 B. C., Joseph, the farmer of the revenues, sent his son Hyrcanus to the court of Ptolemy Epiphanes, to congratulate him on the birth of a son. It is not to our purpose to pursue the history of Hyrcanus, but it may be found circumstantially detailed in Josephus. From the fact that Joseph sent Hyrcanus to Egypt on this occasion, it appears that after the marriage of Cleopatra with Ptolemy Epiphanes, or at least after the death of Antiochus, the Jews had again come under the dominion of Egypt, and were well treated.‡

XCI. SELEUCUS PHILOPATOR, 186-175 B. C.

After the violent death of Antiochus the Great at Elymais, in the year 187 B. C., his son Seleucus Philopator ascended the throne of Syria. We know nothing of his reign excepting what is contained in Appian, for Justin passes him over in silence, and the history of Polybius, relating to this period, is lost.*

About the time that Seleucus came to the

throne, Ptolemy Epiphanes, that his dissipations might no longer be interrupted by the admonitions of Aristomenes, destroyed that faithful and judicious minister by poison. He now became an unrestrained and shameless tyrant. The nobles, therefore, in the year 185 B. C., entered into a combination to depose him, but the conspiracy was detected and suppressed. Ptolemy, so far from learning a lesson of moderation from the danger to which he had been exposed, became still more furious, and vented his rage upon those conspirators who had surrendered themselves to him on his promise of pardon. A new insurrection broke out, but was suppressed by the minister Polycrates. Four of the principal insurgents, to whom Ptolemy when they gave themselves up, had solemnly pledged himself to show favour, he caused to be bound naked to his chariot, and after having dragged them about in this manner, ordered them to be executed.

At length, in the year 180 B. C., his discontented subjects relieved themselves of their hated king by administering to him poison in the twenty-fourth year of his reign, while he was busily engaged in making preparations for a war against his brother-in-law Seleucus. His son and successor, Ptolemy Philometor, was then but six years old; and was placed under the guardianship of his mother Cleopatra, the sister of Seleucus Philopator.†

From the preparations for a war against Syria, which Ptolemy Epiphanes began to make before his death, it would seem that Seleucus Philopator, taking advantage of the disturbances in Egypt, had reunited to the Syrian crown the provinces of Colosyria and Palestine, which Antiochus the Great had given (with the reservation of half the revenues) in dowry to his daughter Cleopatra. At least, in the history of the succeeding period we find Palestine actually under the dominion of the Syrian king, though no mention is made of any other war.

In the year 176 B. C., Simon, a Benjamite, who became governor of the temple at Jerusalem after the death of Joseph, the farmer of the revenues under the Egyptian kings, attempted to introduce some innovations, which were steadily resisted by the high priest Onias III. Simon, in anger because his designs were thwarted, went to Apollonius, the governor of Cœlosyria under Seleucus Philopator, and informed him of the great treasures which were preserved in the temple. Apollonius sent word to Seleucus of what he had learned from Simon. The king, though a friend to the Jews, and though he had regularly made disbursements, according to the directions of his father, towards sustaining the