veffels had been profaned. He alfo built another altar, and began to offer the facrifices; and when the city had already received its facred conftitution again, Antiochus died; whofe fon Antiochus fucceeded him in the kingdom, and in his hatred to the Jews alfo. 5. So this Antiochus got together fifty thoufand footmen, and five thoufand horfemen, and fourfcore elephants, and marched through Judea into the mountainous parts. He then took Bethfura, which was a fmall city; but at a place called Bethzacharias, where the paffage was narrow, Judas met him with his army. However before the forces joined battle, Judas's brother Eleazar, feeing the very highest of the elephants adorned with a large tower, and with military trappings of gold to guard him, and fuppofing that Antiochus himfelf was upon him, he ran a great way before his own army, and, cutting his way through the enemies troops, he got up to the elephant; yet could he not reach him who feemed to be the king, by reafon of his being fo high; but ftill he ran his weapon into the belly of the beaft, and brought him down upon himself, and was crushed to death, having done no more than attempted great things, and fhewed that he preterred glory before life. Now he that governed the elephant was but a private man, and had he proved to be Antiochus, Eleazar had performed nothing more by this bold stroke than that it might appear he chofe to die, when he had the bare hope of thereby doing a glorious action; nay, this difappointment proved an omen to his brother [Judas.) how the entire battle would end. It is true that the Jews fought it out bravely for a long time but the king's forces, being fuperior in number, and having fortune on their fide, obtained the victo ry. And when a great many of his men were flain, Judas took the rest with him, and fled to the toparchy of Gophra. So Antiochus went to Jerufalem, and ftayed there but a few days, for he wanted provifions, and fo he went his way. He left indeed a garrifon behind him, fuch as he thought fufficient to keep the place, but drew the rest of his army off, to take their winter quarters in Syria, 6. Now after the king was departed, Judas was not idle; for as many of his own nation came to him, fo did he gather thofe that had efcaped out of the battle together, and gave battle again to Antiochus's generals at a village called. Adala; and being too hard for his enemies in the battle, and killing a great number of them, he was at last himfelt flain alfo. Nor was it many days afterward that his brother John had a plot laid against him by Antiochus's party, and was flain by them. received a place from him in the Nomus of Heliopolis, where he built a city refembling Jerufalem, and a temple that was like its temple; concerning which we fhall speak more in its proper place hereafter. 2. Now Antiochus was not fatisfied either with his unexpected taking the city, or with its pillage, or with the great flaughter he had made there; but being overcome with his violent paffions, and remembering what he had fuffered during the fiege, he compelled the Jews to diffolve the laws of their country, and to keep their infants uncircumcifed, and to facrifice fwines flefh upon the altar; against which they all oppofed themselves, and the most approved among them were put to death. Bacchides alfo, who was fent to keep the fortreffes, having these wicked commands joined to his own natural barbarity, indulged all forts of the extremeft wickednefs, and tormented the worthieft of the inhabitants, man by man, and threatened the city every day with open deftruction; till at length he provoked the poor fufferers by the extremity of his wicked doings to avenge themfelves. 3. Accordingly Matthias, the fon of Afamoneus, one of the priefts who lived in a village called Modin, armed himself, together with his own family, which had five fons of his in it, and flew Bacchides with daggers; and thereupon out of tear of the many garrifons [of the enemy, he fled to the mountains; and fo many of the people followed him, that he was encouraged to come down from the mountains, and to give battle to Antiochus's generals, when he beat them and drove them out of Judea. So he came to the government by this his fuccefs, and became the prince of his own people by their own free confent, and then died, leaving the government to Judas his eldest fon. 4. Now Judas, fuppofing that Antiochus would not lie ftill, gathered an army out of his own country men, and was the first that made a league of friendship with the Romans, and drove Epiphanes out of the country when he had made a fecond expedition into it, and this by giving him a great defeat there; and when he was warmed by this great fuccefs, he made an affault upon the garrifon that was in the city, for it had not been cut off hitherto; fo he ejected them out of the Upper City, and drove the foldiers into the Lower, which part of the city was called the Citadel. He then got the temple under his power, and cleanfed the whole place, and walled it round about, and made new veffels for facred miniftrations, and brought them into the temple, because the former Onias, I fee little difference in the feveral accounts in Jofephus about the Egyptian temple Onion, of which large complaints are made by his commentators. it feems, hoped to have made it very like that at Jerufalem, and of the fame dimentions; and to he appears to have really done, as far as he was able, and thought proper. Of this temple, fee Antiq. B. XIII. chap. iii. § 1, 2, 3. Vol. II. and Of the War, B. VII. ch. x. § 3. veffels had been profaned. He alfo built another altar, and began to offer the facrifices; and when the city had already received its facred conftitution again, Antiochus died; whofe fon Antiochus fucceeded him in the kingdom, and in his hatred to the Jews alfo. 5. So this Antiochus got together fifty thoufand footmen, and five thousand horfemen, and fourfcore elephants, and marched through Judea into the mountainous parts. He then took Bethfura, which was a fmall city; but at a place called Bethzacharias, where the paffage was narrow, Judas met him with his army. However before the forces joined battle, Judas's brother Eleazar, feeing the very higheft of the elephants adorned with a large tower, and with military trappings of gold to guard him, and fuppofing that Antiochus himself was upon him, he ran a great way before his own army, and, cutting his way through the enemies troops, he got up to the elephant; yet could he not reach him who feemed to be the king, by reafon of his being fo high; but ftill he ran his weapon into the belly of the beaft, and brought him down upon himself, and was crushed to death, having done no more than attempted great things, and fhewed that he preterred glory before life. Now he that governed the elephant was but a private man, and had he proved to be Antiochus, Eleazar had performed nothing more by this bold stroke than that it might appear he chofe to die, when he had the bare hope of thereby doing a glorious action; nay, this disappointment proved an omen to his brother [Judas how the entire battle would end. It is true that the Jews fought it out bravely for a long time but the king's forces, being fuperior in number, and having fortune on their fide, obtained the victo ry. And when a great many of his men were flain, Judas took the rest with him, and fled to the toparchy of Gophra. So Antiochus went to Jerufalem, and ftayed there but a few days, for he wanted provifions, and fo he went his way. He left indeed a garrifon behind him, fuch as he thought sufficient to keep the place, but drew the rest of his army off, to take their winter quarters in Syria, 6. Now after the king was departed, Judas was not idle; for as many of his own nation came to him, fo did he gather thofe that had efcaped out of the battle together, and gave battle again to Antiochus's generals at a village called. Adafa; and being too hard for his enemies in the battle, and killing a great number of them, he was at laft himself flain alfo. Nor was it many days afterward that his brother John had a plot laid against him by Antiochus's party, and was flain by them. 12 WARS OF THE JEWS. CHAP. II. Concerning the fucceffors of Judas, who were Jonathan, and § I. WHEN Jonathan, who was Judas's brother,fucceed spection in other refpects, with relation to his own people; and he corroborated his authority by preferving his friendship with the Romans. He alfo made a league with Antiochus the fon. Yet was not all this fufficient for his fecurity; for the tyrant Trypho, who was guardian to Antiochus's fon, laid a plot against him; and befides that endeavoured to take off his friends, and caught Jonathan by a wile, as he was going, to Ptolemais to Antiochus, with a few perfons in his company, and put him in bonds, and then made an expedition against the Jews; but when he was afterward driven away by Simeon, who was Jonathan's brother, and was enraged at his defeat, he put Jonathan to death. 2. However, Simeon managed the public affairs after a courageous manner, and took Gazara, and Joppa, and Jamnia, which were cities in the neighbourhood. He alfo got the garrifon under, and demolifhed the citadel. He was afterward an auxiliary to Antiochus, against Trypho, whom he befieged in Dora, before he went on his expedition against the Medes; yet could not he make the king afhamed of his ambition, though he had affifted him in killing Try pho; for it was not long ere Antiochus fent Cendebeus his general with an army to lay wafte Judea, and to fubdue Simon; yet he, though he were now in years, conducted the war as if he were He also fent his fons with a band of a much younger man. ftrong men againft Antiochus, while he took part of the army himfelf, with him, and fell upon him from another quarter: He also laid a great many men in ambuth in many places of the mountains, and was fuperior in all his attacks upon them; and when he had been conqueror after fo glorious a manner, he was high priest, and alfo freed the Jews from the dominion of the Macedonians, after an hundred and feventy years of the empire [of Seleucus]. 3. This Simon alfo had a plot laid against him, and was flain at a feaft by his fon-in-law Ptolemy, who put his wife and two fons into prifon, and fent fome perfons to kill John, who was also * * Why this john, the fon of Simon, the high-priest, and governor of the Jews, was called Hyrcanus, Jofephus no where informs us; nor is he called other than However, Sixtus Senenfis, John at the end of the first book of the Maccabees. when he gives us an epitome of the Greek verfion of the book here abridged by Jofephus, or of the chronicles of this John Hyrcanus, then extant, affures us that he was called Hyrcanus from his conquest of one of that name. See Authent. Rec. Part. I. p. 207. But of this younger Antiochus, fee Dean Aldrich's note here called Hyrcanus. But when the young man was informed of their coming beforehand, he made hafte to get to the city, as having a very great confidence in the people there, both on account of the memory of the glorious actions of his father, and of the hatred they could not but bear to the injuftice of Ptolemy. Ptolemy alfo made an attempt to get into the city by another gate; but was repelled by the people, who had juft then admitted Hyrcanus; fo he retired prefently to one of the fortreffes that were above Jericho, which was called Dagon. Now when Hyrcanus had received the highpriesthood, which his father had held before, and had offered facrifice to God, he made great hafte to attack Ptolemy, that he might afford relief to his mother and brethren. 4. So he laid fiege to the fortrefs, and was fuperior to Ptolemy in other refpects, but was overcome by him as to the juft affection [he had for his relations]; for when Ptolemy was diftreffed, he brought forth his mother, and his brethren, and fet them upon the wall, and beat them with rods in every body's fight, and threatened, that unless he would go away inmediately, he would throw them down headlong; at which fight Hyrcanus's commiferation and concern were too hard for his anger. But his mother was not difmayed, neither at the ftripes the received, nor at the death with which the was threatened; but ftretched out her hands, and prayed her fon not to be moved with the injuries that the fuffered to fpare the wretch; fince it was to her better to die by the means of Ptolemy than to live ever fo long, provided he might be punished for the injuries he had done to their family. Now John's cafe was this; when he confidered the courage of his mother, and heard her entreaty, he fet about his attacks; but when he faw her beaten, and torn to pieces with the ftripes, he grew feeble, and was entirely overcome. by his affections. And as the fige was delayed by this means, the year of reft came on, upon which the Jewsreft every seventh year as they do on every feventh day. On this year therefore Ptolemy was freed from being befieged, and flew the brethren of John, with their mother, and fled to Zeno, who was alfo called Cotylas, who was the tyrant of Philadelphia. 5. And now Antiochus was fo angry at what he had fuffered from Simon, that he made an expedition into Judea, and fat down before Jerufalem, and befieged Hyrcanus; but Hyr. canus opened the Sepulchre of David, who was the richest of all kings, and took thence about three thousand talents in money, and induced Antiochus, by the promise of three thoufand talents, to raise the fiege. Moreover, he was the first of the Jews that had money enough, and began to hire foreign. auxiliaries alfo. 6. However, at another time, when Antiochus was gone upon an expedition against the Medes, and fo gave Hyrcanus an |