History of the Jews, Vol. 2 (of 6)

by Heinrich Graetz

This war was carried on by Herod with implacable severity. Five cities in the neighborhood of Jericho, with their inhabitants to the number of 2000, who had sided with Antigonus, he ordered to be burnt. In the following spring (37), he commenced the siege of Jerusalem. Previous to this, he celebrated in Samaria, with hands stained with the blood of its inhabitants, his nuptials with Mariamne, to whom he had now for several years been betrothed.

As soon as Sosius had advanced into Judæa with a large army of Roman infantry, cavalry and Syrian mercenaries, the siege of Jerusalem was pressed. The besieging army numbered one hundred thousand men. They built ramparts, filled up the moats, and prepared their battering-rams. The besieged, though suffering from want of food, defended themselves heroically. They made occasional sorties, dispersed the workmen, destroyed the preparations for the siege, built up a new wall, and harassed the besiegers to such an extent that after one month's labor they had not advanced to any extent in their work. But the two Synhedrists, Shemaya and Abtalion, raised their voices against this opposition, and recommended their countrymen to open their gates to Herod.

This division of purpose amongst the besieged, combined with the attacks of the invaders, may have hastened the fall of the northern wall, which took place at the end of forty days. The besiegers rushed into the lower town and into the outworks of the Temple, while the besieged, with their king, fortified themselves in the upper town and on the Temple Mount. The Romans were occupied during another fortnight with the storming of the south wall. On a Sabbath evening, when the Judæan warriors were least expecting an attack, a portion of the wall was taken, and the Romans rushed like madmen into the old part of the city and into the Temple. There, without distinction of age or sex, they slaughtered all who came in their way, even the priest beside his sacrifice. By a strange fatality, Jerusalem fell on the anniversary of the day on which, twenty-seven years previously, the Temple had been taken by Pompey. It was hardly possible for Herod to restrain his savage soldiery from plundering and desecrating the holy spot, and it was only by giving costly gifts to each soldier that he prevented the entire destruction of Jerusalem. Antigonus was thrown into chains and sent to Antony, who, upon Herod's persistent entreaties, and contrary to all custom and usage, had him tortured and then ignobly beheaded. This disgraceful treatment excited the opprobrium even of the Romans.

Herod, or, as the people called him, the Idumæan slave, had thus reached the goal of his lofty desires. His throne, it is true, rested upon ruins and upon the dead bodies of his subjects; but he felt that he had the power to maintain its dignity, even if it were necessary to carry a broad river of blood round its base. The bitter hatred of the Judæan people, whose ruler he had become without the slightest lawful title, was nothing to him as compared with the friendship of Rome and the smile of Antony. His line of action was clearly marked out for him by the situation of affairs: he had to cling to the Romans as a support against the ill-will of his people, and meet this ill-will by apparent concessions, or control it by unrelenting severity. This was the policy that he followed from the first moment of his victory until he drew his last breath. During all the thirty-four years of his reign he followed this line of policy, cold and heartless as fate, and entailing the most terrible consequences. Even in the first confusion attendant upon the conquest of the Temple Mount, he had not lost his coolness and vigilance, but had ordered his satellite Costobar to surround the exits of Jerusalem with his soldiery, and thus to prevent the escape of the unfortunate fugitives. The followers of Antigonus were slain in large numbers, many amongst them being of the most distinguished families. Herod did not forget old grievances. The Synhedrists, who twelve years previously had decreed his death, were killed to a man, with the exception of Abtalion and Shemaya, who had been hostile to Antigonus. He seized the property of those whom he executed or otherwise condemned for the royal treasury; for this worthy pupil of Roman masters was fully alive to the advantages of proscription and confiscation. He passed over the Hasmonæan house in selecting a high priest, and chose a certain Ananel, a descendant of Aaron, but not of high-priestly family, for that office. He declared that his own was an old Judæan family which had returned from Babylonia, wishing in this way to obliterate the fact that he was descended from an Idumæan ancestor who had been forced to accept Judaism. The natives of Jerusalem, who had a good memory for his true extraction, did not indeed lend an ear to this invention, but foreign Judæans and heathens may perhaps have been deceived by it. His confidential friend and historian, Nicolaus of Damascus, relates this fiction as coming from his own lips. At the death of Shemaya and Abtalion, the presidents of the Synhedrion were chosen from a Babylonian-Judæan family, that of Bene Bathyra.

Two persons still existed who might prove dangerous to Herod: an old man and a youth—Hyrcanus, who had once worn the crown and the priestly diadem, and his grandson Aristobulus, Herod's brother-in-law, who had claims upon both the royal and the priestly dignity. Herod could not devote himself to the calm enjoyment of his conquest until these two should be powerless. Hyrcanus, it was true, who had fallen captive to the Parthians, had been mutilated by them, and was therefore unfit to resume his priestly office; but his captors had generously granted him freedom, and the aged monarch had been joyfully and reverentially welcomed by the community of Babylonian Judæans. In spite of the devotion which he received from these people, Hyrcanus had an intense longing to return to his native land, and Herod was afraid that he might induce the Babylonian Judæans or the Parthians to take up his cause and help him regain his throne, from which the latter had torn him. Anxious to avert this danger, Herod bethought himself of taking Hyrcanus from Parthian influence and of bringing him under his own power. It was thus that the aged monarch received a pressing invitation to Jerusalem to share the throne and the power of king Herod, and to receive the thanks of the Idumæan for past acts of kindness that Hyrcanus had shown him. Vainly did the Babylonian Judæans warn the credulous prince not to let himself be drawn a second time into the eddy of public life; he hurried to his doom. Herod received him with every mark of respect, and gave him the place of honor at his table and in the Council, masking his treachery so completely that Hyrcanus was entirely deceived. He was unarmed and powerless in a golden cage.

But more dangerous to Herod seemed his young brother-in-law Aristobulus, the only brother of Mariamne, who, on account of his lineage, his youth, and his surpassing beauty, had attracted the love and devotion of all his people. Herod, in debarring him from the dignity of high priest, imagined that he had successfully destroyed his influence. But this was not so. Alexandra, the mother of Mariamne and Aristobulus, as well versed in intrigue as Herod himself, had succeeded in obtaining Antony's favor for her son. She had sent the portraits of her children, the most beautiful of their race, to the Roman triumvir, believing his weak nature might be worked upon most favorably through the senses. Antony, in truth, struck by the portraits, requested to see Aristobulus. But Herod, in order that this meeting should not take place, suddenly proclaimed the young Hasmonæan high priest, and Ananel was deprived of this dignity. But Alexandra was far from being satisfied, for she was secretly determined that her son should also wear the crown which his ancestors had worn. Herod, fully alive to his peril, was all the more determined to rid himself of this dangerous youth. Aristobulus had already gained the heart of the people, and whenever he appeared in the Temple, every eye hung upon his noble and perfect form, every glance seemed to avow that the Judæans were longing to see this last scion of the Hasmonæan house seated upon the royal throne. Herod durst not act with open violence against his rival, who was looked upon with special favor by Queen Cleopatra, but as usual he resorted to treachery. He invited Aristobulus to Jericho, and bade his followers dispatch the youth whilst he was disporting in the bath. Thus died, at the early age of seventeen, Aristobulus III., the last male representative of the Hasmonæan house. Herod then reappointed his puppet Ananel as high priest. It was vain for the Idumæan to affect deep grief at the death of his young brother-in-law, it was vain for him to throw sweet perfume upon his body; all the relations and friends of the murdered Hasmonæan accused Herod in their hearts of his death, although their lips gave no utterance to their thoughts.

But this crime brought its own bitter punishment with it, and made Herod's whole life one long tale of misery. The agony of remorse that might have wrought some change upon a less hardened nature was not felt, but only an ever-increasing suspicion towards those of his own household, which urged him to heap crime upon crime, to murder his nearest relatives, even his own children, until he became at last the most terrible example of a sin-laden existence. Alexandra, who had staked her ambitious hopes upon the coronation of her son, and who now found herself so cruelly deceived, did not hesitate to accuse Herod before Cleopatra of the murder of Aristobulus. This queen, whose passions were uncontrolled, and who looked with an envious eye upon Herod's newly acquired kingdom, took advantage of his crime to make its author appear odious in the eyes of Antony. Herod was summoned to Laodicea. Trembling for his life, the vassal king obeyed the summons, but succeeded in ingratiating himself so thoroughly by costly gifts and by carefully chosen yet eloquent words, that not only was the death of Aristobulus overlooked, but he was distinguished by marks of esteem, and sent back to Jerusalem, full of happy self-confidence. He lost, however, one precious pearl from his crown. The far-famed district of Jericho, celebrated for its wealth of palm-trees and its highly-prized balsam, had been given by Antony to Cleopatra, and Herod was forced to accept two hundred talents in lieu as tribute-money from the queen. He could, however, rest well satisfied with this loss, when comparing it with the danger from which he had escaped.

On the threshold of his palace, however, the demon of discord awaited him, ready to fill his whole being with despair. On the eve of his departure he had entrusted his wife Mariamne to the care of Joseph, the husband of his sister Salome, and had given him the secret command that, in case of his falling a victim to Antony's displeasure, Joseph should murder both Mariamne and Alexandra. Love for his beautiful wife, whom he could not bear to think of as belonging to another, added to hatred of Alexandra, who should not triumph in his death, prompted this fiendish resolve. But Joseph had betrayed his secret mission to Mariamne, and had thus plunged another dagger into the heart of that unhappy queen. When a false report of Herod's death became current in Jerusalem, Mariamne and her mother prepared to put themselves under Roman protection. Herod's sister Salome, who hated both her husband Joseph and her sister-in-law Mariamne, made use of this fact to calumniate them upon her brother's return, accusing them of a mutual understanding and undue intimacy. Herod at first turned a deaf ear to this calumny, but when Mariamne disclosed to her husband, amidst tears of indignation, that Joseph had confessed his secret mission to her, then the king's wrath knew no bounds. Declaring that he fully believed his sister's accusations, he beheaded Joseph, placed Alexandra in confinement, and would have had Mariamne slain, had not his love for his queen surpassed even his rage. From that day, however, the seeds of distrust and hatred were sown in the palace, and they grew and spread until one member of the royal family after another met with an untimely and violent death.

Outwardly, however, fortune appeared to smile upon Herod, carrying him successfully over the most difficult obstacles in his path. Before the sixth year of his reign had ended, threatening clouds began to gather over his head. A surviving sister of the last Hasmonæan king Antigonus had arisen as the avenger of her brother and his race, and had, in some way or other, possessed herself of the fortress of Hyrcanion. Herod had hardly disarmed this female warrior before he was threatened by a more serious danger. Cleopatra, who had always hated the Judæans, and who had been most ungenerous to that community in Alexandria during a year of famine, had again attempted to effect Herod's ruin by awakening Antony's displeasure against him. Afraid of this violent and yet crafty queen, and alarmed at the hatred of his own people, who were longing for his downfall, Herod determined upon preparing some safe retreat, where his life would at all events be secure from his enemies. He chose for this purpose the fortress of Masada, which nature had rendered almost impregnable, and which he fortified still more strongly. But Cleopatra was already devising another scheme for the downfall of her enemy. She succeeded in entangling him in a war with Malich, the Nabathæan king, and thus endeavored to bring about the ruin of two equally hated monarchs. But Herod gained two decisive victories over the Nabathæans, which alarmed Cleopatra, and caused her to send her general Athenion to the aid of Malich. The Judæan army sustained a terrible defeat, and Herod was beaten back across the Jordan. This disaster was followed by an earthquake, which alarmed and dispirited the Judæan troops to such an extent that they lost all courage and were almost powerless before the enemy. But Herod, with true genius, succeeded in rousing his people, and in leading them victoriously against the Nabathæans. Malich was forced to become the vassal of the Judæan king.

Hardly, however, was peace restored before a storm arose that threatened to shake the Roman world to its very depths and to destroy the favorite of the Roman generals. Ever since that day when Rome and her vast possessions lay at the feet of the triumvirs, who hated each other cordially, and each one of whom wished to be sole ruler of the state, the political atmosphere had been charged with destructive elements that threatened to explode at any given moment. Added to this, one of the three leaders was completely under the sway of the dissolute and devilish Queen Cleopatra, who had set her heart upon becoming mistress of Rome, even though this should entail the devastation of whole countries by fire and by sword.