Claimants to Royalty

by John Henry Ingram

The meeting soon afterwards took place, and the new king was united in marriage to the Princess Cleopatra, receiving with his bride a right royal dower. Jonathan, the Jew, assisted at the wedding fêtes, and was very cordially and magnificently treated by the two monarchs. A short time, however, and the impostor began to show the cloven hoof. He commenced his almost unaccountable perfidies by an attempt to overthrow Jonathan, but his forces being defeated by that skilful warrior, he repudiated the affair as carried out without his sanction, and pretended to be pleased with the want of success of his own troops. Aroused from the voluptuousness and profligacy into which he had plunged by the intelligence of an invasion of his dominions by Demetrius, a son of the late king of that name, he prepared for war. About this time he treacherously endeavoured to destroy his father-in-law, Ptolemy, by means of Ammonius, a friend of his; the plot being discovered, Ptolemy wrote to Alexander, and demanded that condign punishment should be administered to Ammonius, but when he found that his demands were disregarded, he soon perceived whence the conspiracy had originated, and repented of having given his daughter in marriage to the pseudo Alexander. Having succeeded in getting the princess back into his own hands, he broke off his alliance with her husband, and at once entered into a league of mutual assistance and friendship with the young Demetrius, to whom he subsequently offered his daughter in marriage.

This prince was only too delighted with the terms of the embassage, and, without troubling himself as to the existence of Balas's prior claim, gladly accepted the hand of Cleopatra, coupled as it was with the armed assistance of her father. After some difficulty the Egyptian king persuaded the people of Antioch to receive Demetrius as their king, and then took the field with a force capable of supporting his new son-in-law's claims.

In the meanwhile Balas was not idle; but, hastening into Syria from Cecilia, where he was when the war broke out, he collected a large army, and, in right royal fashion, burnt and pillaged the country belonging to Antioch. Forced to give battle to the combined strength of Ptolemy and his son-in-law (for Demetrius had already espoused his antagonist's wife), the pretender was, however, beaten and put to flight. Seeking refuge in Arabia, his head was cut off by Zabdiel, an Arabian prince, and sent to Ptolemy. The Egyptian monarch, however, did not long enjoy his triumph, for shortly after the arrival of the head of his first son-in-law, he died from the effect of the wounds received in defeating him. For five years the pseudo Alexander reigned over a large portion of Asia, during which period he thoroughly disgusted his subjects by his absurd vanity and profligate conduct.

Some years after the death of Balas, Diodotus Tryphon, one of his commanders, finding the nation as dissatisfied with Demetrius as they had been with Alexander, excited a rebellion against him, and set up a son, or a pretended son, of his late master as king. Tryphon ultimately proving victorious over Demetrius, and obtaining the entire control of the country, put his youthful protégé to death, and, according to the account of Livy and Josephus, usurped the government himself; but after a reign of three years was overthrown and slain.

THE FALSE PHILIP OF MACEDON.

B.C. 144.

The condition of Greece after the usurpation of supreme power by Philip of Macedon and his son, Alexander the Great, was truly deplorable, and, despite the despairing efforts of the Achaian League to resuscitate the expiring liberties of the glorious old republics, grew rapidly from bad to worse. Finally, the spirit of its people broken, their freedom destroyed, and national feeling extinguished, the cradle of European civilization fell an easy prey to the omnivorous greed of Rome.

A later Philip of Macedon incurred the anger of the Romans by forming a league with Hannibal, the Carthaginian, and after suffering terrible reverses in the wars which ensued, was compelled to accept peace upon the most humiliating terms, including the surrender of several entire provinces; of his navy, and the payment of a heavy indemnity to the conquerors. Twelve years after the death of this monarch (B.C. 178), his son and successor, Perseus, recommenced hostilities with the Romans. After a long series of alternate victories and defeats, this last and most unfortunate of the Macedonian kings was overthrown at the battle of Pydna by Æmilius, the Roman consul, and sent captive, with his children, to Rome.

About twenty years later, or B.C. 149, and whilst the Macedonians were still newly smarting under the yoke of the victors, a man presented himself to the people as Philip, their late king. Livy, whose account we must chiefly follow, states that this impostor was generally reputed to have been a slave; in history he is known as Andriscus the Pretender. Our chief authority acknowledges that he manifested a truly royal courage, and that he was found to greatly resemble the monarch whose name and dignity he claimed, but who had died nearly thirty years previously. Incautiously underrating the power of this Andriscus, who was well supported by the despairing Macedonians, the Romans contented themselves with sending a few troops, under the Pretor Juventius, against the insurgents, and consequently sustained a severe defeat, in which an entire legion and the Pretor himself were completely cut to pieces. This success was short-lived. The Consul Metellus taking the field overthrew and pursued Andriscus to the Thracian mountains, and compelled a neighbouring prince, with whom he had taken refuge, to deliver him into his hands. The capture of this impostor was made an occasion for a great triumph by the Romans, who rejoiced as much—records the historian—as if they had acquired possession of the person of a veritable king. His future story is not known, but the unfortunate country which had placed itself under his guidance was, as is but too well known, completely subjugated, and its people reduced to a state of servitude, from the effects of which they never recovered. It is worthy of note that after the overthrow of Andriscus, two or three pseudo Philips from time to time came forward to agitate the country, trouble the Roman rulers, and still further degrade the people; but none of them ever displayed the same courageous bearing, or attained to such notoriety as he did.