Chapter 16.
HOW HEROD, WHEN HE HAD MARRIED MARIAMNE TOOK JERUSALEM WITH
THE ASSISTANCE OF SOSIUS BY FORCE; AND HOW THE GOVERNMENT OF HE ASAMONEANS
WAS PUT AN END TOFJAJ 14.132
1. AFTER the wedding was over, came Sosius through Phoenicia, having
sent out his army before him over the midland parts
He also, who was their
commander, came himself, with a great number of horsemen and footmen
The
king also came himself from Samaria, and brought with him no small army,
besides that which was there before, for they were about thirty thousand;
and they all met together at the walls of Jerusalem, and encamped at the
north wall of the city, being now an army of eleven legions, armed men
on foot, and six thousand horsemen, with other auxiliaries out of Syria.
The generals were two: Sosius, sent by Antony to assist Herod, and Herod
on his own account, in order to take the government from Antigonus, who
was declared all enemy at Rome, and that he might himself be king, according
to the decree of the Senate.FJAJ 14.133
2. Now the Jews that were enclosed within the walls of the city fought
against Herod with great alacrity and zeal (for the whole nation was gathered
together); they also gave out many prophecies about the temple, and many
things agreeable to the people, as if God would deliver them out of the
dangers they were in; they had also carried off what was out of the city,
that they might not leave any thing to afford sustenance either for men
or for beasts; and by private robberies they made the want of necessaries
greater
When Herod understood this, he opposed ambushes in the fittest
places against their private robberies, and he sent legions of armed men
to bring its provisions, and that from remote places, so that in a little
time they had great plenty of provisions
Now the three bulwarks were easily
erected, because so many hands were continually at work upon it; for it
was summer time, and there was nothing to hinder them in raising their
works, neither from the air nor from the workmen; so they brought their
engines to bear, and shook the walls of the city, and tried all manner
of ways to get its; yet did not those within discover any fear, but they
also contrived not a few engines to oppose their engines withal
They also
sallied out, and burnt not only those engines that were not yet perfected,
but those that were; and when they came hand to hand, their attempts were
not less bold than those of the Romans, though they were behind them in
skill
They also erected new works when the former were ruined, and making
mines underground, they met each other, and fought there; and making use
of brutish courage rather than of prudent valor, they persisted in this
war to the very last; and this they did while a mighty army lay round about
them, and while they were distressed by famine and the want of necessaries,
for this happened to be a Sabbatic year
The first that scaled the walls
were twenty chosen men, the next were Sosius's centurions; for the first
wall was taken in forty days, and the second in fifteen more, when some
of the cloisters that were about the temple were burnt, which Herod gave
out to have been burnt by Antigonus, in order to expose him to the hatred
of the Jews
And when the outer court of the temple and the lower city
were taken, the Jews fled into the inner court of the temple, and into
the upper city; but now fearing lest the Romans should hinder them from
offering their daily sacrifices to God, they sent an embassage, and desired
that they would only permit them to bring in beasts for sacrifices, which
Herod granted, hoping they were going to yield; but when he saw that they
did nothing of what he supposed, but bitterly opposed him, in order to
preserve the kingdom to Antigonus, he made an assault upon the city, and
took it by storm; and now all parts were full of those that were slain,
by the rage of the Romans at the long duration of the siege, and by the
zeal of the Jews that were on Herod's side, who were not willing to leave
one of their adversaries alive; so they were murdered continually in the
narrow streets and in the houses by crowds, and as they were flying to
the temple for shelter, and there was no pity taken of either infants or
the aged, nor did they spare so much as the weaker sex; nay, although the
king sent about, and besought them to spare the people, yet nobody restrained
their hand from slaughter, but, as if they were a company of madmen, they
fell upon persons of all ages, without distinction; and then Antigonus,
without regard to either his past or present circumstances, came down from
the citadel, and fell down at the feet of Sosius, who took no pity of him,
in the change of his fortune, but insulted him beyond measure, and called
him Antigone [i.e
a woman, and not a man;] yet did he not treat him as
if he were a woman, by letting him go at liberty, but put him into bonds,
and kept him in close custody.FJAJ 14.134
3. And now Herod having overcome his enemies, his care was to govern
those foreigners who had been his assistants, for the crowd of strangers
rushed to see the temple, and the sacred things in the temple; but the
king, thinking a victory to be a more severe affliction than a defeat,
if any of those things which it was not lawful to see should be seen by
them, used entreaties and threatenings, and even sometimes force itself,
to restrain them
He also prohibited the ravage that was made in the city,
and many times asked Sosius whether the Romans would empty the city both
of money and men, and leave him king of a desert; and told him that he
esteemed the dominion over the whole habitable earth as by no means an
equivalent satisfaction for such a murder of his citizens'; and when he
said that this plunder was justly to be permitted the soldiers for the
siege they had undergone, he replied, that he would give every one their
reward out of his own money; and by this means be redeemed what remained
of the city from destruction; and he performed what he had promised him,
for he gave a noble present to every soldier, and a proportionable present
to their commanders, but a most royal present to Sosius himself, till they
all went away full of money.FJAJ 14.135
4. This destruction befell the city of Jerusalem when Marcus Agrippa
and Caninius Gallus were consuls of Rome (30)
Note here, that Josephus fully and frequently assures us that there passed
above three years between Herod's first obtaining the kingdom at Rome,
and his second obtaining it upon the taking of Jerusalem and death of Antigonus.
The present history of this interval twice mentions the army going into
winter quarters, which perhaps belonged to two several winters, ch. 15.
sect. 3, 4; and though Josephus says nothing how long they lay in those
quarters, yet does he give such an account of the long and studied delays
of Ventidius, Silo, and Macheras, who were to see Herod settled in his
new kingdom, but seem not to have had sufficient forces for that purpose,
and were for certain all corrupted by Antigonus to make the longest delays
possible, and gives us such particular accounts of the many great actions
of Herod during the same interval, as fairly imply that interval, before
Herod went to Samosata, to have been very considerable. However, what is
wanting in Josephus, is fully supplied by Moses Chorenensis, the Arme nian
historian, in his history of that interval, B. II ch. 18., where he directly
assures us that Tigranes, then king of Armenia, and the principal manager
of this Parthian war, reigned two years after Herod was made king at Rome,
and yet Antony did not hear of his death, in that very neighborhood, at
Samosata, till he was come thither to besiege it; after which Herod brought
him an army, which was three hundred and forty miles' march, and through
a difficult country, full of enemies also, and joined with him in the siege
of Samosata till that city was taken; then Herod and Sosins marched back
with their large armies the same number of three hundred and forty miles;
and when, in a little time, they sat down to besiege Jerusalem, they were
not able to take it but by a siege of five months. All which put together,
fully supplies what is wanting in Josephus, and secures the entire chronology
of these times beyond contradiction.
on the hundred eighty and fifth olympiad, on the third month, on the solemnity
of the fast, as if a periodical revolution of calamities had returned since
that which befell the Jews under Pompey; for the Jews were taken by him
on the same day, and this was after twenty-seven years' time
So when Sosius
had dedicated a crown of gold to God, he marched away from Jerusalem, and
carried Antigonus with him in bonds to Antony; but Herod was afraid lest
Antigonus should be kept in prison [only] by Antony, and that when he was
carried to Rome by him, he might get his cause to be heard by the senate,
and might demonstrate, as he was himself of the royal blood, and Herod
but a private man, that therefore it belonged to his sons however to have
the kingdom, on account of the family they were of, in case he had himself
offended the Romans by what he had done
Out of Herod's fear of this it
was that he, by giving Antony a great deal of money, endeavored to persuade
him to have Antigonus slain, which if it were once done, he should be free
from that fear
And thus did the government of the Asamoneans cease, a
hundred twenty and six years after it was first set up
This family was
a splendid and an illustrious one, both on account of the nobility of their
stock, and of the dignity of the high priesthood, as also for the glorious
actions their ancestors had performed for our nation; but these men lost
the government by their dissensions one with another, and it came to Herod,
the son of Antipater, who was of no more than a vulgar family, and of no
eminent extraction, but one that was subject to other kings
And this is
what history tells us was the end of the Asamonean family.FJAJ 14.136