THE WARS OF THE JEWS
OR
THE HISTORY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM
Book I: Chapter 13
THE PARTHIANS BRING ANTIGONUS BACK INTO JUDEA, AND
CAST HYRCANUS AND PHASAELUS INTO PRISON. THE FLIGHT OF
HEROD, AND THE TAKING OF JERUSALEM AND WHAT HYRCANUS
AND PHASAELUS SUFFERED.
1. Now two years afterward,
when Barzapharnes, a governor among the Parthians, and
Paeorus, the king’s son, had possessed themselves of
Syria, and when Lysanias had already succeeded upon
the death of his father Ptolemy, the son of Menneus,
in the government [of Chalcis], he prevailed with the
governor, by a promise of a thousand talents, and five
hundred women, to bring back Antigonus to his kingdom,
and to turn Hyrcanus out of it. Pacorus was by these
means induced so to do, and marched along the
sea-coast, while he ordered Barzapharnes to fall upon
the Jews as he went along the Mediterranean part of
the country; but of the maritime people, the Tyrians
would not receive Pacorus, although those of Ptolemais
and Sidon had received him; so he committed a troop of
his horse to a certain cup-bearer belonging to the
royal family, of his own name [Pacorus], and gave him
orders to march into Judea, in order to learn the
state of affairs among their enemies, and to help
Antigonus when he should want his assistance.
2. Now as these men were ravaging Carmel, many of
the Jews ran together to Antigonus, and showed
themselves ready to make an incursion into the
country; so he sent them before into that place called
Drymus, [the woodland 18 ] to seize upon the place;
whereupon a battle was fought between them, and they
drove the enemy away, and pursued them, and ran after
them as far as Jerusalem, and as their numbers
increased, they proceeded as far as the king’s palace;
but as Hyrcanus and Phasaelus received them with a
strong body of men, there happened a battle in the
market-place, in which Herod’s party beat the enemy,
and shut them up in the temple, and set sixty men in
the houses adjoining as a guard to them. But the
people that were tumultuous against the brethren came
in, and burnt those men; while Herod, in his rage for
killing them, attacked and
slew many of the people, till one party made
incursions on the other by turns, day by day, in the
way of ambushes, and slaughters were made continually
among them.
3. Now when that festival which we call Pentecost
was at hand, all the places about the temple, and the
whole city, was full of a multitude of people that
were come out of the country, and which were the
greatest part of them armed also, at which time
Phasaelus guarded the wall, and Herod, with a few,
guarded the royal palace; and when he made an assault
upon his enemies, as they were out of their ranks, on
the north quarter of the city, he slew a very great
number of them, and put them all to flight; and some
of them he shut up within the city, and others within
the outward rampart. In the mean time, Antigonus
desired that Pacorus might be admitted to be a
reconciler between them; and Phasaelus was prevailed
upon to admit the Parthian into the city with five
hundred horse, and to treat him in an hospitable
manner, who pretended that he came to quell the
tumult, but in reality he came to assist Antigonus;
however, he laid a plot for Phasaelus, and persuaded
him to go as an ambassador to Barzapharnes, in order
to put an end to the war, although Herod was very
earnest with him to the contrary, and exhorted him to
kill the plotter, but not expose himself to the snares
he had laid for him, because the barbarians are
naturally perfidious. However, Pacorus went out and
took Hyrcanus with him, that he might be the less
suspected; he also 19 left some of the horsemen,
called the Freemen, with Herod, and conducted
Phasaelus with the rest.
4. But now, when they were come to Galilee, they
found that the people of that country had revolted,
and were in arms, who came very cunningly to their
leader, and besought him to conceal his treacherous
intentions by an obliging behavior to them;
accordingly, he at first made them presents; and
afterward, as they went away, laid ambushes for them;
and when they were come to one of the maritime cities
called Ecdippon, they perceived that a plot was laid
for them; for they were there informed of the promise
of a thousand talents, and how Antigonus had devoted
the greatest number of the women that were there with
them, among the five hundred, to the Parthians; they
also perceived that an ambush was always laid for them
by the barbarians in the night time; they had also
been seized on before this, unless they had waited for
the seizure of Herod first at Jerusalem, because
if he were once informed of this treachery of
theirs, he would take care of himself; nor was this a
mere report, but they saw the guards already not far
off them.
5. Nor would Phasaelus think of forsaking Hyrcanus
and flying away, although Ophellius earnestly
persuaded him to it; for this man had learned the
whole scheme of the plot from Saramalla, the richest
of all the Syrians. But Phasaelus went up to the
Parfilian governor, and reproached him to his face for
laying this treacherous plot against them, and chiefly
because he had done it for money; and he promised him
that he would give him more money for their
preservation, than Antigonus had promised to give for
the kingdom. But the sly Parthian endeavored to remove
all this suspicion by apologies and by oaths, and then
went [to the other] Pacorus; immediately after which
those Parthians who were left, and had it in charge,
seized upon Phasaelus and Hyrcanus, who could do no
more than curse their perfidiousness and their
perjury.
6. In the mean time, the cup-bearer was sent
[back], and laid a plot how to seize upon Herod, by
deluding him, and getting him out of the city, as he
was commanded to do. But Herod suspected the
barbarians from the beginning; and having then
received intelligence that a messenger, who was to
bring him the letters that informed him of the
treachery intended, had fallen among the enemy, he
would not go out of the city; though Pacorus said very
positively that he ought to go out, and meet the
messengers that brought the letters, for that the
enemy had not taken them, and that the contents of
them were not accounts of any plots upon them, but of
what Phasaelus had done; yet had he heard from others
that his brother was seized; and Alexandra 20 the
shrewdest woman in the world, Hyrcanus’s daughter,
begged of him that he would not go out, nor trust
himself to those barbarians, who now were come to make
an attempt upon him openly.
7. Now as Pacorus and his friends were considering
how they might bring their plot to bear privately,
because it was not possible to circumvent a man of so
great prudence by openly attacking him, Herod
prevented them, and went off with the persons that
were the most nearly related to him by night, and this
without their enemies being apprized of it. But as
soon as the Parthians perceived it, they pursued after
them; and as he gave orders
for his mother, and sister, and the young woman who
was betrothed to him, with her mother, and his
youngest brother, to make the best of their way, he
himself, with his servants, took all the care they
could to keep off the barbarians; and when at every
assault he had slain a great many of them, he came to
the strong hold of Masada.
8. Nay, he found by experience that the Jews fell
more heavily upon him than did the Parthians, and
created him troubles perpetually, and this ever since
he was gotten sixty furlongs from the city; these
sometimes brought it to a sort of a regular battle.
Now in the place where Herod beat them, and killed a
great number of them, there he afterward built a
citadel, in memory of the great actions he did there,
and adorned it with the most costly palaces, and
erected very strong fortifications, and called it,
from his own name, Herodium. Now as they were in their
flight, many joined themselves to him every day; and
at a place called Thressa of Idumea his brother Joseph
met him, and advised him to ease himself of a great
number of his followers, because Masada would not
contain so great a multitude, which were above nine
thousand. Herod complied with this advice, and sent
away the most cumbersome part of his retinue, that
they might go into Idumea, and gave them provisions
for their journey; but he got safe to the fortress
with his nearest relations, and retained with him only
the stoutest of his followers; and there it was that
he left eight hundred of his men as a guard for the
women, and provisions sufficient for a siege; but he
made haste himself to Petra of Arabia.
9. As for the Parthians in Jerusalem, they betook
themselves to plundering, and fell upon the houses of
those that were fled, and upon the king’s palace, and
spared nothing but Hyrcanus’s money, which was not
above three hundred talents. They lighted on other
men’s money also, but not so much as they hoped for;
for Herod having a long while had a suspicion of the
perfidiousness of the barbarians, had taken care to
have what was most splendid among his treasures
conveyed into Idumea, as every one belonging to him
had in like manner done also. But the Parthians
proceeded to that degree of injustice, as to fill all
the country with war without denouncing it, and to
demolish the city Marissa, and not only to set up
Antigonus for king, but to deliver Phasaelus and
Hyrcanus bound into his. hands, in order to their
being tormented by him. Antigonus himself also bit off
Hyrcanus’s ears with his own teeth, as he fell down
upon his knees to him, that so he might never be
able upon any mutation of affairs to take the high
priesthood again, for the high priests that officiated
were to be complete, and without blemish.
10. However, he failed in his purpose of abusing
Phasaelus, by reason of his courage; for though he
neither had the command of his sword nor of his hands,
he prevented all abuses by dashing his head against a
stone; so he demonstrated himself to be Herod’s own
brother, and Hyrcanus a most degenerate relation, and
died with great bravery, and made the end of his life
agreeable to the actions of it. There is also another
report about his end, viz. that he recovered of that
stroke, and that a surgeon, who was sent by Antigonus
to heal him, filled the wound with poisonous
ingredients, and so killed him; whichsoever of these
deaths he came to, the beginning of it was glorious.
It is also reported that before he expired he was
informed by a certain poor woman how Herod had escaped
out of their hands, and that he said thereupon, “I now
die with comfort, since I leave behind me one alive
that will avenge me of mine enemies.”
11. This was the death of Phasaelus; but the
Parthians, although they had failed of the women they
chiefly desired, yet did they put the government of
Jerusalem into the hands of Antigonus, and took away
Hyrcanus, and bound him, and carried him to Parthia.
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