THE WARS OF THE JEWS
OR
THE HISTORY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM
Book I: Chapter 18
HOW HEROD AND SOSIUS TOOK JERUSALEM BY FORCE; AND
WHAT DEATH ANTIGONUS CAME TO. ALSO CONCERNING
CLEOPATRA’S AVARICIOUS TEMPER.
1. NOW the multitude of
the Jews that were in the city were divided into
several factions; for the people that crowded about
the temple, being the weaker part of them, gave it out
that, as the times were, he was the happiest and most
religious man who should die first. But as to the more
bold and hardy men, they got together in bodies, and
fell a robbing others after various manners, and these
particularly plundered the places that were about the
city, and this because there was no food left either
for the horses or the men; yet some of the warlike
men, who were used to fight regularly, were appointed
to defend the city during the siege, and these drove
those that raised the banks away from the wall; and
these were always inventing some engine or another to
be a hinderance to the engines of the enemy; nor had
they so much success any way as in the mines under
ground.
2. Now as for the robberies which were committed,
the king contrived thatambushes should be so laid,
that they might restrain their excursions; and as for
the want of provisions, he provided that they should
be brought to them from great distances. He was also
too hard for the Jews, by the Romans’ skill in the art
of war; although they were bold to the utmost degree,
now they durst not come to a plain battle with the
Romans, which was certain death; but through their
mines under ground they would appear in the midst of
them on the sudden, and before they could batter down
one wall, they built them another in its stead; and to
sum up all at once, they did not show any want either
of painstaking or of contrivances, as having resolved
to hold out to the very last. Indeed, though they had
so great an army lying round about them, they bore a
siege of five months, till some of Herod’s chosen men
ventured to get upon the wall, and fell into the city,
as did Sosius’s centurions after them; and now they
first of all seized upon what was about the temple;
and upon the pouring in of the
army, there was slaughter of vast multitudes every
where, by reason of the rage the Romans were in at the
length of this siege, and by reason that the Jews who
were about Herod earnestly endeavored that none of
their adversaries might remain; so they were cut to
pieces by great multitudes, as they were crowded
together in narrow streets, and in houses, or were
running away to the temple; nor was there any mercy
showed either to infants, or to the aged, or to the
weaker sex; insomuch that although the king sent about
and desired them to spare the people, nobody could be
persuaded to withhold their right hand from slaughter,
but they slew people of all ages, like madmen. Then it
was that Antigonus, without any regard to his former
or to his present fortune, came down from the citadel,
and fell at Sosius’s feet, who without pitying him at
all, upon the change of his condition, laughed at him
beyond measure, and called him Antigona.26 Yet did he
not treat him like a woman, or let him go free, but
put him into bonds, and kept him in custody.
3. But Herod’s concern at present, now he had
gotten his enemies underhis power, was to restrain the
zeal of his foreign auxiliaries; for the multitude of
the strange people were very eager to see the temple,
and what was sacred in the holy house itself; but the
king endeavored to restrain them, partly by his
exhortations, partly by his threatenings, nay, partly
by force, as thinking the victory worse than a defeat
to him, if any thing that ought not to be seen were
seen by them. He also forbade, at the same time, the
spoiling of the city, asking Sosius in the most
earnest manner, whether the Romans, by thus emptying
the city of money and men, had a mind to leave him
king of a desert, — and told him that he judged the
dominion of the habitable earth too small a
compensation for the slaughter of so many citizens.
And when Sosius said that it was but just to allow the
soldiers this plunder as a reward for what they
suffered during the siege, Herod made answer, that he
would give every one of the soldiers a reward out of
his own money. So he purchased the deliverance of his
country, and performed his promises to them, and made
presents after a magnificent manner to each soldier,
and proportionably to their commanders, and with a
most royal bounty to Sosius himself, whereby nobody
went away but in a wealthy condition. Hereupon Sosius
dedicated a crown of gold to God, and then went away
from Jerusalem, leading Antigonus away in bonds to
Antony; then did the axe bring him to his end,
27 who still had a fond desire of life, and some
frigid hopes of it to the last, but by his cowardly
behavior well deserved to die by it.
4. Hereupon king Herod distinguished the multitude
that was in the city;and for those that were of his
side, he made them still more his friends by the
honors he conferred on them; but for those of
Antigonus’s party, he slew them; and as his money ran
low, he turned all the ornaments he had into money,
and sent it to Antony, and to those about him. Yet
could he not hereby purchase an exemption from all
sufferings; for Antony was now bewitched by his love
to Cleopatra, and was entirely conquered by her
charms. Now Cleopatra had put to death all her
kindred, till no one near her in blood remained alive,
and after that she fell a slaying those no way related
to her. So she calumniated the principal men among the
Syrians to Antony, and persuaded him to have them
slain, that so she might easily gain to be mistress of
what they had; nay, she extended her avaricious humor
to the Jews and Arabians, and secretly labored to have
Herod and Malichus, the kings of both those nations,
slain by his order.
5. Now is to these her injunctions to Antony, he
complied in part; for though he esteemed it too
abominable a thing to kill such good and great kings,
yet was he thereby alienated from the friendship he
had for them. He also took away a great deal of their
country; nay, even the plantation of palm trees at
Jericho, where also grows the balsam tree, and
bestowed them upon her; as also all the cities on this
side the river Eleutherus, Tyreand Sidon 28 excepted.
And when she was become mistress of these, and had
conducted Antony in his expedition against the
Parthians as far as Euphrates, she came by Apamia and
Damascus into Judea and there did Herod pacify her
indignation at him by large presents. He also hired of
her those places that had been torn away from his
kingdom, at the yearly rent of two hundred talents. He
conducted her also as far as Pelusium, and paid her
all the respects possible. Now it was not long after
this that Antony was come back from Parthia, and led
with him Artabazes, Tigranes’s son, captive, as a
present for Cleopatra; for this Parthian was presently
given her, with his money, and all the prey that was
taken with him.
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