Tales of Classical Perversion: The Rise of Antipater - Rough Draft

   1. To his astonishment, Alexander Yannaius was lauded his remaining seventeen years a hero. The patronage of Cleopatra III brought Judea enormous wealth, and upon his passing he was thought the most worthy possible successor to his father and uncles. 

76 BC, 653 Ab Urbe Conditia, 3661

2. Until the assumption of his wife as liberator. Very little is known of her reign except for ten years of prosperity and peace which kept the peace between the Pharisees and Saducees by appointing a council of seventy as Judea's governing judiciary, known thereafter as the 'Sanhedrin'; an institution that lasted as the definitive legal word in Judea for two-hundred years. According to the Book of Maccabee and Flavius Josephus, the Seventh Liberator was named Salome Alexandra. According to Eusebius Polymocrates, the name was Channa Yocheved. Eusebius Polymocrates labels Salome Alexandra an intriguing whore in the courts of Hyrcanus and Aristobulus who tantalized herself into marriage and philandering beds. This, however, may be the lies of jealous courtiers, or, more likely, the lies of her sons. Regardless of who she was, Alexander Yannaius wanted no repeat of his own problems of succession, and seeing both sons veering to ideological extremes, he placed his wife upon the throne and hoped that one of their two sons would mature to judiciousness in the intervening years. 

3. The elder son, Hyrcanus Jonathan, took his mother's liberality of character to extreme. He believed in the use of power to alleviate the suffering of the Pharisee lower class. He believed in the new religious officiants, laymen scholars not of the priestly class called 'Rabbi' - Hebrew for 'teacher' or 'master.' Hyrcanus believed in appointing Sanhedrin judges who were educated in the growing body of expert rabbinical commentary, and elevating local synagogue rabbis the heads of local Sanhedrin councils with power to veto national rulings in their own jurisdiction. The younger son, Aristobulus Simon, believed in preserving the strong central authority of the establishment. Aristobulus believed in an originalist legal vision that ignored all judicial precedents past the Torah itself. He wished to consolidate the legal authority of the Sanhedrin with little leeway for regional Sanhedrin courts to countermand national rulings. Aristobulus also believed that rabbis had no authority for religious ceremonies and only men born into the priesthood had ceremonial authority. Hyrcanus was progressive and open of character, easily suggestible and inevitably enacted the policy of whomever was the last to present their opinion. Aristobulus was hotheaded of character, considered little counsel above his own, and was greatly feared by all with whom he had dealings; yet it was Hyrcanus who enacted bloodier deeds. 

67 BC, 662 Ab Urbe Conditia, 3670

4. As elder son, Hyrcanus had the most rightful legal claim and was his mother's declared choice for successor, but upon the day of his mother's death, the Sanhedrin issued an immediate ruling that Aristobulus was rightful Liberator. Hyrcanus immediately went to the temple and went through with his coronation, his brother invaded Jerusalem with a Sadducee subsidized army. Most of the army was Sadducee, but as Hyrcanus still had the lower classes and their militias, he had the non-Jewish men of wealth, and he had command of the Palace of Wadi Qelt where lived all the women and children of the royal family. On the advice of Hyrcanus's prime adviser, Antipater the Idumean, Hyrcanus arrested Aristobulus's wife and children and threw them in Kishle.  

5. At the Battle of Jericho, Aristobulus's forces soundly trounced Hyrcanus's and in desperation Hyrcanus had to flee back to Jerusalem, where the Sadducees already requisitioned the capital in the name of Aristobulus, struck Hyrcanus from the Temple Records, and barred Hyrcanus from the Temple Grounds. Antipater, however, took the liberty of removing Aristobulus's family back to the Palace of Wadi Qelt, where they were kept under lock and key. 

6. Hyrcanus returned to Jericho, and presented himself under flag of truce to present an offer formulated by Antipater. Hyrcanus will remain Liberator and High Priest, but he will return Aristobulus's family unharmed, and would create a position for Aristobulus so powerful that not the Liberator could contravene his word. Hyrcanus therefore promised to declare Aristobulus the first ever Hasmonean King of Judea. 

7. Perhaps the bicameral leadership of Judea could have lasted were its occupants more able, as Judea did in the day of the Zugot, but the sons of Yannaius were too weak to effect success - one too hot-headed, one too soft-headed, and all required to break Judea into civil war was an advisor of perfidy and chicanery. Alongside these two mediocrities with no conception of power's use came a master manipulator who understood the uses of intrigue as well as Moses the uses of prophecy. 

8. From the humble family of pagan fisherman, Antipater the Idumean watched his entire family burned to bone in the Sack of Sebastia; and the most able man in Judea arose from Idumea's devastation to dethrone the Hasmonean Dynasty forever and put Judea to the use of Rome. Not since Joseph himself has Jewish history seen an intriguer to compare with Antipater. 

9.  At times Antipater would claim descendence from a family that converted a hundred years previous, at others descent from Jews enobled by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylonian knighthood; still at others he claimed to have converted because a desert voice spoke to him after witnessing the Sack of Idumea. There is no accounting for Antipater's origins. The issue of Antipater arrives upon history like a whirlwind reaped. 

10. On the night after Aristobulus's coronation, Antipater, then Governor of Idumea, arrived at the court with a forged affidavit demonstrating proof that Aristobulus was plotting to kill Hyrcanus forthwith. Antipater convinced Hyrcanus that, having created a position so powerful as King of Judea, Hyrcanus needed to be its occupant or he soon would die. He therefore had no choice but to sue for immediate claim upon the Judean throne with an outside arbiter to determine its veracity. For arbiter, Antipater suggested  Aretas, King of the Nabatheans, with whom Antipater had plotted the conquest of Judea and an independent State of Idumea.  In reward for his loyalty and sage counsel, promises to appoint Antipater the new Liberator. 

11. After his coronation, Aristobulus's first act was to pursue his leisure at the Wadi of Qelt; but when Aristobulus received word of his brother's murder plotting accusation, and further word that Hyrcanus sued for claim upon the throne, he immediately organized an army to march upon Jerusalem. Hyrcanus and Antipater had no choice but flee to the Nabathean court of Aretas. The siege lasted a year but Aristobulus allowed all the rich Jerusalemites to flee to Egypt, where they were received in great luxury. Poor Jerusalemites were left to starve and broke into the Temple abbatoir to eat the animals reserved for sacrifice. A priest guarding the abbatoir predicted this would lead to Judean suffering of limitless duration just before his head was crushed with a Temple brick.  

66 BC, 663 Ab Urbe Conditia, 

12. After this desecration, Aristobulus granted food to the populace from the Temple reserves of meat and grain so long as the food is bought. Seeing as how the populace has no money, an appeal was made to Hyrcanus to save them by granting loans to the Judean population. Antipater tells Hyrcanus he has no choice but to grant them the loan, which causes him further dependence upon the Nabathean king. Antipater conspired a further plot which he knew will cause equal consternation to Aristobulus. Aristobulus paid one of his Idumean butchers to plant a pig among the priestly animals. 

13. Upon discovering the pig, a priest named Onias climbed the Temple's western wall to denounce the abomination and pronounced a curse upon the entire Hasmonean Dynasty who brought Judea to this iniquitous state. As he pronounced the curse, he was felled by a soldier's arrow, which formented yet another revolt, prevented from becoming worse only by the extent of a gigantic earthquake which toppled buildings over a third of the city. 

14. At the moment after the earthquake, letters arrived for both Aristobulus and Hyrcanus, sealed by a Roman consul named Pompey. Pompey's heard tale of their struggles, and as he was currently situated in Syria, he would be quite happy to send a Roman legate to broker a peace between the two brothers. Aristobulus and Hyrcanus needed no sage counsel to realize immediately that Rome was in Judea's future. When Pompey's legate arrived to Jerusalem, both brothers met him with golden gifts. But as Aristobulus deliberately bankrupted Hyrcanus, Aristobulus had far more gifts to give, and thus the legate ruled in his favor. Antipater counseled Hyrcanus that he should not accept the ruling and immediately retreat to Nabathea, where the King would provide him an army. When the Nabathean army came to Jerusalem, they were met by a Roman legion, and after ten minutes fighting were forced to retreat all the way back to Nabathea. 

15. Unbeknownst to either brother, Antipater met with the Pompey's legate, named Scaurus, and just after the battle offered Scaurus bribes from the King of Nabathea to let Rome switch its loyalty to Hyrcanus. As official Roman policy was already set in favor of Aristobulus, Antipater and Hyrcanus had to travel with Scaurus to the imperial office of Pompey in Syria; but when they arrived, Aristobulus was already there, preparing his own counsel. Just as Aristobulus commenced presentation of his argument in front of Pompey, he was interrupted by a third party of rich Jerusalemites - the Jerusalemites he allowed decampment to Egypt, who sued to let Rome arbitrate in favor of their plan to make Judea a republic after the manner of Rome. Once again, Aristobulus began his argument, only to be cut off by Pompey himself, who had allotted just twelve minutes for the matter; for he had just heard tale of his great enemy's suicide: Mithridates VI Pontus, and in his desire to celebrate, ruled immediately in favor of Hyrcanus without hearing any argument. With Hyrcanus installed as King, he immediately offered Aristobulus the Liberatorship and High Priesthood, but Aristobulus spat upon Hyrcanus's offer and stormed away. 

16. The Egyptian Jerusalemites immediately came to Aristobulus with a compromise: recreate Judea as a constitutional monarchy, and rather than return to Jerusalem, Aristobulus went to Egypt to raise an army from Pharaoh Cleopatra III. Upon his arrival at the Alexandrian court, a message from Pompey was already waiting for him, declaring this plot and decampment to Egypt an act of war. Aristobulus and his erstwhile Jerusalemite followers, realizing that they cannot resist Rome, decide to return to Pompey's Syrian encampment with as many gifts as they can gather. When Aristobulus arrived at Pompey's camp, he presented himself upon his knees. "Divine Consul, I understand your ultimate wish: to incorporate our great country into the Roman Empire. Allow me briefly to shepherd your flock and Judea shall be Rome's forever." 

17. Aristobulus, parading atop all of Pompey's legions, arrived outside Jerusalem's gates, and Hyrcanus, seeing the potential for an ultimate mass atrocity, opened Jerusalem's gates to Rome immediately and surrendered his sovereignty, but the people of Jerusalem refused to submit or surrender, and immediately mounted a spontaneous uprising, killing literal hundreds of Roman soldiers and driving them out the city gates. 

18. Pompey was wroth beyond anger with Aristobulus, "You have involved me in a quagmire! You have damaged me, you have weakened the glory of Rome and her reputation throughout the world. What other people will see their example and mount rebellion? I should crucify you right now!" "Do not kill him Divinity! He is of use. Wait until Shabbos, when the Jerusalemites are belabored with obligations to their day of rest. Some Jews will stay at their posts through all, but some feel the Sabbath is inviolate and will leave." At this moment, Antipater entered Pompey's tent and presented himself in front of Aristobulus, having ridden in secret with Pompey's convoy for the whole journey. "Alright, then give me the addresses of every synagogue in Jerusalem so my people can kill these Jews at prayer." And so on the next Shabbat Rome put their battering rams on the Jerusalem gates, entered the city, killed every praying Jew and everyone on Temple Mount. So great was Rome's reputation for butchery that many Judeans climbed atop the city walls and threw themselves off rather than wait for Roman swords, others killed their families and set their houses on fire lest they be raped and pillaged. Twelve thousand Jerusalemites died upon that day, and it was not three days before Pompey took as prisoner both Aristobulus and Hyrcanus and threw them in the same cell. 

19. It was a week later that Antipater visited them at Kishle. He related to them that the position of Hasmonean Liberator has been disbanded, and Antipater himself has been crowned King of Judea and High Priest. Antipater further disclosed that it was he who originally solicited Pompey's assistance, and did so to avenge the forced conversion of the Idumeans. "You will both be taken in chains to Rome, where you'll be paraded in Pompey's triumph." 

20. After Antipater's coronation, the King took Pompey on a tour of Jerusalem. It is said he inspected every street and had his scribas note every decrepit building, every broken road, every puddle of feces, every threatening looking resident. The tour ended with an inspection of the Holy Temple, and finally of the Holy of Holies, where Pompey was the first man in a thousand years to enter who was not Israel's High Priest. Upon going inside, Pompey is related to have paused and then exclaimed to Antipater standing outside: "What is this candelabra?" "It's called a Menorah." "I see only a menorah and air." 

Tales of Classical Perversion: The Second Aristobulus and Hyrcanus

 1. To his astonishment, Alexander Yannaius was lauded his remaining seventeen years a hero. The patronage of Cleopatra III brought Judea enormous wealth, and upon his passing he was thought the most worthy possible successor to his father and uncles. 

2. Until the assumption of his wife as liberator. Very little is known of her reign except for ten years of prosperity and peace which kept the peace between the Pharisees and Saducees by appointing a council of seventy as Judea's governing judiciary, known thereafter as the 'Sanhedrin.' According to the Book of Maccabee and Flavius Josephus, the First Liberatress was named Salome Alexandra. According to Eusebius Polymocrates, the name was Channa Yocheved. Eusebius Polymocrates labels Salome Alexandra an intriguing whore in the courts of Hyrcanus and Aristobulus who intrigues herself into marriage and philandering beds. This, however, may be the repeated lies of courtiers conspiring to obscure the truth about Salome Alexandra's reign. 

3. 

Yet Another Post about Authenticity in Bach

 There are three topics you never mention in polite conversation:

1. Religion

2. Politics

3. Which instruments to play Bach?

Short of atonality and woke questions, there is absolutely nothing that gets music people in a snit faster than issues of authentic performance practice.

On the one hand, there is no question in my mind that when it comes to Bach, the HIP movement has gone badly off the rails. There is no need for, as more than one person put it here, 'sowing machine tempi' that were clearly beyond the competence of what most instrumentalists were said to be capable of in Bach's day. There is no point for virtuoso runs to go by at light speed when you can't hear what the notes are. I can understand lots of improvisatory ostentation and bravado in Handel or Vivaldi, but in Bach? Bach would have thrown the singers out of the organ loft. The idea of doing an 'authentic' Mass or a Passion with one-per-a-part is so completely outrageous - even if the singer can be heard over the trumpets (doubtful), all it would take in a polyphonic movement is the mistake of one singer, and the entire ensemble could go off the rails.

Bach is meant to be austere, his knowledge of musical trends in Italy and France was entirely abstract, and anything which smacked of decadence was antithetical to his puritanical worldview. Bach is a cathedral, every note matters as much as an architectural brick. He is a 17th century celestial machine, like a grandfather clock. The miracle of Bach is that his music is pure mechanics, and yet every musical gear has infinite emotion.

BUT! Here's the thing about HIP, it arrived in response to obvious problems. There's a reason that Bach and Handel were considered just an occasional sideshow in a performance season: the reason is that the instruments and techniques were designed for music written 150 years later. For all our fond memories of Karl Richter and company, most choruses couldn't sing baroque music very well, most orchestras sounded badly balanced, and there was no way for 2-3 hour performances of unvarying solemnity not to try the attention span.

So in retrospect, the Harnoncourts and Leonhardts were the side of right, it's the Gardiners and Koopmans who were not. With the potential exceptions of Herreweghe and van Veldhoven, the next generation put the HIP forces on the same sort of excess and addictions. But rather than bloat in the name of profundity, we got virtuosity in the name of passion, and there is a direct line of descent from Gardiner and Koopman to the anomie of McCreesh and Minkowski. However excellent all four can be in other music, they're no Bachians. We won't even get started with how strange Bach has gotten in recent years....

There are exceptions in both directions, there are always exceptions. If you can't hear the appeal of Jochum in Bach, I feel sorry for you, but if you don't get the appeal of Bach when done by Mazaaki Suzuki, I feel equally sorry. Both approaches may fall definitively on one side of the HIP debate, but they find ways around it to capture Bach in both his grandeur and his intimacy.

But like with Mozart, there seemed to arrive a 'golden generation' for Bach born around the 1920s and 30s that synthezied the best of old and new, and they were on either side of the HIP ledger: Harnoncourt, Rilling, Leonhardt, Ericson, Bruggen, Corboz, Peter Schreier when he conducted... what made them mostly unique in the strange cult of Bach performance was that they were not encumbered by questions of style. They realized the value of both approaches, and consequently could probe for content as few have before or since. It is impossible to capture the meanings of this music unless you're willing to both have the warmth which a genuine string section allows for, and also the clarity which you can only get from keeping the orchestra smaller than one you use for later music.

But then, there's the Thomanerchor, year in year out, beholden to the unbroken tradition of sound that goes back half-a-millenium before Bach himself. Whatever the stylistic preferences of its cantor, there is that sound, the only true ring of authenticity in Bach, from which you can hear a sound that plausibly fits Bach's counterpoint like a glove.

Here they are under their former cantor, Georg Christoph Biller not too long before his sad retirement and passing due to a neurological disease. There are two B-Minor Masses (sic) on youtube. One from the beginning of his tenure, one from near the end. The first with the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the second Freiburger Barockorchester. The first is very good, but this is greatness. By this time he'd been working with them for sixteen years, and it has that incisive authority of a director who'd long shaped his ensemble and get exactly what he wants.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCWMUt0KmY4

This is Bach.

Tales of Classical Perversion: The Labours of Alexander Yannaius

  1. Two sons of Hyrcanus were never heard from again. Eusebius Polymocrates posits they were killed not by Aristobulus, but by Aristobulus's successor, third son Alexander, nom-de-guerre Yannaius, who having heard tale of Greek civil wars of family intrigue, greatly feared rival claims to succession.

2. By Book of Maccabee's narrative, Alexander married Salome Alexandra, who was also wife to Aristobulus before his tragically premature demise. While Eusebius Polymocrates mentions Salome Alexandra, he does not mention marriage to Aristobulus. In the Chronicle of Ancient Infamies, Salome Alexandra is described as an insatiable older temptress who took young Alexander Yannaius as lover even as she married his older brother, and when Alexander was imprisoned, machinated for his freedom under the belief that Alexander would marry her and make her his queen were the unstable Aristobulus to fall from his throne. By Eusebius Polymocrates's account, Alexander Yannaius did not marry Salome Alexandra, but rather Chana Yocheved, lady of virtue from the Rabbinical House of Shetah, an indication to posterity of return to Maccabean rectitude after the Greek licentiousness of his brothers. 

The Annointing Ceremony of The Sixth Liberator, Alexander of Hasmonea, nom-de-guerre Yannaius, of the Maccabee Dynasty: 103 BC, 626 Ab Urbe Conditia, 3634

3. "Repeat after me. Baruch..." "Baruch..." "Ata..." "Ata..." "Adona""PROVE YOURSELF!" (general scandalized whispers) "Adonai" "Adon""PROVE THYSELF O LIBERATOR OF DUST!" Alexander: "Oh good, another false prophet...." "THERE IS NOT ONE MACCABEE THAT DOETH GOOD! NO NOT ONE! PROVE THYSELF WORTHY OF OFFICE NOW FOR WHICH ALL MACCABEES ARE UNFIT!" (scandalized gasps and yells) "REPENT THEIR MISDEEDS! REPENT OR GREAT EVIL WILL BESET US!!" Alexander: "Ladies and Gentlemen, we seem to have one of Jerusalem's many meshuggoyim who think they alone carry the word of God. If our guards can just see to escorting him.." "HEAR ME PRETENDER! ISRAEL HAS BECOME UNCLEAN IN EASE! PROVE THYSELF WORTHY FROM THE FIRST MINUTE OF THE FIRST DAY OR FACE FATE FAR WORSE THAN THY BROTHERS!" (The false prophet runs to the bimah, lunges at the chalice of office containing oil meant for Yahweh's Holy of Holies) "TAKE AWAY THIS CUP OF HOLY OIL FROM THE ERRANT WEED!" (Alexander grabs the cup in defense, the oil spills on Alexander Yannaius's breastplate, all present issue consternated gasps.)

4. (other men in the crowd) "That oil was meant for ELOHIM'S SACRED MENORAH!" "This is proof Alexander is no Liberator." "The prophet is right. A true anointed would never spill." "It wasn't his fault!" "The prophet said he must prove himself from the first minute or else horrible evil would befall us, and in the first minute the Liberator spilled...!" "But the prophet caused the grail to spill!" "If he were the true anointed he would have stopped the prophet!" "But Alexander fulfilled his office, there's nothing which says he has to use ALL the oil to light the Menorah." "If he were a true servant why would the prophet decry him?" "Perhaps the prophet is false." "If the prophet were false why would Hashem allow him to speak at a holy ceremony?" "There are many corrupt people here. Why does Hashem permit them to be at this ceremony?" "All men in this temple are holy or else they wouldn't be allowed." "If all men in this temple were holy why is the prophet permitted to say that the Liberator is not holy?" "Are you saying that Hashem is not holy?" "Are you saying that I'm not holy?" "Are you comparing yourself to the Holy One on High?" "ASTONISHMENT!" "CURSE!"  "REPROACH!" "EXECRATION!" "GONIF!" "KADOKHES!" "KHAZER!" "KHALERYEH!" "NAFKEH!" "KORVEH!" "PROTSHAK!" "PUTZ!" "SHAAAAAAAAAAYGETZ!" (the assembled crowd breaks into a fistfight, which goes into the street, which leads to more fighting, which leads to deaths in the streets, which leads to still more, and soon all of Jerusalem riots). 

5.  The Jerusalem riot raged on for six weeks, and Alexander had no choice but comb the world for hearsay of gentile soldiers to set down the insurrections, for his predecessor Aristobulus had not paid the Judean army for the entire year of his reign, and the soldiery willingly disbanded (more on that anon). He therefore settled upon the Isle of Rhodes, where was said to live the world's greatest mercenary soldiers, trained upon the Peninsula of Italia. And near the heels of Rhodes's most famous ruin, Alexander Yannaius guaranteed the price of 30 shekels each of gold and founding a settlement at Stratonos Pyrgos, upon the Mediterranean coast halfway between Acre and Jaffa. 300 of the world's greatest soldiers sailed back with Alexander, and within three days of landing in port, 6,000 Jerusalemites were slain. 

6. The soldiers of Italia effected such terror that each of their subjegations caused another rebellion. Over the next ten years the soldiers of Italia besieged rebellions in Jerusalem, Emmaus, Hebron, Jericho, Lower Beit-Horon, Bethany, Nazareth, Bethlehem, Capernaum, and even the ancestral Hasmonean seat of Modi'in. With each new revolt, Alexander returned to Rhodes to promise more spoils for more soldiers to subdue the Judean peoples, who seemed all too happy to sacrifice seven of themselves for every mercenary. By such time of Alexander's victory, 50,000 more Jews were slain. 

93 BC, 636 Ab Urbe Conditia, 3644-5

7. After ten years, a negotiated peace was procured by Alexander Yannaius's probable brother-in-law, Rabbi Shimon-ben-Shetah. The surviving Italian soldiers were so wealthy and so maddened by the Judean people that upon the resumption of peace, they simply went back to Rhodes. There was great pomp and ceremony at the signing at which Pharisee rebels were welcomed from all around Judea, and each local general signed the document, and yet at the final signature, General Z'vulun of Zelah refused to sign until one last term was procured: Alexander's death.

8. At that moment, a herald arrived to the hall with announcement that 43,000 Greek soldiers crossed Benjaminite territory, and they proclaim Z'vulun of Zelah as King of Judea. All the rebel forces met the Greeks at the Battle of Sheol. 21,000 Judean soldiers perished upon the field, and Alexander Yannaius was reduced to pitiable wandering. In Jerusalem he happened upon his own funeral, and when he protested that he was Alexander Yannaius in the flesh, none believed him. 

95 BC, 638 Ab Urbe Conditia, 3646-7

9. Amid his wanderings he came at last to the one true rebel stronghold left in Judea, the Hill People of Ephraim. They took pity upon their king and organized a force of 6,000 with spears of only the most fragile flint. And these six thousand pushed out all the Greek soldiers with all their tens of thousands in all their finery, their polished weapons of metal, their shields and breastplates, their swordplay, their chariots.  

10. And thus said Alexander the Hasmonean, nom-de-guerre Yannaius, High Priest and Sixth Liberator of the Maccabee Revolution, butcher of Jerusalem, ignominious vanquished at the Battle of Sheol, liberator then slaughterer of Gaza, scourge of Emmaus, Hebron, Jericho, Lower Beit-Horon, Bethany, Nazareth, Bethlehem, Capernaum, and Modi'in:

"6000 shepherds of Ephraim have effected all that which the soldiers of Italia could not. What profit has a nation in all its conflict when the least worldly inherit the earth for which all worldly men strive? What profit it a liberator to work for his people when by liberating he sentences them to die? I have striven for Israel yet I am now the butcher of all Jewish history. No enemy to Judea could slay all that I have slain; not Nebuchadnezzar nor Shalmaneser nor Alexander nor Antiochus nor not Pharaoh himself. By my reign's end, shall I have killed every Jew by accident? Wherefore means the end to all I have done? 

I am the only liberator for whom righteousness illumined my every deed, yet all my deeds are bloody. Sinfulness was with my predecessors, yet goodness followed them all the days of their lives. My father Hyrcanus was called 'Holy John', yet he imprisoned me for his favored sons, then let his favored sons burn the Idumeans as though in ovens and circumcised them into Judaism's covenant from the virtue of their incestuous sheets. He swore a blood oath with the Greeks not to attack after Antiochus the Pious's death yet the pious king was not dead a month before he took the Heights of Golan; military necessity he said - Simon before him breaking treaties to colonize Jaffa, Jonathan before him killing an entire bridal procession of 300 so he might seize the treasure. Judah before him, a fanatic like his father, willing to burn all the beneficial works of Greece and kill any tempted to call it progress in the name of their Yahweh, for whom all horror is perpetrated without blemish. 

I endeavor to liberate and they call me pretender. I intend to defend and they call me vanquished, I intend to unite what they divide. My sole purpose was to secure Judea, and at the crossroads of all paths: ancient and modern, the Jewish people choose uncertainty.  

400 years of slavery, 400 years of exile, civil war upon civil war; history written in innocent blood by the goblet. The very golden ages of our people are murder: the burning of Sodom, Joseph dreaming famine, Moses slaughtering at the Golden Calf, Joshua massacring all the tribes of Canaan, Saul cleansing the world of Amalek, the children of David and Solomon leading their people to extermination for their own glory. Is this our covenant? Is this the nature of Yahweh for whose worship so much is laboured? And what did the Greeks try to give us but paths from out this two thousand years of darkness? 

What would be lost by our loss? Who among all the earth shall mourn us? What suffering yet untold may be prevented by ending us all? My deaths are mercy compared to what has come and what may come yet. And so perforce we must declare war without reconciliation on the Divine Seat, and shake its very throne. 

For there is one god, and His name is Death." 

Alexander then conceived a plan with which he could affect the destruction of the Jewish people for all time. 

11. In the northern town of Metulla, bordering upon Seleucid Greece, came reports of insurrection with the aid of Greek weapons and soldiery. It is probable there was no rebellion, but rather the subsidy of a local watch and police.  Nevertheless Alexander chose to believe it rebellion. He came with his soldiers to Metulla, and within the city walls he watched as all the men of Metulla were put to the cross, Jew and gentile alike; and as the men of Metulla groaned their weight, slaves of all genders administered sodomous services to Alexander Yannaius and fed him pork. 

12. Hearing tale of Metulla's barbarous fate, the Canaanites of Acre - a northern city called by themselves as Ptolemais, were in a panic, and they beseached an Egyptian prince, notorious for his vile savagery, Ptolemy Lazarus (later Pharaoh "Ptolemy the Savior"), to save them from the same fate. Lazarus was then at civil war with his mother Cleopatra III, and very glad for chance for conquest to the North. He promised no less than 50,000 troops to protect Acre, but when he came he put the entire Jewish population to the sword.  

13. Lazarus then marched upon all the port towns of Judea: Shikmona, Certa, Dor, Tel-Michal, Jaffa, Yavneh, Ashdod, Ashkelon, and in all towns he put Jews to the same. Against all protestations, entreaties and suits, Alexander Yannaius did nothing. 

14. In panic, the town of Gaza opened its doors to Ptolemy Lazarus so that they might be granted quick and painless death, and for their cooperation, Lazarus announced temporary clemency, and if Alexander Yannaius agreed to meet with him, the Jews' of Gaza sentence would be commuted to lifetime slavery. But Alexander Yannaius did not respond.

15. Ptolemy Lazarus sued a second time for meeting, Alexander Yannaius did not respond. Ptolemy Lazarus sued a third time, Alexander did not respond. And so, with minimal delegation from his army, Lazarus made the journey to Jerusalem himself so he might deliver the Egyptian suit for a meeting personally. When Ptolemy Lazarus arrived in Jerusalem, Alexander Yannaius had no choice but to meet.

16. And this is when Lazarus finally revealed his own plan: to conscript every Jew of Israel under Egyptian yoke, town by town, and bring them back to Egypt as conscripted soldiers to battle against his mother, Cleopatra III. And then Lazarus revealed his full motive: to reverse a thousand years of Egyptian to the days of its highest Pharaohnic glory, made possible by four hundred years of Hebrew slaves. 

17. And Alexander surprised Ptolemy Lazarus by saying that this plan was extremely amenable to him. They drew up a document and Alexander was on verge of signing when a letter arrived from Cleopatra. 

18. At the command of two defected Judean generals from the unpaid days of Aristobulus, Cleopatra sent an army of 250,000 to meet Lazarus's 50,000 at Gaza with orders to annihilate every one of them as justice for the murder of 'our Jewish bretheren.' "You know as well as I do Lazzy that I don't care what you do with Jews, but our Minister of Coin, Visere Lowenstein of Memphis, is very particular that Jewish lives be spared. He has close connections to the finance minister of Armenia and if I don't support him the Armenians can call in my gambling debts to King Tigranes. So I'm afraid that by the time you read this, you won't have an army. Just come home Lazzy, we'll act as though this never happened, and you can go back to waiting patiently for your time to become Pharaoh." And so Ptolemy Lazarus went back to Egypt, and the people of Gaza demanded that Alexander Yannaius dispose of 50,000 Egyptian corpses. 

ONL - Tales of Classical Perversion: The First Aristobulus and Antigonus - rewrite

 Fall 129 BC, 625 Ab Urbe Conditia, 3633

1. The death of Antiochus VII Sidetes was followed by precisely what Antiochus the Pious predicted to Hyrcanus. Antiochus's two sons, also named Antiochus, plunged Sellucid Greece into civil war, which quickly became civil massacre, as two rival brothers claimed the throne in quick succession, each alleging the other a Pretender.

 

129-109 BC, 625-645 Ab Urbe Conditia, 3433-3453

 

2. Upon reaching the throne, each son encountered further insurrection from their supporters. Many of the Greek Court, having supported Antiochus's older son, Antiochus VIII Grypus, rebelled quickly against him after installation so they might support a claim of Grypus's own son, Sellucus VI Epiphanes. Grypus's younger brother, Antiochus IX Cyzicenus, encountered insurrection from his mother and lover, Cleopatra Thea, previously wife to both Antiochus VII Sidetes and his predecessor, Dmitrius II Nicator. During ten years that followed, each would overthrow the other multiple times every year and occasionally two would attempt to lead as co-rulers, only for collaboration to collapse immediately.

 

3. Hyrcanus, seeing the Greek territory that formerly belonged to Israel, set about reconquering parts of Syria, including the entire Madaba region across the Jordan River, the city of Shechem - sometimes referred to as Nablus, and the Mountain of Gerizim. He made war further against the Idumeans, Samaritans, and Cuthians - a tribe of Babylonian colonists settled upon the Jordan River's West Bank. His greatest achievement is widely regarded as the 'Sack of Sebastia', the Idumean capital, which Hyrcanus's army laid to cinder.

 

108 BC, 646 Ab Urbe Conditia, 3454

 

4. The true achievement at Sebastia belongs however to the generalship of Hyrcanus's two eldest sons: Judas, nom-de-guerre Aristobulus, and Matthias, nom-de-guerre Antigonus - hereafter known by their war names, who so incinerated the city that starving survivors were said to feast upon deceased flesh for twenty years thereafter. Without consultation of Hyrcanus, the sons insisted upon forcing the conversion of all Idumeans with all consequent circumcisions. When Hyrcanus heard of their action, he admonished them to 'beware the leaven of conversion.'

 

5. We must pause to mention a story, possibly apocryphal, of an Idumean boy who came upon the desert convoy of Aristobulus and Antigonus to beg. The boy explained that for three weeks he'd lived only upon his own leavings. Aristobulus and Antigonus explained they would give food if he pledged himself to the Jewish faith and seal his covenant with a circumcision. The boy replied 'I will do first, understand later.' This boy's name was Antipater, who later became Antipater the Idumean, founder of the Herodian Dynasty, Governor of Idumea, valued advisor and minister to a pendulum of Hasmonean Liberators, all the while positioning his issue to inherit a Judean client state controlled by Rome rather than Greece.

 

104-103 BC, 650-651 Ab Urbe Conditia, 3458

 

6. Aristobulus, elder of Hyrcanus's two favored sons, became Fifth Liberator upon his father's death. Immediately he ordered imprisonment of his mother and three other brothers in the darkest cells of Kishle, the still infamous prison of Jerusalem. Two of the other brothers were never seen again and within a fortnight his mother, Alexandra Jannea, died of starvation. The historian Eusebius Polymocretes of Aleppo writes that Aristobulus burned his father's will because Hyrcanus left the office of Liberator to his wife, their mother.  According to Eusebius Polymocrates, Hyrcanus was greatly distressed with Idumea's forced conversion, for it brought into Judea an enemy swearing revenge from within; and fearing the ruthless stupidity of his sons he secretly machinated to pass them over.

 

7. Both Flavius Josephus and the Book of Maccabees refer to the 'tender passion' of Aristobulus for Antigonus, and tell also of Aristobulus's cerebral hemorrhages, after which Aristobulus required Antigonus to be conquering general in his stead; from which Antigonus's wife planted the seed of a labyrinthine plot to assassinate Antigonus. However, Eusebius Polymocrates states that Aristobulus was not married, and that such tender passion was not only consummated, but that Aristobulus was no general at all but rather a poet/musician in the manner of Nero, and divided the Liberator's job between that of civil governance and High Priest so that Antigonus might be simultaneously named High Priest, General, and the Liberator's consort; and therefore the Pharisees were scandalized by their Liberator's Hellene licentiousness and corruption. According to Eusebius Polymocrates's Chronicle of Antique Infamies, Antigonus returned to Jerusalem to a parade of triumph, and immediately afterward was stabbed by incensed Pharisee conspirators in the Temple. When Antigonus saw what became of his brother and consort, he stabbed himself next to Antigonus's body so that their blood might mingle in death.

Tales of Classical Perversion: The Labours of Alexander Yannaius - Rough Draft

  1. Two of the Hyrcanus sons were never heard from again. Eusebius Polymocrates posits that they were killed not by Aristobulus, but rather by Aristobulus's successor, the third son Alexander, nom-de-guerre Yannaius, whom, having lived through Greek civil wars of intrigue and many Hasmonean deaths, greatly feared their rival claims to succession.

2. By the Book of Maccabee's narrative, Alexander married Salome Alexandra, who was also the wife of Aristobulus before his tragically premature demise. While Eusebius Polymocrates mentions Salome Alexandra, he does not mention marriage to Aristobulus. In the Chronicle of Ancient Infamies, Salome Alexandra is described as an insatiable older temptress who took young Alexander Yannaius as lover even while she married his older brother, and when Alexander was imprisoned, machinated for his freedom under the belief that Alexander would marry her and make her his queen were the unstable Aristobulus to fall from his throne. However, in this account, Alexander Yannaius did not marry Salome Alexandra. Instead he married Chana Yocheved, lady of virtue true from the Rabbinical House of Shetah, an indication to posterity of a return to Maccabeean rectitude after the Greek licentiousness of his brothers. 

The Annointing Ceremony of The Sixth Liberator, Alexander of Hasmonea, nom-de-guerre Yannaius, of the Maccabee Dynasty: 103 BC, 626 Ab Urbe Conditia, 3634

3. "Repeat after me. Baruch..." "Baruch..." "Ata..." "Ata..." "Adona""PROVE YOURSELF!" (general scandalized whispers) "Adonai" "Adon""PROVE THYSELF O LIBERATOR OF DUST!" Alexander: "Oh good, another false prophet...." "THERE IS NOT ONE MACCABEE THAT DOETH GOOD! NO NOT ONE! PROVE THYSELF WORTHY OF OFFICE FOR WHICH ALL MACCABEES ARE SO UNFIT! AND PROVE THYSELF NOW!" (scandalized gasps and yells) "REPENT THEIR MISDEEDS! REPENT NOW OR GREAT EVIL WILL BESET THE LAND!!" Alexander: "Ladies and Gentlemen, we seem to have one of Jerusalem's many meshuggoyim who think that they alone carry the word of God. If our guards can just see to escorting him off the premes.." "HEAR ME PRETENDER! ISRAEL HAS BECOME UNCLEAN IN PROSPERITY! REPENT AND SOON!  PROVE THYSELF WORTHY FROM THE FIRST MINUTE OF THE FIRST DAY OR FACE FATE FAR WORSE THAN YOUR BROTHERS!" (The false prophet sees the guards coming up to him and runs through the crowd to the bimah, lunges at the chalice of office containing oil meant for Yahweh's Holy of Holies) "TAKE AWAY THIS CUP OF HOLY OIL FROM THE ERRANT WEED!" (Alexander grabs the cup in defense, in the struggle the oil spills on Alexander Yannaius's breastplate, to the consternated gasps of all present.)

4. (other men in the crowd) "That oil was meant for ELOHIM'S SACRED MENORAH!" "This is proof Alexander is no Liberator." "The prophet is right. The true anointed would never spill." "Woe is Israel, "It wasn't his fault!" "The prophet said he must prove himself from the first minute or else horrible evil would befall us, and the Liberator spilled oil from the holy grail!" "But the prophet caused the grail to spill!" "If he were the true anointed he would have stopped the prophet!" "If the prophet were a true prophet he would not have caused the grail to spill!" "But Alexander fulfilled his office, there's nothing which says he has to use ALL the oil to light the sacred Menorah." "If he were the true servant why would the prophet decry him?" "Perhaps the prophet is false." "If the prophet were false why would Hashem allow him to speak at such a holy ceremony?" "There are many corrupt people here. Why does Hashem permit them to be at this ceremony?" "All men in this temple are holy or else they would not be allowed." "If all men in this temple were holy why is the prophet permitted to say that the Liberator is not holy?" "Are you saying that Hashem is not holy?" "Are you saying that I'm not holy?" "Are you comparing yourself to the Holy One on High?" "ASTONISHMENT!" "CURSE!"  "REPROACH!" "EXECRATION!" "GONIF!" "KADOKHES!" "KHAZER!" "KHALERYEH!" "NAFKEH!" "KORVEH!" "PROTSHAK!" "PUTZ!" "SHAAAAAAAAAAYGETZ!" (the assembled crowd breaks into a fistfight, which goes into the street, which leads to more fighting, which leads to deaths in the streets, and soon all of Jerusalem riots). 

5.  The riots raged on for six weeks, and Alexander had no choice but comb the world for hearsay of gentile soldiers to set down his insurrection, because his predecessor Aristobulus had not paid the Judean army for the entire year of his reign, and so the soldiery willingly disbanded (more on that anon). He therefore settled upon the Isle of Rhodes, where was said to live the greatest mercenary soldiers in the world, trained upon the Peninsula of Italia. And near the heels of Rhodes's most famous ruin, Alexander Yannaius guaranteed the price of 30 shekels each of gold and founding a settlement at Stratonos Pyrgos, upon the Mediterranean coast halfway between Acre and Jaffa. 300 of the world's greatest soldiers sailed back with Alexander, and within three days of landing in port, 6,000 Jerusalemites were slain. 

6. The soldiers of Italia effected such terror that by putting down a rebellion they caused another rebellion. Over the next ten years the soldiers of Italia besieged rebellions in Jerusalem, Emmaus, Hebron, Jericho, Lower Beit-Horon, Bethany, Nazareth, Bethlehem, Capernaum, and even the ancestral Hasmonean seat of Modi'in. With each rebellion, Alexander had to go back to Rhodes and promise more spoils for more soldiers to fight against the Judean peoples, who seemed all too happy to sacrifice seven of themselves for every mercenary. By such time of Alexander's victory, 50,000 more Jews were slain. 

93 BC, 636 Ab Urbe Conditia, 3644-5

7. After ten years, a negotiated peace was procured by Alexander Yannaius's probable brother-in-law, Rabbi Shimon-ben-Shetah. The surviving Italian soldiers were so wealthy and so maddened by the Judean people that upon the resumption of peace, they simply went back to Rhodes. There was great pomp and ceremony at which Pharisee rebels were welcomed from all around Judea, and each local general signed the document, and yet at the final signature, General Z'vulun of Zelah refused to sign until one last term was procured: Alexander's death.

8. At that moment, a herald arrived to the hall with announcement that 43,000 Greek soldiers had crossed into Benjaminite territory, and they proclaim Z'vulun of Zelah the new King of Judea. All the rebel forces met the Greeks at the Battle of Sheol. 21,000 Judean soldiers perished upon the field, and Alexander Yannaius was reduced to pitiable wandering. In Jerusalem he happened upon his own funeral, and when he protested that he was Alexander Yannaius in the flesh, none believed him. 

95 BC, 638 Ab Urbe Conditia, 3646-7

9. Amid his wanderings he came at last to the one true rebel stronghold left in Judea, the Hill People of Ephraim. They took pity upon their king, and organized a force of 6,000 with only the most fragile flint spears. And these six thousand hill people pushed out all the Greek soldiers with all their tens of thousands in all their finery, their polished weapons of metal, their shields and breastplates, their swordplay, their chariots.  

10. And thus said Alexander the Hasmonean, nom-de-guerre Yannaius, High Priest and Sixth Liberator of the Maccabee Revolution, butcher of Jerusalem, ignominious vanquished at the Battle of Acre, liberator then slaughterer of Gaza, scourge of Emmaus, Hebron, Jericho, Lower Beit-Horon, Bethany, Nazareth, Bethlehem, Capernaum, and Modi'in:

"6000 shepherds of Ephraim have effected all that which the soldiers of Italia could not. What profit has a nation in all its fighting when the least worldly inherit the earth for which all worldly men strive? What profit it a liberator to work for his people when by liberating he sentences them to die? 

I have striven for Israel yet I am now the butcher of all Jewish history. No enemy to Judea could slay all that I have slain; not Moses nor Elijah nor Yoab nor Nebuchadnezzar not nor Pharaoh himself. By my reign's end, shall I have killed every Jew by accident? Wherefore is the end to all which I have done? 

I am the only liberator for whom righteousness illumined my every deed, yet all my deeds are bloody. Yet sinfulness was with my predecessors, yet goodness followed them all the days of their lives. My father Hyrcanus was called 'Holy John', yet he imprisoned me for thinking me ruthless, then let his favored sons burn the Idumeans as though in ovens and circumcised them into Judaism's covenant from the virtue of their incestuous sheets. He swore a blood oath with the Greeks not to attack after Antiochus the Pious's death yet the pious king was not dead a month before he took the Heights of Golan; military necessity, he said. Simon before him breaking treaties to colonize Jaffa, Jonathan before him killing an entire bridal procession of 300 so he might seize the treasure. Judah before him, a fanatic like his father, willing to burn all the all the beneficial works of Greece and kill all tempted to call it progress in the name of that Yahweh, for whom all horror is perpetrated without blemish. 

I endeavor to liberate and they call me pretender. I intend to defend and they call me vanquished, I intend to unite what they divide. My sole purpose was to secure Judea, and at the crossroads of all paths: ancient and modern, the Jewish people choose uncertainty.  

400 years of slavery, 400 years of exile, civil war upon civil war; history written in innocent blood by the goblet. The very golden ages of our people are murder: the burning of Sodom, Joseph dreaming famine, Moses murdering at the Golden Calf, Joshua killing all the tribes of Canaan, Saul cleansing the world of Amalek, the families of David and Solomon leading their people to slaughter for their own glory. Is this our covenant? Is this the nature of Yahweh for whose worship so much is laboured? And what did the Greeks try to give us but paths from out this two thousand years of darkness? 

What would be lost by our loss? Who among all the earth shall mourn us? What suffering yet untold may be prevented by ending us all? My deaths are mercy compared to what has come and what may come yet. And so perforce we must declare war without reconciliation on the Divine Seat, and shake its very throne.  

For there is one god, and His name is Death." 

Alexander then conceived a plan with which he could affect the destruction of the Jewish people for all time. 

11. In the northern town of Metulla, bordering upon Seleucid Greece, there were reports of insurrection with the aid of Greek weapons and soldiers. Were there a rebellion, it was very small indeed and may in fact be the mere subsidy of a local watch and police.  But Alexander chose to believe it a rebellion. He came with his soldiers to Metulla, and within the city walls he watched as the men of Metulla were put to the cross, Jew and gentile alike; and as the men of Metulla groaned their weight, slaves of all genders administered sodomous services to Alexander Yannaius and fed him pork. 

12. Hearing tale of Metulla's barbarous fate, the Canaanites of Acre - a northern city called by themselves as Ptolemais, were in a panic, and they beseached an Egyptian prince, notorious for his vile savagery, Ptolemy Lazarus (later Pharaoh "Ptolemy the Savior"), to save them from the same fate. Lazarus was then at civil war with his mother Cleopatra III, and very glad for chance for conquest to the North. He sent no less than 50,000 troops to face Acre, and when he came to Acre he put the entire Jewish population to the sword.  

13. Lazarus then did the same in all the port towns of Judea: Shikmona, Certa, Dor, Tel-Michal, Jaffa, Yavneh, Ashdod, Ashkelon, and against all protestations, entreaties and suits, Alexander Yannaius did nothing. 

14. In panic, the town of Gaza opened its doors to Ptolemy Lazarus so that they might be granted quick and painless death, and for their cooperation, Lazarus announced clemency, and if Alexander Yannaius agreed to meet with him, the Jews' of Gaza sentence would be commuted to lifetime slavery. 

15. Ptolemy Lazarus then sued for meeting, but Alexander Yannaius did not respond. Ptolemy Lazarus sued a second time for a second meeting, Alexander Yannaius did not respond. Ptolemy Lazarus sued for a third meeting, Alexander did not respond. And so, with only a minimal delegation from his army, Lazarus made the journey to Jerusalem so he might deliver the Egyptian suit for a meeting himself. When Ptolemy Lazarus arrived in Jerusalem, Alexander Yannaius had no choice but meet with him.

16. And this is when Lazarus finally revealed his own plan: to conscript every Jew of Israel under Egyptian yoke, town by town, and bring them back to Egypt as conscripted soldiers to battle against his mother, Cleopatra III. And then Lazarus revealed his full motive: to reverse a thousand years of Egyptian to the days of its highest Pharaohnic glory, made possible by four hundred years of Hebrew slaves. 

17. Alexander surprised Ptolemy Lazarus by saying that this plan was extremely amenable to him. They drew up a document and Alexander was on the verge of signing when a letter arrived from Cleopatra. 

18. At the command of two defected Judean generals from the unpaid days of Aristobulus, Cleopatra sent an army of 250,000 to meet Lazarus's 50,000 at Gaza with orders to kill every one of them as justice for the murder of our Jewish bretheren. "You know as well as I do Lazzy that I don't really care what you do with Jews, but our Minister of Coin, Visere Lowenstein of Memphis, is very particular that Jewish lives be spared. He has close connections to the finance minister of Armenia and if I don't support him the Armenians can call in my gambling debts to King Tigranes. By the time you read this, you won't have an army. Just come home Lazzy, we'll act as though this never happened, and you can just do what you're supposed to,  wait patiently for your time to become Pharaoh." And so Ptolemy Lazarus went back to Egypt, and the people of Gaza demanded that Alexander Yannaius dispose of 50,000 Egyptian corpses. 

Zinman's Nutcracker

 Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake belong to Russia, but The Nutcracker belongs to America. There's no country where The Nutcracker means more than the US, where every parent has to go watch their daughter dance the part of 'little snot #3' in their local production of The Nutcracker, and for some reason, every girl takes ballet here from the time they're four years old until they're nine, then never have anything to do with ballet again until they take their own kids.

The Nutcracker was even considered marginal Tchaikovsky until George Balanchine's New York City Ballet production of the Nutcracker in 1954. Sure, people knew about it, but probably under the name "Shchelkunchik." It was no more important than, say, the Mozartiana Suite. It was only when the New York City Ballet played it every Christmas that it became the ballet among all ballets.

I doubt either Bolshoi or Mariinsky has accumulated the yearly number of performances done by the New York City Ballet in the years since. Here's their orchestra's recording, done for a movie version they did in the early nineties that starred, believe it or not, Macaulay Culkin (the brat in Home Alone). It was conducted by David Zinman, who in the nineties was one of the greatest conductors in the world. If the NYCB orchestra was at all lacking in comparison to major orchestras before facing Zinman, there's no way you can tell here. If you didn't know any better you'd think it was Cleveland under Dohnanyi.

I don't know what the greatest recording is of The Nutcracker, but this is my favorite. You hear everything, you get closer to Tchaikovsky's tempo markings than most any other, you completely feel the rhythmic spring of the dance without tempi so fast that the notes feel scrambled, and there is no lack of passion in the climaxes. It is Tchaikovsky close to the world of his idols: Mozart and Schumann, and shows that at his greatest, Tchaikovsky was fully their equal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3K7k2slTSs&list=PLUtjANhAH1uEfi05xkGKfvc6KHaUs5LGi&index=1&fbclid=IwAR3HAnsw-0GuA1lQxt2spQrwy-WUgNiGZqIdeIfDPQKnP1_Gf7-z5KQzT3Q

ONL Classical Tale of Perversion: The First Aristobulus and Antigonus

 Fall 129 BC, 625 Ab Urbe Conditia, 3633

1. The death of Antiochus VII Sidetes was followed by precisely what Antiochus the Pious predicted to Hyrcanus. Antiochus's two sons, also named Antiochus, plunged Sellucid Greece into civil war, which quickly became civil massacre, as two rival brothers claimed the throne in quick succession, each alleging the other a Pretender. 

129-109 BC, 625-645 Ab Urbe Conditia, 3433-3453

2. Upon reaching the throne, each son encountered a further insurrection from their supporters. Many of the Greek Court, having supported Antiochus's older son, Antiochus VIII Grypus, quickly rebelled against him after his installation so they might support the claim of Grypus's son, Sellucus VI Epiphanes. The younger son, Antiochus IX Cyzicenus, encountered insurrection from his mother and lover, Cleopatra Thea, who was previously wife to both Antiochus VII Sidetes and to his predecessor, Dmitrius II Nicator. In the following ten years, each of the four would overthrow each other multiple times a year and occasionally two of them would attempt rule as co-rulers, only for collaboration to break down almost immediately. 

3. Hyrcanus, seeing how much Greek territory formerly belonged to Israel, set about reconquering parts of Syria, including the entire Madaba region across the Jordan River, the city of Shechem - sometimes referred to as Nablus, and the Mountain of Gerizim. He further made war against the Idumeans, Samaritans, and Cuthians - a tribe of Babylonian colonists who settled upon the Jordan River's West Bank. His greatest achievement is widely regarded as the 'Sack of Sebastia', the Idumean capital, which Hyrcanus's army laid to cinder.  

108 BC, 646 Ab Urbe Conditia, 3454

4. However, the true achievement at Sebastia belongs to the generalship of Hyrcanus's two eldest sons: Judas, nom-de-guerre Aristobulus, and Matthias, nom-de-guerre Antigonus - hereafter known by their war names, who so incinerated the city that starving survivors were said to feast upon deceased flesh for twenty years thereafter. Without consultation of Hyrcanus, his sons insisted upon forcing the conversion of all Idumeans with all consequent circumcisions. When Hyrcanus heard of their action, he admonished them to 'beware the leaven of conversion.' 

 

5. We must pause to mention a story, possibly apocryphal, of an Idumean boy who came upon the desert convoy of Aristobulus and Antigonus to beg for food. The boy explained that for three weeks he'd lived only upon the remains of his own leavings. Aristobulus and Antigonus explained that they would give him food if he pledged himself to the Jewish faith and seal his covenant with a circumcision. The boy replied 'I will do first, understand later.' This boy's name was Antipater, who was later to become Antipater the Idumean, founder of the Herodian Dynasty, Governor of Idumea who then became valued advisor and minister to a pendulum of Hasmonean Liberators, all the while positioning himself and his line to become inheritor of a Judean client state controlled by Rome rather than Greece. 

104-103 BC, 650-651 Ab Urbe Conditia, 3458

6. Aristobulus, elder of Hyrcanus's two sons of age, became Fifth Liberator upon his father's death. Immediately he ordered the imprisonment of his mother and three other brothers in the darkest cells of Kishle, the still infamous prison of Jerusalem. Two of the other brothers were never seen again and within a fortnight his mother, Alexandra Jannea, was dead of starvation. The historian Eusebius Polymocretes of Aleppo writes that Aristobulus burned his father's will because Hyrcanus left the office of Liberator to his wife, their mother.  According to Eusebius Polymocrates, Hyrcanus was greatly distressed with Idumea's forced conversion, for it brought into Judea an enemy swearing revenge from within; and fearing the ruthless stupidity of his sons he secretly machinated to pass them over. 

7. Both Flavius Josephus and the Book of Maccabees refer to the 'tender passion' of Aristobulus for Antigonus, and also tell of Antigonus's cerebral hemorrhages, after which Aristobulus required Antigonus to be conquering general in his stead; after which labyrinthine plots involving Aristobulus's wife lead to Antigonus's assassination. However, Eusebius Polymocrates states that Aristobulus was not married, and that such tender passion was not only consummated, but that Aristobulus was no general at all but rather a poet/musician in the manner of Nero, and divided the Liberator's job between that of civil governance and High Priest so that Antigonus might be named High Priest and the Liberator's consort, and therefore the Pharisees were scandalized by his Hellene licentiousness. According to Eusebius Polymocrates's Chronicle of Antique Infamies, after Antigonus returned to Jerusalem to a parade of triumph, he was stabbed by Pharisee conspirators in the Temple. When Antigonus saw what became of his brother and consort, he stabbed himself next to Antigonus's body so that their blood might mingle in death. 

Classical Tale of Perversion: The Friendship of Maccabee and Antiochus, Second Draft

   Fall - 135 BC, 619 Ab urbe condita, 3627

1. Upon Rosh Hashana 3627, Greek King Antiochus VII Sedetes, "Antiochus the Pious", heard of the massacre of Ptolemy and in retaliation prepared an army of 20,000 to sack Jerusalem. Upon Yom Kippur, John Hyrcanus entered the Holy of Holies and prayed for a solution, whereupon God the Father sent a sign to Hyrcanus to open the Sepulchre of King David, where was discovered 3000 ancient golden shekels; with which Hyrcanus could bribe Antiochus the Pious to stand his forces down.

2. Upon reaching Jerusalem's gates, Antiochus the Pious was informed by messenger that it was the first day of Sukkot - Jewish Feast of the Tabernacles, during which Judeans cannot work. Antiochus knew well the humiliation of his grandfather, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, and desired not to join his grandfather in disrepute. He therefore agreed to a week's armistice.

3. Yet under cover of seventh night, more than ten messengers were seen leaving the Jerusalem gates, two of which were intercepted; one of whom carried a message to the Roman consul Flaccus, pleading for Rome's assistance; one of whom to the Roman consul Piso. Under pain of torture, the messengers admitted there were twelve vassals in all, each carrying the same message. After a full day's deliberation, Antiochus the Pious petitioned Hyrcanus for immediate meeting under flag of truce.

4. Hyrcanus: "I must protest so immediate a meeting. I am not supposed to work tonight but you called an emergency meeting so I might plea for the lives of two Jerusalemites, and here I am." Antiochus: "I gave you an armistice because your vassal said it was a Festival Week during which your people cannot work, but your festival week is over and you sent out messengers during the week besides." "It was our festival week." "But you said you're not allowed to work today." "I'm not." "But the festival week is over." "It is, but I'm not allowed to work today." "Why?" "Because it's our three holidays in the days after the Festival Week." "You're not allowed to work for ten days?" "We are allowed to work during our Festival Week, just not in the days after." "Then why did your messengers tell me you weren't?" "Because your army came on the first day of the Festival, during which we're not allowed to work." "So you're allowed to work for the other days of the Festival Week?" "Yes." "Then why did you wait to send messengers until the seventh night when you couldn't work?" "We can work on the seventh night." "But you just said that there were three holidays after your Festival during which you can't work." "During the first holiday we can work, it's the other two holidays we can't. That's why the messengers left when they did, so they could be past your forces by the time it was time to stop working." "So your festival is six days long? Why did you tell us it was a week?" "It's a week-long festival, but the last day is both the last day of the Festival and its own holida..." "ENOUGH OF THIS!"

5. Antiochus: "Our intelligence tells us that twelve messengers left Jerusalem under cover of night. Was this at your permission?" "Yes." "Our intelligence further tells us they were all carrying the same message. Is this true?" "No." "Six of them were carrying the same message to Consul Flaccus, six of them were carrying the same message to Consul Piso, is this true?" "Yes." "And why did you send twelve messengers?" "Because we thought you would intercept some of our messengers and kill them." "Those days of the Antioch dynasty are over. I'm not my family." "Your Majesty must excuse us for not knowing that." "Even if I don't kill them, Cleopatra's intelligence men are all over the Levant, my intelligence men are all over the Levant, I have no way to reach them. They're all on the lookout for travelers with messages, trying to intercept any message between Rome and Jerusalem. They may yet kill your messengers before they get to Rome." "That's why I sent a dozen messengers on the seventh night, so we could give you two day's notice to call off your officers while we don't wor..." "NO more about the seventh day of the festival please..."

6. "No gold was found on the messengers." "No, it wouldn't be." "Then why would you think the Roman consuls would entertain your suit for their assistance?" "Why would we need to bribe Consuls Flaccus and Piso when our contacts in Rome helped finance all of the Punic Wars?" "I was under the impression that Judea was in debt from your wars with us." "We are." "Then how in Plutus's name have you the money to finance Rome?" "Judea is not its Judeans, and Judean bankers in Rome may only leverage so much for us above tributes they pay to Rome." "So if I'm surrounding you and you already owe money, then why should I grant you clemency?" "Because Rome will grant us assistance." "Your friends in Rome must have paid a hefty tribute." "They did." "And you must know that Rome desires much of Greece and Syria for itself." "I surely do."

7. "....It would appear this invasion was a folly of mine, and yet you'll soon appreciate that we kings must always have something to show for our follies." "I'm not a king." "A High Priest who's also his Party Secretary is far more powerful than a King. Any modest remuneration from you will do." "I actually have something more than modest for you. We have a treasure just discovered in the Sepulchre of our most glorious royal ancestor. It will be entirely yours." "And where is this treasure?" "It will come to you..." (Antiochus cuts him off) "When we can work again... (Antiochus rolls his eyes). And when is that?" "Sundown." "No tricks this time?" "It wasn't a trick." "Speaking of trick, you're right that a former King's buried treasure is no modest thing, but if you have such a treasure, it stands to reason that you have far larger ones to which you are not granting me access." "If I did, and I don't, those treasures would obviously go to Rome." "I still believe your people have more treasures laying in wait." "Kings always do." "Your better at this than your brothers." "I know."

8. Antiochus: "Well, understanding that even the combined forces of Cleopatra the Third and Antiochus the Seventh couldn't possibly face Rome, I must immediately cease hostilities and pledge myself as ally and friend to the Fourth Judean Liberator, John Hyrcanus. But I must warn him that my days grow short, and my children are not nearly so far sighted as its new Liberator seems to be." "Well then, the new Liberator will learn at the King of Greece's feet how to live peacefully."

129 BC, 625 Ab urbe condita, 3632

9. Antiochus VII Sedetes was on his deathbed. Hyrcanus: "I have learned at your feet how to live peacefully." Antiochus: "Consider your oath fulfilled." "I took an oath not to invade Greek territory after your death." "You won't keep it." "I will!" "I believe you would, but you know my children, they'd destroy our peace at a moment's impulse." "Surely your children are not as incompetent as that." "A moment's impulse caused my reinvasion of Judea." "Has this region ever known peace like the one your impulse brought?" "The invasion was an old man's folly, corrected the moment we met, but peace itself is an old man's folly."

10. "Certainly peace isn't folly." "It surely is. Mend your follies Hyrcanus. I've indulged mine blithely." "What follies? You're Antiochus the Pious, the only Greek who isn't a hedonist." "I have one folly above all." "What?" "My children. The same as yours. Mind your own children Liberator. They can be as much a shame to the Maccabee line as mine to the Antiochs."

11. And then Antiochus's son smothered him with a pillow.

Classical Tale of Perversion: 135 BC - Heavily Rewritten

 

This is the record of Sharlappius Avramus of Palmyra, Roman citizen descended from the people of Sinai, who endeavors in the following volume to tell the history of the Judean decline from the height of Maccabee power to the fall of Western Rome so that time shall not dim the shame of deeds perpetrated, nor the heroism of those who fought against them. It is a story of a perpetually old land forever made new by holy acts offset by acts the height of ignominy. It is a record of deeds famous and infamous, and deeds obscure and obscured by time. It is offered to the glory of Christ and his empires on earth as they are in Heaven, in whose service all deeds are free from disgrace.

Amen

135 BC, 619 Ab urbe condita, 3626-7

1. John the Hasmonean, nom-de-guerre Hyrcanus, youngest brother of First Liberator Judah the Hasmonean nom-de-guerre Maccabee, born mid-war after his father's death, was left behind to mind affairs of state while his family journeyed to the Wadi of Nahal David for a wedding uniting the House of Hasmonea with House of Abbus, where Simon Maccabee's daughter was to marry Ptolemy-ben-Abbus, Greek-appointed governor of Jericho. Within a day, John received notification of his brother's assassination.

2. Simon Thassi Maccabee: High Priest and Third Liberator of the Hasmonean Revolution, Conquerer of Gaza, Jaffa, and Yavneh, Besieger of Dor, defender against the Medians, ally of King Demitrius II Necator of Greece, defender against Demitrius's brother Prince Trypho, older brother of the First Liberator; was mid-toast at his own daughter's wedding when his throat was slit and his vassals murdered.

3. Simon's daughter, Hannah, became both wife of Ptolemy, and also his prisoner, along with Simon's other two sons, Eliezer and Matthias, and the matriarch of the Hasmonean dynasty: Miriam Solomonia, widow of High Priest Matthias of Modi'in.

4. Simon was the third of Matthias's sons to die in office as High Priest and Secretary General of the Hasmonean Revolutionary Party - a position called 'Liberator' among the populace, and the second Liberator to be assassinated. Upon his brother's assassination, John the Hasmonean adapted the name John Hyrcanus Maccabee, Fourth Liberator of the Hasmonean Revolution. A mere few hours after his installment as Liberator, an attempt was made on his life, whereupon the Fourth Liberator immediately slew the assassins with his own fists. No more few hours after the attempt on Hyrcanus, an army raised by Ptolemy attempted to breech the walls of Jerusalem. Ptolemy-ben-Abbus mounted the walls himself along with Simon's children: Hannah, Eliezer, and Matthias, and the Hasmonean matriarch: Miriam Solomonia, Widow of Matthias - all four of whom were bedecked in chains. Ptolemy immediately set about beating his Hasmonean prisoners in view of the Jerusalemites with pieces of bone heated in a fire. Upon her flaying, Miriam Solomonia uttered the following speech to her son and the people of Jerusalem:

5. "Oh, my son, Johannes Hyrcanus, who chose the name in war of Hyrcania, land of the wolves lain to ruin by Mithridates of Ponthus, the Anatolian scourge of the Medians, Achaemenians, Seleucids, and Parthians! Hold fast your intent! Our torture is but a shadow on your torment watching Ptolemy inflict his agony upon us. Succumb not to fear nor to the Ptolemaic lacerations! Such moments are to us as but titilations on the soul, which belongs to the Holy One! Blessed be His name! Pour out your wrath on the nations that kingdoms that do not acknowledge our name! You and only you are the Lord's Chosen Defender, Ruler of the Judeans, Fourth Liberator of the Revolution, appointed for your task by the Holy One Without End! Never acquiesce! Never concede! Tremble not! Quaver not! For the Lord is one and He is with you!"

6. Whereupon the Hasmonean matriarch and her grandchildren fell through their irons to their deaths upon the hallowed Jerusalem ground; and the people of Jerusalem, repulsed by their flaying and cherishing the honor of the Revolution, massacred the entire army of Ptolemy-ben-Abbus.

Classical Tale of Perversion: The Friendship of Maccabee and Antiochus, Rough Draft

   Fall - 135 BC, 619 Ab urbe condita, 3627

1. Upon Rosh Hashana 3627, Greek King Antiochus VII Sedetes, "Antiochus the Pious", heard of the massacre and prepared an army of 20,000 to sack Jerusalem. Upon Yom Kippur, John Hyrcanus, still officiating as High Priest, entered the Holy of Holies and prayed for a solution, whereupon God the Father sent a sign to John Hyrcanus to open the Sepulchre of King David, where was discovered 3000 ancient golden shekels; with which Hyrcanus could bribe Antiochus the Pious to refrain from sacking Jerusalem.

2. Upon reaching the gates of Jerusalem, Antiochus the Pious was informed by a messenger that it was Sukkot - Jewish Feast of the Tabernacles, during which Judeans cannot work. Antiochus the Pious knew well the story of his great-grandfather, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, and wanted no repeat of the Greeks' experience with Hunakkah, the Festival of Light. He therefore agreed immediately to a week's armistice.

3. Yet under cover of the seventh night, two messengers were seen leaving the Jerusalem gates, two of which were intercepted, one of whom was carrying a message to the Roman consul Flaccus pleading for Rome's assistance, the other to the Roman consul Piso. Under pain of torture, these messengers admitted that there were twelve vassals, all carrying the same message. After a day's torture and deliberation, Antiochus the Pious petitioned Hyrcanus for an immediate meeting to take place outside the city walls under flag of truce.

4. Hyrcanus: "I really must protest this meeting being unable to wait. I am supposed not to work today but you called for an emergency meeting so that I might plea for the lives of two Jerusalemites, so here I am." Antiochus: "I gave you an armistice last week because your vassal said it was your Festival Week during which you cannot work, but your festival week is over." "It was our festival week." "But you say that you're not allowed to work today." "I'm not." "But the festival week is over." "It is, but I'm not allowed to work today." "Why?" "Because it's our three holidays in the days after the Festival Week." "You're not allowed to work for ten days?" "We are allowed to work during our Festival Week, just not in the days after." "Then why did your messengers tell me you weren't." "Because your army came on the first day of the Festival, during which we're not allowed to work." "So you're allowed to work for the other days of the Festival Week?" "Yes." "Then why did you wait to send messengers until the seventh night when you couldn't work?" "We can work on the seventh night." "But you just said that there were three holidays after your Festival during which you can't work." "During the first holiday we can work, it's the other two holidays we can't. That's why the messengers left when they did, so they could be past your forces by the time it was time to stop working." "So your festival is six days long? Why did you tell us it was a week?" "It's a week-long festival, but the last day is both the last day of the Festival and its own holida..." "ENOUGH OF THIS!"

5. Antiochus: "Our intelligence tells us that twelve messengers left Jerusalem under cover of night. Was this at your permission?" "Yes." "Our intelligence further tells us they were all carrying the same message. Is this true?" "No." "Six of them were carrying the same message to Consul Flaccus, six of them were carrying the same message to Consul Piso, is this true?" "Yes." "And why did you send twelve messengers?" "Because we thought you would intercept some of our messengers and kill them." "I'm not my family. Those days of the Antiochus dynasty are over." "Your Majesty will have to excuse us for not knowing that." "Even if I don't kill them, Cleopatra's intelligence men are all over the Levant, my intelligence men are all over the Levant and I have no way to reach them. They're all on the lookout for travelers with messages, trying to intercept any message between Rome and Jerusalem. They may yet kill your messengers before they get to Rome." "That's why there are a dozen messengers, also by sending them on the seventh night we give you two day's notice to call off your..." "I'd really rather not know why you sent them on the seventh night..."

6. "No gold was found on the messengers." "No, it wouldn't be." "Then why would you think the Roman consuls would entertain your suit for their assistance?" "Why would we need to bribe Consuls Flaccus and Piso when our contacts in Rome helped to finance all of the Punic Wars?" "I was under the impression that Judea was in debt from your wars with us." "We are." "Then how in Plutus's name have you the money to finance Rome?" "Judea is not its Judeans, and Judean bankers in Rome may only leverage so much for us above the tributes they pay to Rome." "So if I'm surrounding you and you already owe money, then why should I grant you clemency?" "Because Rome will grant us assistance." "Your friends in Rome must have paid a hefty tribute." "They did." "And you must know that Rome desires much of Greece and Syria for itself." "I surely do."

7. "It would appear this invasion was a folly of mine, and yet as a King, you'll soon appreciate that we must always have something to show for our follies." "I'm not a king." "A high priest who's also his Party Secretary is far more powerful than a King. Any modest remuneration from you will do." "I actually have something more than modest for you. We have a treasure just discovered in the Sepulchre of our most glorious royal ancestor. It will be entirely yours." "And where is this treasure?" "It will come to you (they both say) when we can work again." "And when is that?" "Sundown." "No tricks this time?" "It wasn't a trick." "Speaking of trick, you're right that a former King's buried treasure is no modest thing, but if you have such a treasure, it stands to reason that you have far larger ones to which you are not granting me access." "If I did, and I don't, those treasures would obviously go to Rome." "I still believe your people have more treasures laying in wait." "Kings always do." "Your better at this than your brothers." "I know."

8. Antiochus: "Well, understanding that even the combined forces of Cleopatra the Third and Antiochus the Seventh could not possibly face Rome, I must immediately cease hostilities and pledge myself as an ally and friend to the Fourth Judean Liberator, John Hyrcanus. But I must warn him that my days grow short, and my children are not nearly so far sighted as its new Liberator seems to be." "Well then, the new Liberator will learn at the King of Greece's feet how our region can live peacefully."

129 BC, 625 Ab urbe condita, 3632

9. Antiochus VII Sedetes was on his deathbed. Hyrcanus: "I have learned at your feet how our region can live peacefully." Antiochus: "Consider your oath fulfilled." "I took an oath not to invade Greek territory after your death." "You won't keep it." "I will!" "I believe you would, but you know my children, they'd destroy our peace at a moment's impulse." "Surely your children are not as incompetent as that." "A moment's impulse caused my reinvasion of Judea." "Has this region ever known peace like the one your impulse brought?" "The invasion was an old man's folly, corrected the moment we met, but peace itself is an old man's folly."

10. "Surely peace isn't folly." "It surely is. Mend your follies Hyrcanus. I've indulged mine blithely." "What follies? You're Antiochus the pious, you're the only Greek who isn't a hedonist." "I have one folly above all." "What?" "The same as yours. My children. Mind your own children Liberator. They can be as much a shame to the Maccabee line as mine are to the Antiochs."

11. And at that moment, Antiochus's son smothered him with a pillow.