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."
No comments:
Post a Comment