History of the Jews (Vol. 1-6). Graetz Heinrich
defence of the Temple and of the fortress of Bethzur. Thus he was compelled to restrict himself to defensive operations. The garrison of Bethzur fought bravely, and attempted to destroy the siege-train of the invaders. Unfortunately, the scarcity of their provisions would not permit the beleaguered to undergo a long siege, and, moreover, they were betrayed by a traitor, Rodocus, who is accused of having revealed to the enemy the secret ways by which food was introduced into the fortress. At length famine and treachery compelled the garrison of Bethzur to surrender; but they were allowed free egress from the fortress. Relieved on this side, the Syrian army was now able to march upon Jerusalem. Nothing was left to Maccabæus but to meet them in the field. He advanced at the head of his troops to Beth-Zachariah, not far from Bethsur, where he awaited the enemy. The Judæans again performed prodigies of valour. Eleazar, one of the Hasmonæan brothers, thinking that the magnificently-attired rider of an elephant was the king himself, crept boldly under the animal, stabbed it to death, and fell crushed by its enormous weight. But in spite of the courage and daring of the Judæans, they were obliged to retreat before the superior numbers of the Syrians. Judas retreated to Jerusalem, and entrenched himself with his army in the Temple fortress. Lysias soon followed, and began a formal siege of the Sanctuary. Judas did not fail to defend himself, and also erected catapults. As the siege continued for a long time, the supplies, which were not plentiful on account of the Sabbatical year, were soon consumed by the garrison. Tortured by hunger, the troops began to desert the fortress by subterranean passages. Only Judas Maccabæus, his three brothers, and a small band of devoted followers remained steadfastly at their post of danger, defying the pangs of hunger. Jerusalem, or, more properly speaking, its last place of refuge, the Temple, was about to fall, as in the time of Nebuchadnezzar, through want of food; but help came unexpectedly.
Philip, who had been named regent of Syria by the dying king Antiochus Epiphanes, had raised a large army of Medo-Persians, and was marching upon Antioch to deprive Lysias of the rule. As soon as Lysias heard of the advance of his rival, he was forced to withdraw his troops from Jerusalem to lead them against this new enemy. He therefore persuaded the young king to make peace with the Judæans, and thus a treaty was concluded, the chief condition being that the Judæans should enjoy complete religious freedom, and that the fortress of the Temple should remain inviolate. Lysias agreed by oath to these conditions, but as soon as the gates of the fortress were opened, he ordered his soldiers to raze the walls and the towers to the ground. In no other way, however, did he seek to molest the Judæans, for he neither destroyed nor desecrated the Sanctuary, and he soon commenced his march to Syria, where Philip had taken possession of the capital. Thus the numerous battles of the Hasmonæans were crowned after all with success, and the Judæans were once more permitted to enjoy religious liberty, and were no longer compelled to sacrifice to Jupiter.
But these wars had another fortunate result: the Syrian court withdrew its protection from the Hellenists, who were obliged to leave their fortress in the Acra. Menelaus, the usurping high-priest, the author of untold misery, was sacrificed by Lysias. The latter looked upon him as a firebrand, and had him executed in Berœa (Aleppo), after he had, for ten years, degraded his priestly diadem by the most execrable conduct. Jason, who had not, indeed, been so great a criminal as Menelaus, but who had done his best to disturb the peace of his country, had expired somewhat earlier in a foreign land. Persecuted by Antiochus Epiphanes, and driven by the Nabatæan prince, Aretas, out of his country, he had fled to Egypt, but finding no safety there, had wandered from town to town, until at last he had found a grave in Sparta.
The truce between the Syrian court and the Judæan people making a return to the old order of things possible, it was necessary to elect a new high-priest as political chief, and who could be found worthier of that office than Judas Maccabæus? The great Hasmonæan hero was most probably raised to that dignity by Antiochus Eupator, or by his guardian, Lysias.
During these days of peace, the warrior was able to lay aside his arms, the peasant to till his fields, and the scribe to devote himself to the study and the expounding of the Law; the bleeding wounds of the commonwealth began at length to close and to heal. But peace was not to be of long duration.
The excitement, resulting from years of civil warfare, was not so easily allayed that a veil could be thrown over the past. There were still avowed and clandestine Hellenists, who hated Judas Maccabæus and his devoted adherents, especially the Chasidim, on account of the restraint imposed upon them and the frustration of their efforts. They took advantage of a turn in the political tide to gratify their bitter animosity. Prince Demetrius, who had been debarred from the succession to the throne of Syria by his uncle Antiochus Epiphanes, and who had been left by that monarch as hostage in Rome, seized upon a favourable opportunity for quitting that city to depose the son of the usurper and his guardians.
Lysias had foolishly and publicly maintained trained elephants and built ships of war, though the Roman Senate had interdicted both. Hereupon Rome sent one of its severest censors to Syria, the envoy Cneius Octavius, not only to pronounce a severe reproof against the regent, but also to order the slaying of his elephants and the burning of his fleet. The orders were carried out without opposition; but Octavius met with his death, at the hand of a patriot, in a bath at Laodicea. Thus the authorities in Rome, displeased with the court of Antiochus, overlooked the escape of Demetrius. When this prince appeared as an invader in Syria, he gained over the people and the army to his cause, and put the king and the regent to death (162). The discontented Judæan party made use of this change of rulers to lodge their complaints against the Hasmonæans. They were led by a priest of the name of Jakim, or in Greek Alcimus, the nephew of one of the teachers of the Law, Josê, son of Joëzer, but himself an adherent of the innovators. Alcimus and his adherents, embittered at having been excluded from the Temple and the altar, repaired to the king of Syria—it is said, with a golden introduction—to whom they gave a gloomy picture of the state of Judæa, ascribing the misfortunes of the country to Judas and his followers. The accusation was levelled chiefly against Maccabæus. So long as he lived, they said, the land would not obtain the blessings of peace. This accusation was pleasing to Demetrius, as it gave him an opportunity of asserting his power over a small, semi-independent province. Though he did not mean to walk in the footsteps of his kinsman, Antiochus Epiphanes, in the matter of religious persecutions, still, the fact of his being able to name Alcimus high-priest and political head of the Judæan commonwealth, would be a sign that he was master of the people. In order to prevent any opposition to his wishes, he sent Bacchides, a rude, inexorable warrior, with a large troop of Syrians, to Jerusalem. He came with peaceful assurances on his lips. But Judas and his brethren were not deceived. Convinced that their freedom and their lives were at stake, they quitted their beloved city, and retreated to the mountains.
The unsuspicious Chasidim, however, allowed themselves to be deceived; they trusted Alcimus, because he was of the house of Aaron. A large assembly of distinguished scribes, possibly the whole body of the Synhedrin, repaired to Bacchides and Alcimus, assuring them of their friendliness and devotion, and begged them to take measures for restoring the quiet of their country. Alcimus, the new high-priest, solemnly swore that this was his intention; but as soon as he had taken possession of the city, he ordered sixty of the Chasidim to be slain, his uncle Josê being probably one of the victims. This outrage, coupled with his perjury, spread terror and mourning through the whole country. Again all hearts turned towards the Maccabees, and many of those who had joined the faction of Alcimus left him, and sought the Hasmonæan brothers at Modin.
It hardly required a new outrage, perpetrated by Bacchides, to light the torch of civil war. The Syrian army had intercepted the march of a number of Judæans who were leaving Alcimus in a body, had surrounded them near Jerusalem, at Beth Zachariah, and after slaying them, had thrown their dead bodies into a cistern. All who loved their freedom and their country now gathered round the Hasmonæans. But Alcimus succeeded in attracting the ambitious, luxurious and law-breaking Judæans. The nation was once more divided into two rival factions. At first the Hellenists were the stronger, as they were under the protection of foreign troops. Alcimus lost no time in marching through the land, in order to force the inhabitants to pay submission to Demetrius, and obedience to himself as high-priest. Meanwhile the army of the Maccabees was growing in strength and numbers. Judas was once more able to take the field against the Hellenists, and to punish the deserters, and he spread such terror that the adherents of Alcimus did not dare show themselves outside