History of the Jews, Vol. 2 (of 6). Graetz Heinrich

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ attractions, had nothing left but to seek death. The Alexandrian Judæans, who had suffered from her hatred, shared Herod's feelings. For, but a short time previous to her death, this terrible woman had longed to assassinate with her own hands the Judæans who were living in the capital of Egypt, and who were devoted to the cause of Octavianus. The Egyptian Judæans were rewarded for their devotion by an official recognition of their equality with the rest of the inhabitants; in fact, Octavianus had such confidence in their loyalty that he placed the harbors of the Nile and of the sea under the control of the Judæan Alabarchs, who had held that office under former Egyptian monarchs. This was a special mark of favor, for the possession of Egypt, the Roman granary, and particularly of the harbor of Alexandria, was so precious to the first emperor of Rome that no Senator dared approach that country without the imperial permission. When the Alabarch who was then in office died, Octavianus allowed his successor to be chosen by the Alexandrian Judæans, and granted him all the rights of his predecessors. Whilst he governed the Greek Alexandrians with extreme severity on account of their depravity, their untrustworthiness and their love of sedition, and kept them strictly under his own rule, he appointed a Judæan Council to assist the Alabarchs or Ethnarchs. The Judæan community was thus governed by one of its own race, who decided all the judicial questions and provided for the carrying out of all imperial commands and behests.

      Octavianus also granted to the numerous Judæans who were settled in Rome, the Libertini, if not extraordinary privileges, at least the right of observing their own religious customs, and thus set a worthy example to his successors. The Judæans were allowed to build synagogues, where they worshiped according to their rites; they were also permitted to transmit their yearly contributions to the Temple in Jerusalem, although, in general, it was forbidden to send large sums out of Rome. The Roman Judæans also received their due portion of the grain that was distributed amongst the population. If the distribution happened to take place on a Sabbath, their portion was allotted to them on the following day. These were the orders of the emperor.

      Octavianus made over to Herod the splendid body-guard of Cleopatra, numbering four hundred Gauls, and he placed under his jurisdiction several seaports that had been torn from Judæa, as well as the territory of Jericho. Samaria, as also Gadara and Hippos in trans-Jordanic territory, were also incorporated with Judæa. The area of the kingdom was now identical with what it had been before the civil war between the royal brothers and the first intervention of the Romans; but different, indeed, were the circumstances under which she had regained her possessions! Probably it was due to Herod's boundless sycophancy to Rome that sacrifices were now regularly offered up for the welfare of the Cæsars, Augustus and his consort presenting in return golden vessels for the use of the Temple.

      Herod was now at the very zenith of his power; the untoward fortune that he had feared had not only been averted, but had actually assisted in exalting him. He was not, however, to enjoy his good fortune; the terrible consequences of his crimes clung to his footsteps and changed his cup of happiness into one of gall. In the narrow circle of his own home a tragedy was about to be enacted, far more terrible than could have been conceived by the imagination of a poet. Mariamne, who, as well as her mother Alexandra, had been in close confinement during the king's absence, had elicited from her gaoler Soem the fact that she would not have been permitted to outlive Herod. Upon the king's return she made no secret of her hatred for him, and when he spoke to her in words of tenderness and affection, she taunted him with the murders of her brother, her grandfather and many others of her relatives. Herod's heart was torn by the love he bore to this beautiful woman and by the wrath he felt at her persistent enmity to his person and his power. Whilst still a prey to these conflicting feelings he was only too ready to lend a willing ear to the malicious inventions of his sister Salome, who assured him that his cup-bearer had been bribed by Mariamne to poison him. During the investigation that ensued it transpired that Soem had disclosed his secret instructions to the queen, and this treachery on the part of a confidential servant let loose a host of wild passions within Herod's breast. Soem was decapitated on the spot. Whilst still moved by his ungovernable rage, Herod summoned a council, before whom he accused his wife of adultery and of an attempt to poison him. The judges passed the sentence of death upon her, and, wishing to curry favor with Herod, ordered the execution to take place forthwith. It was thus that the most beautiful woman in Judæa, the Hasmonæan princess, the pride of her people, was led to the scaffold. She went to her doom with remarkable fortitude, without the faintest tremor or the least display of feminine weakness, worthy of her heroic ancestry (29). We may take Mariamne as the symbol of Judæa, delivered up to the axe of the executioner by intrigue and passion.

      But Mariamne's death did not quench Herod's thirst for revenge; on the contrary, it brought on still fiercer paroxysms of rage. He could not endure her loss, and became a prey to sickness and insanity. He would call frantically upon her name in a passion of sobs and tears; and he had her body embalmed in honey, so that he might keep it in his presence. It was whilst traveling in Samaria that he fell so dangerously ill that the doctors despaired of his life, and when this intelligence reached his capital, Alexandra proceeded to possess herself of Jerusalem. But the king's vitality returned upon the rumor of this sudden peril to his throne, and Alexandra fell a victim to her sedition. She was the very last who bore the Hasmonæan name, and she had lived long enough to witness the violent and disgraceful deaths of her father-in-law Aristobulus II, her husband Alexander, her brother-in-law Antigonus, her son Aristobulus III, her father Hyrcanus II, and her daughter Mariamne.

      The remaining two-thirds of the Herodian reign are devoid of any real progress; the record of that time tells of cringing submission to Augustus and to Rome, of the erection of magnificent edifices, of the love of pomp and display, of deeply-rooted moral corruption, of unsuccessful conspiracies and court intrigues, leading to new crimes and further executions. In order to retain the favor of the all-powerful Augustus, Herod introduced into Jerusalem the celebration of the Actian games, occurring every fifth year, in remembrance of Augustus' victory over his rival, he also built theaters and arenas, where he organized combats between gladiators or wild beasts, thus arousing the displeasure of the national party, who rightly divined that it was intended that Judaism soon should be absorbed by a Pagan-Roman worship, and who recognized in the Roman trophies and eagles displayed in the theaters, the introduction of Roman deities. Herod gave his people another cause for umbrage, in the fact that he was not only ornamenting the hated city of Samaria, within a circumference of half a mile, with the most beautiful buildings, but that he also contemplated making that city the capital of his dominions, a dignity for which she was singularly adapted by her fortunate position. The newly-built Samaria was renamed Sebaste, just as the citadel Baris, the armory of the Hasmonæans in old days, on the northwest side of the Temple, had been called Antonia in honor of Antony. In fact, Judæa became crowded with cities and with monuments which bore the names of Herod's own family or those of his Roman protectors. The fortress of Straton on the sea was, by most lavish expenditure, converted into a beautiful city, with an extensive harbor, and received the name of Cæsarea, one of the towers on its walls being called Drusus, after the son of Augustus. Herod did not even hesitate to erect a Roman temple on the soil of the Holy Land. Two colossal figures were raised in Cæsarea, one of them representing, in gigantic proportions, the figure of Augustus as the Olympian Jupiter, and the other that of the city of Rome as the Argive Juno. At the splendid consecration of Cæsarea, the rebuilding of which had occupied twelve years, the inhabitants could have imagined themselves transported into a pagan city. On account of its name, its origin and its importance, the national party justly called it Little Rome. In later days it became the seat of the Roman governor, the rival of Jerusalem, and finally her conqueror. Whenever Cæsarea rejoiced, Jerusalem was sure to mourn. The harbor of Cæsarea, which grew in time to be a town itself, was called Sebastus. Herod had, without doubt, enhanced the beauty of Judæa, but, like a doomed victim, she was garlanded for the altar. His love of display found satisfaction in the magnificence of his edifices, but not his love of renown. Despairing of securing the affection of his own people, he resolved to compel the admiration of the stranger. He exhausted his people by taxation, redoubled his extortions, searched for hidden treasures in the ancient royal cemeteries, sold those who had been imprisoned for theft as slaves to neighboring countries, and then lavished all the funds he had gained by these practices upon the adornment of Syrian, Asiatic, and Greek cities. Huge were СКАЧАТЬ