History of the Jews (Vol. 1-6). Graetz Heinrich

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СКАЧАТЬ the battlements into the depths below, whilst others lit their own funeral pyre. It is believed that twelve thousand Judæans met their death upon this day. Pompey then penetrated into the Sanctuary, in order to satisfy his curiosity as to the nature of the Judæan worship, about which the most contradictory reports prevailed. The Roman general was not a little astonished at finding within the sacred recesses of the Holy of Holies, neither an ass's head nor, indeed, images of any sort. Thus the malicious fictions busily circulated by Alexandrian writers, and of a character so prejudicial to the Judæans, were now shown to be false. The entrance of the Roman conqueror into the Temple, though deplorable enough, was in a way favorable to Judaism. Whether he was penetrated by awe at the sublime simplicity of the Holy of Holies, or whether he did not wish to be designated as the robber of sanctuaries, we know not; but, wonderful to relate, Pompey controlled his greed for gold and left the treasury, containing 2000 talents, untouched. But the independence of the nation ceased forever from that hour. Exactly a century after the Maccabees had freed their people from the tyranny of the Syrians, their descendants brought down the tyranny of the Romans upon Judæa.

      What did Hyrcanus gain by his supplication for aid from the Republic? Pompey deprived him of his royal title, only leaving him the dignity of the high priesthood, with the doubtful appellation of ethnarch, and made him the ward of Antipater, who was named governor of the country. The walls of Jerusalem were razed to the ground, Judæa put into the category of conquered provinces, and a tax was levied upon the capital. The territory was brought within narrower confines, and its extent became once more what it had been in pre-Hasmonæan times. Several seaports lying along the coast, and inhabited by Greeks, as well as those trans-Jordanic towns which Hyrcanus and Alexander had conquered after hard fighting, and had incorporated with Judæa, were declared to be free towns by Pompey, and were placed under the guardianship of the Roman governor of Syria. But these cities, particularly the trans-Jordanic ones, joined together in a defensive and offensive league, calling themselves the Decapolis. Pompey ordered the most determined of his prisoners of war, the zealots, to be executed, whilst the rest were taken to Rome. The Judæan prince, Aristobulus, his son Antigonus, his two daughters, and his uncle Absalom were forced to precede Pompey's triumphal car, in the train of the conquered Asiatic kings and kings' sons. Whilst Zion veiled her head in mourning, Rome was reveling in her victories; but the Judæan prisoners that had been dragged to Rome were to become the nucleus of a community destined to carry on a new kind of warfare against long-established Roman institutions, and ultimately to modify or partly destroy them.

      There were, without doubt, many Judæans living in Rome and in other Italian cities before Pompey's conquests, who may have emigrated into Italy from Egypt and Asia Minor for commercial objects. As merchants, bringing grain from the Nile country, or tribute money from Asia Minor, they may have come into contact with the Roman potentates. But these emigrants could hardly have formed a regular communal organization, for there were no authorized teachers of the Law amongst them. Probably, however, some learned men may have followed in Pompey's train of captives, who were ransomed by their compatriots, and persuaded to remain in Rome. The descendants of these prisoners were called according to Roman law libertini (the freed ones). The Judæan quarter in Rome lay upon the right bank of the Tiber, on the slope of Mount Vatican, and a bridge leading across that river to the Vatican was known for a long while by the name of the Bridge of the Judæans (Pons Judæorum). Theodus, one of the Judæans settled in Rome, introduced into his own community a substitute for the paschal lamb, which could not be eaten outside of Jerusalem, and the loss of which was a bitter deprivation to the exiles. This aroused the displeasure of the Judæans in the home country, who wrote to Theodus: "If thou wert not Theodus, we should excommunicate thee."

      The Roman Judæans influenced, to a certain extent, the course of Roman policy. For as the original emigrants, as well as the ransomed captives, enjoyed the power of voting in public assemblies, they were able at times, by their combined action on a preconcerted plan, by their assiduity, by their temperate and passionless conception of the situation, perhaps also by their keen intelligence, to turn the scale upon some popular question. So important was their quiet influence that the eloquent but intolerant Cicero, who had learned to hate the Judæans from his master Apollonius Molo, was afraid on one occasion to give vent to his anti-Judæan feelings in a public speech, for fear of stirring them up against him. He had to defend the unjust cause of a prætor Flaccus, who was accused of having been guilty of numerous extortions during his government of the Asia Minor provinces. Amongst other things, Flaccus had seized upon the votive offerings of the Temple (aurum Judæorum) given by the community of Asia Minor—about two hundred pounds of gold, collected by the Judæan inhabitants of the towns of Apamea, Laodicea, Adramyttium, and Pergamus (62). In order to justify his proceedings Flaccus cited a resolution of the Senate, by which all exportation of money was forbidden from Roman to foreign provinces; and although Judæa had been conquered by Roman arms, yet she did not enjoy the honor of being enrolled amongst the provinces of the Republic. The Roman Judæans were intensely interested in this trial, and many of them were present among the populace. The cowardly Cicero was so much afraid of them that he would have liked to speak in a low tone in order to be heard by the Judges but not by the Judæans. In the course of his defense he made use of an unworthy piece of sophistry, which might have made an impression upon some bigoted Roman, but which could hardly satisfy an intelligent mind. "It requires great decision of character," he said, "to oppose the barbaric superstitions of the Judæans and, for the good of our country, to show proper contempt towards these seditious people, who invade our public assemblies. If Pompey did not avail himself of a conqueror's rights, and left the treasures of the Temple untouched, we may be sure he did not restrain himself out of reverence for the Judæan sanctuary, but out of astuteness, to avoid giving the suspicious and slanderous Judæan nation an opportunity of accusing him; for otherwise he would hardly have spared foreign, still less Judæan, sanctuaries. When Jerusalem was unconquered, and when the Judæans were living in peace, they displayed a deeply-rooted antipathy to the glory of the Roman State, to the dignity of the Roman name, and to the laws of our ancestors. During the last war the Judæan nation proved most effectually how bitterly they hate us. How little this nation is beloved by the immortal gods is now evident, as her country is conquered and leased out." What impression this speech made upon the audience, and what decision was given to Flaccus, are unknown. A year later Cicero was punished by a sentence of banishment. He was not allowed to be seen within eighty miles of Rome, and his villas were razed to the ground.

      After Pompey's departure from Syria, the thraldom imposed upon dismembered Judæa became more onerous than before, because she was left in the anomalous condition of a partly conquered province and a partly independent country. The powerful minister of Hyrcanus contributed to make this condition lasting and oppressive. He endeavored to strengthen his connection with Rome by munificent presents, trusting that the Republic would support him, in spite of his unpopularity with the Judæan people, who hated him as the cause of their subjection. With the sweat from Judæa's brow he sustained the Roman commander Scaurus, who had opened a campaign against the Nabathæan king, Aretas. Meanwhile Alexander II, the eldest son of Aristobulus, escaping from captivity and arriving in Judæa, gained the support of the patriots, and putting himself at the head of fifteen hundred horse and ten thousand foot soldiers, marched upon Jerusalem. Hyrcanus, or more properly speaking his master Antipater, could not resist so great a force, and left the capital to Alexander, who entered and had it fortified. The great Roman power fought alternately upon either side, according to the bribes that were offered its officials. Alexander felt so secure of his position that he had coins struck with the following inscription in Greek and Hebrew, "King Alexander and High Priest Jonathan." Aulus Gabinius, however, the governor of Syria, and the most unscrupulous of the Roman extortioners of his times, succeeded in ending this revolt and in subduing Alexander. The death-stroke that awaited the latter was only warded off by his mother, who, embracing the knees of the Roman commander, entreated him to show mercy to her son.

      Gabinius succeeded in weakening the unity of the Judæan State, which had of late been so unworthily represented by the last of the Hasmonæans, but the integrity of which had always been so jealously watched over by the Great Council. Judæa was no longer to be an independent State with self-governing and legislative powers over the whole country, but was to be divided into СКАЧАТЬ