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THE SELEUCID EMPIRE. 358-251 BC. HOUSE OF SELEUCUS

CHAPTER 28.

ALEXANDER I AND THE PTOLEMAIC ASCENDANCY

The chief part in overthrowing Demetrius and bringing in Alexander had been taken by Ptolemy Philometor. It had been shown abundantly how dangerous to the Egyptian realm an ambitious and enterprising Seleucid king was likely to be. Philometor had therefore supported Alexander with the design of having upon the Seleucid throne someone entirely subservient to himself, of establishing a dominant interest in Syria. Attalus and Ariarathes, who simply wished to secure themselves from aggression on the side of Syria, were probably quite agreeable to a settlement which left the country in this sort of informal dependence upon the Ptolemaic crown. Immediately Alexander was in his seat, Philometor caused him to marry his daughter Cleopatra. Just as her grandmother, the Seleucid Cleopatra, had been married half a century before to Ptolemy Epiphanes in order to promote the Seleucid interest in Egypt, so she was now sent to the Seleucid court by the son of Ptolemy Epiphanes to confirm his ascendancy over Syria. And her rôle in the country would indeed be a principal one someday, for in the person of the young princess Destiny was introducing the Erinys of the house of Seleucus. She was received by the bridegroom at Ptolemais, whither she had been escorted by her father. There the marriage was celebrated “with great pomp, as the manner of kings is”.

As for the Syrians, they hailed a new king with delight. The handsome, genial youth of twenty-three was a happy exchange for the eagle face and proud aloofness of Demetrius. He would not turn a dark brow upon their easy, festive life, or harass the country by bringing it into continual collisions with its neighbors. His relations with all the powers were extremely friendly. The three neighbor kings had been his supporters. Rome had smiled upon his enterprise.

So Alexander, whoever he was, sat as king upon the throne of Seleucus. He bore the surnames of Theopator Euergetes. For these two we sometimes find Epiphanes Nicephorus, those of his (alleged) father, or Eupator, the surname of his brother. But the name by which he was known in the mouth of the people was Balas.

It is impossible to gauge the extent or form of the Ptolemaic ascendancy. It seems to be implied that the seat of the Seleucid court was now usually at Ptolemais, where it would be in closer touch with Alexandria. The silver money minted in the King’s name in the Phoenician cities was assimilated to the standard of Egypt instead of to the Attic, which was the ordinary standard for Seleucid money, and it bore for emblem the Ptolemaic eagle.

As a ruler Alexander proved himself utterly worthless. He fell under the dominion of mistresses and favorites, while the government was abandoned to the prime minister Ammonius, who made himself detested by his crimes. The minister’s jealousy raged like fire in the court. All possible rivals among the Friends were removed by a series of murders. Among his victims were Laodice, either the queen of Antiochus Epiphanes (and therefore the putative mother of Alexander) or the queen of Demetrius, and Antigonus, one of the sons of Demetrius, whom he had not sent out of Syria. The government of Antioch itself was given over to two favourites, Hierax and Diodotus.

A page from the lost work of Athenaeus which dealt with the Seleucid kings gives a momentary vision of the court of Alexander Balas. Among the royal favorites was a certain Diogenes, from the Babylonian Seleucia, who had some standing as an exponent of the Epicurean philosophy. The King, who amused himself with philosophic discussion, preferred the doctrine of the Stoics (!). But he found Diogenes very good company, for the man had a daring, pungent wit, and did not spare even the royal family when he could make matter for a jest. One day Diogenes told Alexander that he was resolved to be the priest of Virtue (his life, of course, was outrageous), and he asked leave to wear in that character a crimson vestment and a golden crown with a figure of Virtue in the middle of it. Alexander was charmed with the idea, and himself made Diogenes a present of the crown. In a few days the philosopher had given the things away to a singing girl, his latest passion. It came to the ears of Alexander. He at once made a banquet for philosophers and men of note, and invited Diogenes. When he presented himself, the King begged him to put on his vestment and his crown before taking his couch. Diogenes made some vague excuse, and at that the King waved his hand. Instantly a troop of players came in, and among them the singing girl, crowned with the crown of Virtue, and wearing the crimson dress. A shout of laughter went up from the company, but the philosopher was not put out of countenance. The more the company laughed, the more he faced them out with the girl’s praises.

But this life of laughter—with the sinister background of murder—could not go on long when stronger hands than Alexander's were ready to seize the inheritance. In three years the Syrians were tired of him, and they hated Ammonius. They began to want a genuine king again. Alexander was thoroughly popular only in one quarter — with the Jews. The Jews liked him because he left them alone.

We must observe what had happened in Judaea since we last saw it, subjugated by Bacchides and pegged down with strong military posts.

Two years after that date (i.e. in 158) the Seleucid government had withdrawn its ban from the Hasmonaean party. This change in its attitude is so impolitic that we want some further explanation than that given by the Jewish book which is our only authority. It is there represented as due to the vexation of Bacchides, who had been called in by the Hellenistic party to seize the Hasmonaean leaders, which they assured him could be easily done—only to find that he was involved in the fruitless siege of some stronghold in the wilderness. Whatever the motive of the change of policy, the government apparently, in the person of Bacchides, made peace with the Hasmonaeans, granted them an amnesty, and liberated those of their adherents (except, of course, the hostages) whom they held prisoners. Jonathan, Simon and their followers were allowed to return to Judaea, although Jerusalem and the chain of fortified towns remained in possession of the government. But when once the brothers of Judas were back in the country and countenanced by the government, the party grew daily in strength, commanding as it did the sympathy of the mass of the people. It came to be once more—de facto, at any rate—the dominant power in the Judaean countryside. With his headquarters at Michmas, Jonathan steadily advanced his power at the expense of the Hellenizing Council which sat in Jerusalem. The formal deficiencies of his position—his lack of recognized title, his exclusion from the capital — were nevertheless sensible. Jonathan could not feel his object attained till he ruled as High-priest in Jerusalem.

Quite new prospects opened out for the nationalist Jews in 152, when there were two rival kings in the land. This condition of things will recur over and over again, and we shall now see the Hasmonaean power growing, not so much by its own strength, as by the favors of those who bid against each other for its support. Its growth is the work of the Gentile kings themselves. The conditions will be entirely different from those under which Judas fought and died.

Jonathan, who had become by 152 the real ruler of Judaea, found both Demetrius and Alexander willing to give almost any price for his support. The two immediate objects of the Hasmonaeans were the recovery of Jerusalem and the acquisition of the high-priesthood. Demetrius, beforehand with his offers, conceded the first Jonathan was authorized to take possession of Jerusalem, the akra excepted, and to form a Jewish army. The hostages in the akra were restored. In the stress of the war between the two kings the garrisons were withdrawn or fled from all Bacchides' chain of posts, except the akra and Beth-sur, where a number of the Hellenizers had taken refuge.

Jonathan used the concession of Demetrius to the full, and at once set about refortifying the city. Again a nationalist stronghold confronted the akra.

Alexander proceeded to outbid Demetrius by conceding the second point. He authorized Jonathan to assume the supreme office, the high-priesthood. At the Feast of Tabernacles in Tishri (October) 152, Jonathan appeared for the first time in the robes of his sacred office. At last the brother of Judas Maccabaeus had attained the coveted prize—as the gift of a heathen king! Jonathan was also admitted by Alexander to the order of Friends.

When the marriage of Alexander and Cleopatra was celebrated in Ptolemais, and the town gave itself up to festivity at the presence of two kings, the Jewish High-priest was among those who came bringing gold to Alexander and Ptolemy and the great men of their suites. The Hellenistic party made a desperate attempt to get the new King's ear, but Alexander would not listen to them, and treated Jonathan with marked consideration, clothing him in a crimson dress of honor. He was raised to the rank of the First Friends. His position as High-priest and ruler of the nation was fitted into the general system of the kingdom by constituting him strategos of Judaea for the King.

Thenceforward under King Alexander the Hasmonaean High-priest ruled without interference. The Hellenistic party melted away. Only the garrison of Gentile soldiers remained in the akra. But nothing occurred to impair the good-will of the Jews to the King, who was too indolent to be troublesome.

A curious picture of the relations of the cities of the realm to the Seleucid government under Alexander is given us by the story of Aradus and Marathus. Marathus, on the mainland, was formally more subject to the Seleucid King than the island Aradus, but it was not burdened with any royal garrison. Aradus wished to see Marathus blotted out—one supposes commercial rivalry or some such reason. To compass its end it intrigued in the usual way at the court; 300 talents came into the hands of Ammonius as bakshish, and it was agreed that a royal force was to enter Marathus under false pretences and then put the Aradians in possession. But Marathus refused to admit the King’s men, and, believing Aradus friendly, sent an embassy to entreat their mediation; their influence at the court was well known. The Aradians murdered the envoys and cunningly sent back letters to Marathus in the envoys’ name and stamped with their signets, announcing that Aradus was sending troops—the city had troops of its own—to help Marathus against the royal force. The plan failed because there was a fisherman in Aradus, a “just man”, who swam the channel, all boats having been seized by the Aradian authorities, to warn Marathus what was toward. The noteworthy thing from our point of view is the large degree of independence with which the cities act, how loose an organization of the kingdom is displayed.

While Alexander was wantoning in the palaces of the Seleucid kings, the two sons of Demetrius in Asia Minor were growing to manhood. In 148-147, when the elder, Demetrius, can have been at the most fourteen years old, those who had the boy in their keeping thought the time ripe for attempting to set the true King upon the throne. The first step, of course, was to get a body of mercenaries, and Crete, with its interminable petty wars, was the best recruiting ground. A noted Cretan condottiere, Lasthenes, was ready enough to undertake the management of the expedition. With an army drawn from Crete and the Greek islands, and commanded by Lasthenes, Demetrius set foot in “the land of his fathers”.

The presence of the young Demetrius in the kingdom came as a rude shock to break upon the voluptuous paradise of Alexander Balas. He hurried north to Antioch, which was known to be disaffected. But the peril of insurrection was not confined to Antioch. Apollonius, the governor of Coele-Syria, declared for Demetrius as soon as Alexander had turned his back. Immediately the adherents of the respective kings came to blows in Palestine, as they were perhaps doing in other provinces of the kingdom—if Alexander had elsewhere friends as devoted as the Jews. The Hellenized Philistine cities, who had seen with great displeasure Alexander’s patronage of the Jewish leader, followed their governor zealously in striking for the cause of Demetrius. But in a battle near Azotus (Ashdod) the Jews gained a decisive victory. The defeated army of Apollonius fled into Azotus, and crowded for safety into the temple of Dagon. Jonathan entered after them and burnt the temple over the heads of the living mass. Soon the smoke was going up, not from Azotus only, but from the neighboring villages of the plain. Only Ascalon by timely obsequiousness bought immunity.

Alexander might congratulate himself at this critical moment on the friendship of the Jews. They had destroyed, without his lifting a finger, the revolted army which menaced his rear. He lost no time in confirming their loyalty. He raised Jonathan yet another step in rank, sending him the golden clasp which distinguished the King’s Kinsmen. He granted to him and his heirs the town of Ekron and its territory for personal possession.

But the disturbers of the existing settlement in Syria would have to reckon with the virtual suzerain, the King of Egypt. Ptolemy Philometor could not look on while his nominee was thrust aside. He was soon upon the scene in commanding force. The government of Alexander Balas had convinced him that the veiled and informal ascendancy he had designed to keep over Syria was not enough. An enterprising and independent Seleucid king menaced Egypt, a weak and dependent one was unable to hold the country in the Ptolemaic interest. Philometor therefore now determined to assure his supremacy in a more direct and open way. He crossed into Palestine with an imposing army, while his fleet moved up along the coast. In each of the principal cities of the sea-board, as he went north, he dropped a garrison of his own (perhaps in 147). At Azotus the inhabitants showed him the appalling relics of the Jewish visitation — the blackened shrines and heaps of charred corpses. Ptolemy reserved his judgment. He had not yet repudiated Alexander, and the Jews were ostensibly fighting on the same side. Jonathan himself came to meet the King of Egypt at Joppa, and accompanied him as far as the river Eleutherus (mod. Nahr-al-Kebir), the frontier of the Coele-Syrian province.

When all the coast cities as far as Seleucia were occupied by Ptolemy’s garrisons, the alliance between Ptolemy and Alexander was severed by an open quarrel. Ptolemy asserted that whilst he had been at Ptolemais he had detected an attempt upon his life on the part of Ammonius, Alexander’s prime minister. Ammonius had fled to Alexander at Antioch, and Ptolemy demanded that he should be given up for execution. Alexander evaded the demand, and Ptolemy renounced his alliance.

But he did not intend even now to take formal possession of the Seleucid kingdom. To leave the kingship and government to a king of his own making, married to his daughter, was more convenient, and now that he held the coast cities in his own hands, seemed safe. He therefore proffered his support and the hand of Cleopatra to Demetrius.

Demetrius, or rather the people who directed his action, naturally accepted the offer. Cleopatra was to take as her second husband a boy of fourteen or less. Alexander's position was hopeless. It must have been now, if not earlier, that he sent Cleopatra's child, Antiochus, to the Arab chieftain Yamlik, to be reared in the wilderness. Soon he was unable to hold down the discontent of Antioch. Even Hierax and Diodotus, who had been his instruments for governing the city, went over to the majority; they used their position to expel Alexander from the city. He fled to the Cilician hills, where, if anywhere, there was a chance of his getting together bands to retrieve his fortunes. Ammonius was left exposed to the vengeance of the Antiochenes. He tried to escape in feminine attire, but the hated face was recognized, and he was done to death.

Antioch was now at a stand. It had expelled Alexander, but it had also a short time before risen against Demetrius Soter, and apprehended what would follow the return of his son. A solution of the difficulty seemed for Ptolemy Philometor to take himself the inheritance of Seleucus. He was an able statesman, and a man of gracious and lovable character; he was also a Seleucid on the mother's side. When he came to Antioch, citizens and soldiers alike called upon him to ascend the throne; they were for binding two diadems upon his head, those of Egypt and Asia.

But Ptolemy saw his interest too clearly to be dazzled by the temptation. He urged the Antiochenes to receive Demetrius, and gave his word for it that there should be no reprisals for their infidelity to Demetrius I. So Demetrius entered his capital, and was acknowledged as Seleucid King. Only Coele-Syria, as one might have expected, he was obliged to give back to the house of Ptolemy, and the Egyptian garrisons continued to hold the Phoenician coast. Immediately on the return of Demetrius his marriage with Cleopatra was consummated.

By 145 Alexander had collected in Cilicia a force which seemed adequate for renewing the contest. He crossed the Amanus and descended into the plain of Antioch, which he began to devastate. Ptolemy advanced to meet him, and the two armies closed on the river Oenoparas. Alexander was routed, but the battle was not without disaster for the victorious side. The King of Egypt had mingled in the thick of the fighting, where his horse had taken fright at the trumpeting of an elephant and thrown him. Instantly Alexander’s Cilicians had flung themselves upon him and rained down blows. He was rescued by the royal body-guard and carried off alive, but his skull was fractured and he had lost consciousness.

Meanwhile Alexander fled for his life eastwards, to Abae in the wilderness, with five hundred followers. He hoped to find shelter with the friendly Arab chief to whom he had confided his son. But his little company contained traitors. Some of his Greco-Syrian officers contrived to send back a message to Demetrius, offering to assassinate Alexander as the price of their own pardon. The promise was given in the King's name, and Alexander was murdered. An Arab chief called Zabdiel cut off his head and sent it to Ptolemy.

On the fifth day after the battle Ptolemy recovered consciousness. The ghastly relic was shown him of the man who had been his son-in-law. Three days later he died under the hands of the surgeons, while they were trying to adjust the broken bone (early summer 146).

The position of Ptolemy Philometor just before his death had been the most commanding held by any king of his house since Ptolemy III. He was practically supreme in Syria; the Seleucid King was little more than a puppet in his hands. But at his unexpected death all this fabric of power melted away. Egypt was confronted with a doubtful succession, for Philometor left an infant son in the charge of his sister and wife Cleopatra (II), whilst his brother, Ptolemy Euergetes, who now reigned in Cyrene, had been even during the life of Philometor a rival claimant for the Egyptian throne. The Ptolemaic forces in Syria were a helpless body without master or direction, and at the court of Demetrius, now swayed by Lasthenes, the Cretan adventurer, it was resolved to destroy them before a new government was consolidated in Egypt. A massacre of the Ptolemaic troops was ordered in the name of Demetrius, and the population of the coast-towns rose to annihilate their garrisons. Crowds of fugitives, who had once been part of the grand army, made their way back to Alexandria. The elephants remained in the hands of Demetrius. There was no longer any question of retroceding Palestine. The ascendancy of the house of Ptolemy in Syria had vanished like a dream.