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longer abroad, he was forced to put them into winter-quarters, and to refer what remained undone to the operation of the next campaign.

An. 38. Antigonus 2.]-As soon as the spring began to come on, Antony sailed from Alexandria to Athens,' where he had left his wife Octavia ever since his last going from thence for Syria, and, having taken her in, passed from thence with her for Italy, attended with a fleet of three hundred sail, and landed at Tarentem, proposing with this naval force to assist Octavianus against Sextus Pompeius; but Octavianus not accepting his aid, out of jealousy of him, this had like to have made another quarrel between them, and other reasons of discontent on this occasion were urged on both sides against each other; but Octavia, mediating between her husband and her brother, made up all matters. And, whereas, the five years were now near expiring, for which the sovereign government of the Roman empire was granted to the triumvirs by the people, they prolonged it for five years more by their own authority; and as long as the sovereignty was in them, they thought, by virtue thereof, they had right so to do. After this, Antony returned into Syria, to make preparations for the Parthian war. Octavia accompanied him as far as Corcyra; but, that she might not be exposed with him to the dangers of that expedition, he from thence sent her back into Italy, there to reside till it should be over, committing her,* and the children which he had either by her or Fulvia, to the care of Octavianus. On Antony's returning into Syria, Octavianus married Livia Drusilla, the daughter of Livius Drusus, who having been one of those that were prescribed by the triumvirs, was driven thereby to take shelter with Brutus and Cassius; after whose overthrow at Philippi, not knowing where else to flee, he fell on his sword and slew himself. She was first the wife of Tiberius Nero, and bore him Tiberius Cæsar, who succeeded Augustus in the empire. On the breach that happened between Octavianus and Fulvia, the wife of Antony, he sided with the latter, whereon he was forced, after the taking of Perusia, to flee out of Italy, carrying with him his wife and his young son Tiberius; but being included in the pacification that was afterward made between Octavianus and Antony, he returned to Rome, where Octavianus falling in love with her, Tiberius, for the purchase of his favour, willingly yielded her unto him; and he accordingly married her, though she were then great with child by Tiberius, and within three months of her time of delivery. This for some time caused a delay, and the pontifices were consulted about the lawfulness of marrying her in this case; but their answer being, that it was only unlawful when it might cause a doubt to which husband the next child born of her might belong, and it being now, after six months' pregnancy, past all doubt, that the child next to be born belonged to Tiberius, Octavianus forthwith married her, and three months after a son being born of her (the same who hereafter, by the name of Drusus, will be often spoken of,) he was sent to Tiberius as to the proper father; but Tiberius dying a little after, both this son and the other also were sent back to Octavianus, to be taken care of, and bred up by him, as being left their guardian by the will of their father. He had a former wife, called Scribonia, who brought him his daughter Julia: her he divorced for her ill temper; but Livia, though she brought him no children, continued to be his wife as long as he lived, and always commanded his affection to the last.

In the interim, Herod having made great preparations for the carrying on of this year's campaign, brought a great army into the field, and, marching with it directly up to the walls of Jerusalem, laid close siege to that city, and forthwith ordered the casting up of such works against it as were in those times made use of for the taking of besieged places. While this was doing, he himself

1 Plutarch. in Antonio. Appian. de Bellis Civilibus, lib. 5. Dion Cassius, lib. 48.

2 Plutarch. et Appian. de de Bellis Civilibus, lib. 5. Dion Cassius, lib. 48.

3 Dion Cassius, lib. 48. in fine. Plutarch. et Appian. ibid.

4 Dion Cassius, lib. 48. p. 383. Sueton. in Octavio, c. 62. et in Tiberio, c. 4.

5 Joseph. Antiq. lib. 14. c. 27. in fine, et de Bello Judaico, lib. 1. c. 13.

went to Samaria, and there consummated his marriage with Mariamme.' He had betrothed her four years before; but his troubles hindered that he did not marry her till now. She was the daughter of Alexander the son of king Aristobulus, by Alexandra, the daughter of Hyrcanus II. and therefore was granddaughter to both those brothers. She was a lady of extraordinary beauty and great virtue, and in all other laudable qualifications accomplished beyond most others of her time. The Jews of those times having generally a zealous affection for the family of the Asmonæans, Herod thought that, by marrying this lady out of it, he should the easier reconcile that people to him; and this made him so earnest for the consummating of the marriage at this time. On his return to his army before Jerusalem,3 Sosius, the governor of Syria, came thither to him. For, being ordered by Antony to do his utmost for the subduing of Antigonus, and the putting of Herod in full possession of the kingdom of Judea, he marched into that country with the best of his forces for this purpose, and, having joined Herod before Jerusalem, they both together carried on the siege of that place with the utmost vigour, and a very numerous army. For both of them together had no fewer than eleven legions, and six thousand horse, besides the Syrian auxiliaries. However, the place held out several months with a great deal of resolution, and, had the military skill of those that defended it been equal to their valour, they could not have been subdued. But their defence being made rather with boldness, than due order and good conduct, according to the art of war, the Romans herein much outdid them; and, by means hereof, at length carried the place, after a siege of above half a year.

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An. 37. Herod the Great 1.]-For it was not till the year next after following, that the place was taken. For then the Jews being beaten out of all their places of defence, the city was broken up, and the enemy entering it on every side, made themselves thorough masters of it, and being exasperated by the length of the siege, and the great labour and hardship which they had endured in it, for the revenging hereof, they filled all the quarters of the place with blood and slaughter, and ravaged it all over with rapine and devastation. Herod did all he could to hinder both, but without success, Sosius encouraging the soldiers in what they did. Hereon Herod went to him with heavy complaints about it, alleging, that if the city were thus destroyed by plunder and slaughter, the Romans would make him only king of a desert; and therefore desired that a stop might be put to this ravage and cruelty: but receiving no other answer, but that the spoils of the city were due to the soldiers, for the reward of their labour and valour in the taking of it, he was forced, by a sum of money, to redeem the city from all further devastation, which otherwise would have been utterly ruined and destroyed.

Antigonus seeing all lost,' surrendered himself to Sosius, and cast himself in a very submissive and abject manner at his feet to pray his compassion. But Sosius, despising his cowardice and meanness of spirit, rejected him with scorn; and looking on such behaviour as more becoming a woman than a man, instead of Antigonus, by way of contempt, called him Antigona, and forthwith ordered him to be put in chains; and as soon as Antony was returned out of Italy, and came again to Antioch, Sosius sent this captive king thither to him. Antony at first intended to have reserved him for his triumph. But Herod not thinking

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1 In Hebrew the name is Miriam, in Greek Maria, in Josephus Mariamme, but most Latin writers call her Mariamne.

2 Hyrcanus and Aristobulus were brothers, as being both the sons of Alexander Jannæus, by Alexandra his queen.

3 Joseph. de Bello Judaico, lib. 1. c. 13. et Antiq. lib. 14. c. 28.

4 Legions were of an uncertain number, as containing sometimes four thousand, sometimes five thousand, and sometimes six thousand men. According to the lowest computation, this army, with the horsemen and the Syrian auxiliaries, could not be less than sixty thousand men.

5 Reckoning from the time that Herod came before the place, which was some time before Sosius joined him, and carried on the siege in conjunction with him.

6 Joseph. Antiq. lib. 14. c. 28. et de Bello Judaico, lib. 1. c. 13. Dion Cassius, lib. 49.

7 Joseph, ibid.

8 Antigonus is the masculine name, Antigona the feminine: the former is proper to men, the other to

women.

9 Joseph. Antiq, lib. 15. e. 1. et de Bello Judaico, lib. 1. c. 13.

VoL. II.43

himself safe in his kingdom as long as this remainder of the old royal family continued alive, never left soliciting Antony, till at length, by a great sum of money, he obtained that this poor prince was put to death; to which he having been condemned by a former sentence in judicature, this sentence was executed upon him in the same manner as upon a common criminal,' by the rods and axe of the lictor, which the Romans never before subjected any crowned head to. And here ended the reign of the Asmonæans, after it had lasted from the beginning of Judas Maccabæus's government to this time, one hundred and twenty-nine years; and with it I shall end this book.

BOOK VIII.

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An. 37. Herod 1.]-ON the taking of Jerusalem, Herod was put in thorough possession of the kingdom of Judea. But the greater part of the Jews, as long as Antigonus was alive, partly out of the affection they had for the old royal family of the Asmonæans, and partly out of their hatred to Herod, could not be induced by any means to own him for their king, which conduced much to the hastening on the death of that captive prince. As Herod was forced to make his way to the throne of this kingdom through a great deal of blood, so he found it necessary to establish himself in it by the same means, putting daily to death such of the opposite faction as he most feared, among whom were all the councillors of the great Sanhedrin, except Pollio and Sameas. These two had during the whole siege declared for the receiving of Herod to be king, and the rendering of the city to him; telling the people, that their sins being grown to so very great a height as they then were, they had nothing else to expect, but that God would deliver them into the hands of this man for the punishment of them, and that therefore it was in vain to resist him. But the rest of the Sanhedrin running violently the other way, cried up, "The temple of the Lord! The temple of the Lord!" as if for the sake thereof God would certainly protect that city; and on this conceit they did all they could to excite and encourage the people to a fierce and obstinate resistance; and hereto it was owing that the siege held on so long. And therefore Herod, when he had gotten them into his power, put them all to death for it. To this he is also said to have been provoked by another reason, that is, for their having called him before them upon a trial for his life for the death of Hezekiah the robber, when he was governor of Galilee under Hyrcanus; of which mention hath been above made. But if that influenced him in this matter, he would not have spared Sameas, who was, of all, the most violent against him in that cause. These two men are by the Jewish writers called Hillel and Shammai; and their names are of the greatest note among them of all their Mishnical doctors," that is, of all those who taught their traditions, from the time of Simon the Just, to the compiling of the Mishnah by R. Judah Hakkadosh; and they make the sixth link in their cabalistical chain from the said Simon: for he, they said, delivered their traditions to, 1. Antigonus of Socho; Antigonus of Socho delivered them to, 2. Joses Ben Joezer and Joseph Ben Jochanan; these to, 3. Joshua Ben Perachiah, and Nathan the Arbelite; these to, 4. Simon Ben Shetach and Jehudah Ben Tabbai; these to, 5. Shemaiah and Abtalion; and these to, 6. Hillel and Shammai. Of these pairs, the first in each of them was Nasi, that is, president of 1 Joseph. Antiq lib. 15. c. I. et de Bello Judaico. lib. 1. c. 13. Plut. in Antonio. Dion Cassius, lib. 49. p. 405. 2 Whereas Josephus, in his Antiquities, book 14. c. 28, saith, it lasted only one hundred and twenty-six years, this is to be computed from the time that Judas was established in the government by his peace with Antiochus Eupator, three years after he first took it upon him. 4 Ibid. et de Bello Judaico, lib. 1. c. 13. 6 Ibid.

3 Joseph. Antiq. lib. 15. c. 1.

5 Joseph. Antiq. lib. 14. c. 17. et lib. 15. c. 1.

7 Juchasin, Shalsheleth, Haccabbala, Zemach David.

8 Pirke Aboth, c. 1. Maimonides in Præfatione ad Seder Zeraim, et in Præfatione ad Yad Chazekab, Ababarnel, aliique e Rabbinis.

9 Nasi in Hebrew signifieth prince, and Ab Beth Din, father of the house of judgment.

the great Sanhedrin, and the other Ab Beth Din,' that is, vice-president of the same; and both of them were, while in these offices, the chief teachers of their schools of divinity. The Jewish writers ascribe to Shemaiah and Abtalion only six years, but to their immediate predecessors a full hundred and one over,2 which gives that link in the chain of their additional succession a stretch beyond credibility. Shemaiah and Abtalion are said to have been both proselytes, and sons of the same father, by whom they derived their descent from Sennacherib, king of Assyria; but they had for their mother a woman of Israel, otherwise they could not have been members of the great Sanhedrin, or have held any place of judicature in the Jewish nation. Herod, at this time putting to death all the members of the great Sanhedrin, excepting Hillel and Shammai, is not to be doubted, but that these two, Shemaiah and Abtalion, perished in that slaughter; after whose death Hillel was made president, and Shammai vice-president, of the Sanhedrin that was afterward formed.

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This Hillel, whom Josephus calls Pollio, was one of the most eminent that ever was amongst the Jewish doctors, for birth, learning, rule, and posterity. For, as to his birth," he was, by his mother, of the seed of David, being by her descended from Shephatiah, the son of Abitel, David's wife. For his learning in the Jewish law and traditions, the Jewish writers, by a unanimous suffrage, give him the first place of eminency among all the ancient doctors of their nation. As for rule, he bore it in the highest station of honour among his people for forty years together; for so long, as president of the Sanhedrin, he sat in the first chair of justice over the whole Jewish nation, and discharged himself therein with greater wisdom and justice than any that had, from the time of Simon the Just, possessed that place before him. And as for his posterity, he was so happy therein, that for several descents, they succeeded him in the same eminency of learning, and thereby gained also for several descents to succeed. him in the same station of honour: for those of his family were presidents of the Sanhedrin, from father to son, to the tenth generation. For after him succeeded Simeon his son, who is supposed to have been the same who took Christ in his arms on his being first presented in the temple," and then to have sung over him his Nunc Dimitas. After Simeon succeeded Gamaliel his son, who presided in the Sanhedrin at the time when Peter and the apostles were called before that council (Acts v. 34,) and was the same at whose feet Paul was bred up in the sect and learning of the Pharisees (Acts xxii. 3.) He is called in the Jewish writings Gamiel the Old," because of his long life; for he lived down to the eighteenth year before the destruction of Jerusalem. After him succeeded Simeon, the son, the second of that name in this line, who perished in the destruction of Jerusalem. The next successor after him was Gamaliel, his son, the second of that name. To him succeeded Simeon, his son, the third of that name. After him was R. Judah Hakkadosh, his son, who composed the Mishnah, and on that account his name hath ever since been had in great veneration among all the Jewish nation. His son and successor in the same office was Gamaliel, the third of that name; and after him, his son Judah Gemaricus; and after him, his son Hillel the Second, who was the compiler of the present calendar of the Jewish year. How long after him this office continued in that family is not said. And no doubt it was with respect to the family of David that Hillel had this honour so long continued among his posterity. But he was

1 Nasi in Hebrew signifieth prince, and Ab Beth Din, father of the house of judgment.

2 The Jewish chronologers tell us, that these two persons entered on their offices in the year of the world, according to the Jewish computation, 3621, and that Shemaiah and Abtalion did not succeed them till the 3722, between which intervened one hundred and one years.

3 Zacutus in Juchasin, et David Ganz in Zemach David.

4 Maimonides in Tract. Sanhedrin.

5 Josephus joins Pollio with Shammai, and makes him to be Shammai's master, and Hillel was so according to the Rabbins; and therefore, undoubtedly, the Pollio of Josephus and the Hillel of the Rabbins was the

same person.

6 Zacutus in Jnchasin, Gedaliah in Shalsheleth Haccabbala, et David Ganz in Zemach David. Videas etiam Buxtorfii Lexicon Rabbinicum, col. 617. et de Abbreviaturus, p. 48. 58; Vorstii Observationes ad Zemach David, and Lightfoot's Harmony of the New Testament, part 1. s. 8. 7 Luke ii. 8 Zacutus, Gedaliah, et David Ganz, ibid.

descended from it only by his mother's side; for by his father he was of the tribe of Benjamin. He was born in Babylonia,' and there lived till the fortieth year of his life; at which age he came to Jerusalem, and there betook himself to the study of the law; in which he grew so eminent, that after forty years more, he became president of the Sanhedrin, being then eighty years old, and continued in that office for another forty years after; so that, according to this account, he lived full one hundred and twenty years. The time he first entered on his presidentship was about one hundred years before the destruction of Jerusalem. The Jewish writers make it a complete hundred years. But those people are far from being exact in their chronological computations; for the sake of a round number, or an imaginary mystery, they often in such matters shoot under or over the truth at their pleasure. He is said, on his first entering on this office, to have had for his vice-president one Manahem, a learned man of those times; but he not long after deserting this station to enter into the service of Herod, Shammai was chosen in his place. And what we have in Josephus agreeth here with; for he makes mention of a Manahem that was a person of eminent note in those times; of whom he tells us, that being of the sect of the Essenes, he had the spirit of prophecy: and one time meeting with Herod among his schoolfellows when he was a boy, greeted him with this salutation, 'Hail, king of the Jews;" and laying his hand gently on his shoulder, foretold to him that he should be advanced to that honour. Herod for many years had no regard to this prediction, it being a thing he had no expectation of. But afterward, when he came to be king, remembering the matter, he sent for Manahem, and was very solicitous to know of him how long he should reign; concluding, that he who foretold that he should be king, could also foretel how long he should be so. Manahem at first not returning him a certain answer, Herod put it to him, whether he should reign ten years? Manahem answered, Yea, ten; yea, twenty; yea, thirty; with which Herod being contented, asked no further; but from this time had Manahem in great esteem; and no doubt, on this occasion, drew him into his service; and thereon Shammai was appointed to be vice-president in his room.

2

This Shammai,3 had been for some time the scholar of Hillel, and came the nearest to him in eminency of learning of all the Tannaim or Mishnical doctors. But when he became his vice-president, he did not always concur in opinion with him; for there were many points wherein they differed, which caused the like contests and disputes between their followers, as there are between the Thomists and Scotists among the schoolmen. For in a great many things the school of Hillel went one way, and the school of Shammai another. This produced such divisions and quarrels between their scholars, that at length it came to the effusion of blood, and several were slain on both sides. But, in the conclusion, the school of Hillel carried it against the school of Shammai; a determination being given for the former, they say, by a bath kol, that is, by a voice pretended to come from heaven; and by this fiction all disturbances between them were appeased. Hillel was of a mild and peaceable temper; but Shammai, on the contrary, was of a very angry and fiery spirit; and from hence proceeded most of the oppositions and disputes that were between the schools of these two great doctors; of which Shammai growing at length weary, was contented to have all ended by the fiction I have mentioned.

Hillel bred up above one thousand scholars in the knowledge of the law,' of which eighty are reckoned to be of greater eminency above the rest. For of them, say the Jewish writers, thirty were worthy on whom the divine glory should rest, as it did upon Moses; and thirty for whom the sun should stand

1 Zacutus, Gedaliah, et David Ganz.

2 Joseph. Antiq. lib. 15. c. 13.

3 Videas Zacutum, Gedalium, Davidum Ganz, et Buxtorfium, ibid. et Drusium detribus Sectis, lib. 2. c. 10. 4 Of this division made among the Pharisaical Jews by the different schools of Hillel and Shammai, Jerome speaks in his Commentary on Isaiah viii. 14, and he there tells us, that these two men flourished in Judea not long before Christ was born. His words are, "Sammai et Hillel non multo prius quam Dominus nasceretur orti sunt in Judæa."

5 Zacutus, Gedalias, et David Ganz, ibid.

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