� 9. Aristobulus I., B.C. 105-104

§ 9. ARISTOBULUS I., B.C. 105-104
SOURCES
Josephus, Antiq. xiii. 11; Wars of the Jews, i. 3. A summary from Josephus in Zonaras, Annal. v. 3.
The coins are most completely given by Madden, Coins of the Jews (1881), pp. 81-83.
LITERATURE
EWALD, History of Israel, v. 385, 386.
STANLEY, Jewish Church, vol. iii. 370.
GRÄTZ, Geschichte der Juden, iii., 4 Aufl. pp. 118-123.
HITZIG, Geschichte des Volkes Israel, ii. 473-475.
JOHN HYRCANUS left five sons.[301] But according to his will, the government was to pass to his wife,[302] while only the high-priesthood was to go to his eldest son Aristobulus. The young prince, however, was not satisfied with this arrangement. He put his mother in prison, where he allowed her to die of hunger, and assumed the government himself.[303] Also all his brothers, with the exception of Antigonus, he cast into prison. Only in the latter had he such confidence that he assigned to him a share in the management of the kingdom. But this very pre-eminence proved the occasion of disaster to Antigonus. It aroused the jealousy of many whose intrigues were at last successful in making Aristobulus the murderer of his favourite brother. It was represented to him that Antigonus was endeavouring to secure the supreme power to himself. Aristobulus in consequence became suspicious, and gave orders to his bodyguard, that if Antigonus should come to him armed, they should cut him down. At the same time he commanded his brother to come to him unarmed. But the enemies of Antigonus bribed the messengers, so that they should announce to him that Aristobulus desired him to obtain new weapons and new armour, and commanded him that he should come clad in armour in order that he might see his new equipment. Antigonus acted accordingly, and was cut down by the bodyguard when he, suspecting nothing, entered the citadel. After the deed was done, Aristobulus is said to have bitterly repented, and his sorrow seemed to have accelerated his death.[304]
[301] Josephus, Antiq. xiii. 10. 7.
[302] Josephus, Antiq. xiii. 11. 1: ἐκεινην γὰρ Ὑρκανὸς τῶν ὅλων κυρίαν καταλελοίπει. So, too, Wars of the Jews, i. 3. 1.
[303] Josephus, Antiq. xiii. 11. 1; Wars of the Jews, i. 3. 1. On the chronology, see above, page 272.
[304] Josephus, Antiq. xiii. 11. 1-3; Wars of the Jews, i. 3. 1-6.
The whole domestic tragedy, if it can be taken as historical, presents the character of Aristobulus in a very dark light. His whole concern was with the civil government. All considerations of piety were sacrificed to that one end. In other directions also Aristobulus was estranged still more completely than his father from the traditions of the Maccabees. The monarchical selfish spirit led him to assume the title of king, which his successors maintained down to the time of Pompey.[305] The Greek culture, against the introduction of which the Maccabees had first taken a stand, was directly favoured by him. Whether he assumed the title of Φιλέλλην is not with absolute certainty to be concluded from the words of Josephus.[306] As already his father Hyrcanus had given his sons purely Greek names (Aristobulus, Antigonus, Alexander), it may be taken for granted that he was inclined to those tendencies afterwards openly avowed by Aristobulus.
[305] Josephus, Antiq. xiii. 11. 1; Wars of the Jews, i. 3. 1.—Strabo, xvi. 2. 40, p. 762, tells this of Alexander Jannäus, because he overlooked the short reign of Aristobulus.
[306] Josephus, Antiq. xiii. 11. 3: χρηματίσας μὲν φιλέλλην. From the connection this ought probably not to be rendered “he called himself Φιλέλλην,” but “he conducted himself as a friend of the Greek.” The title Φιλέλλην is borne, for example, by Arsaces VII. and other Parthian kings (Mionnet, Description de médailles antiques, v. 650 sqq.), by one Antiochus of Commagene (see above, page 184), a Nabatean king Aretas, see Appendix II.
On the coins Aristobulus has made use neither of his royal title nor of his Greek name. He calls himself on them, “Judas, high priest.” For the coins with the inscription—
יהודה כהן גדול וחבר היהודים
belong, as Cavedoni was the first to point out, to one Aristobulus, whose Hebrew name was Judas.[307]—How thoroughly Aristobulus, notwithstanding his Greek leanings, still occupied the Jewish standpoint, is shown us by the most important occurrence which is recorded of his short reign : the conquest and Judaizing of the northern districts of Palestine. He undertook a military expedition against the Itureans, conquered a large portion of their land, united that to Judea, and compelled the inhabitants to allow themselves to be circumcised and to live according to the Jewish law.[308] The Itureans had their residence in Lebanon.[309] As Josephus does not say that Aristobulus subdued “the Itureans,” but only that he conquered a large portion of their country and judaized it; and as Galilee had not hitherto belonged to the territory of the Jewish high priest, the conquests even of John Hyrcanus extending northwards only as far as Samaria and Scythopolis; and as, yet again, the population of Galilee had been up to that time more Gentile than Jewish,—the conjecture has good grounds that the portion conquered by Aristobulus was mainly Galilee, and that the actual judaizing of Galilee was first carried out by him.[310] In any case, he extended the Jewish power farther northward, as Hyrcanus had toward the south.
[307] Josephus, Antiq. xx. 10: Ἰούδᾳ τῷ καὶ Ἀριστοβούλῳ κληθέντι. On the coins which de Saulcy originally ascribed to Judas Maccabaeus, see de Saulcy, Recherches, p. 84. Cavedoni, Bibl. Numismatik, ii. 18 f. Levy, Gesch. der jüd. Münzen, pp. 53-55. Madden, History, pp. 61-63. Reichardt, Wiener Numismat. Monatshefte, iii. 1867, p. 108 f. De Saulcy, Numismatic Chronicle, 1871, p. 238. Merzbacher, Zeitschrift für Numismatik, iii. 1876, p. 196. Madden, Coins of the Jews, pp. 81-83.—The Greek coins ascribed by de Saulcy, Recherches, pp. 102-104, to Aristobulus, belong to Julia or Livia, widow of Augustus; see Cavedoni, Bibl. Numismatik, ii. 19, 50 f.; also in Grote’s Münzstudien, v. 19 f.
[308] Josephus, Antiq. xiii. 11. 3: πολεμήσας Ἰτουραίαν καὶ πολλὴν αὐτῶν τῆς χώρας τῇ Ἰουδαίᾳ προσκτησάμενος κ.τ.λ.—Strabo, in the name of Timagenes, as reported by Josephus, l.c., says: χώραν τε γὰρ αὐτοῖς προσεκτήσατο καὶ τὸ μέρος τοῦ τῶν Ἰτουραίων ἔθνους ῷκειώσατο κ.τ.λ.
[309] Strabo, pp. 753, 755, 756. Inscription of the time of Quirinius, Ephemeris epigraphica, iv. 538 (Ituraeos in Libano monte). Compare also Appendix I at the end of the second volume.
[310] The fact that the districts north and east of Galilee were predominantly Gentile down to the time of the Herodians is in favour of this view. They could not therefore have been previously judaized by Aristobulus. But then the portion judaized by Aristobulus could scarcely have been any other than Galilee itself. That Josephus does not give it the usual territorial designation of Galilee, is explained by his making use of non-Jewish documents.—A more serious difficulty is presented by the fact that John Hyrcanus had his son, Alexander Jannäus, brought up in Galilee (Antiq. xiii. 12. 1). But perhaps it should be said in this case that Hyrcanus had his son, whom he wished to prevent from succeeding to the throne, brought up outside of the country. It is also possible that Hyrcanus had already taken possession of the southern parts of Galilee. Then what is told above would refer only to the northern division. The statement about Alexander’s education in Galilee is, owing to the connection in which it occurs, open to considerable suspicion.
Aristobulus died of a painful disease after a reign of one year.[311] Seeing that the judgment passed upon him by Gentile historians is a favourable one,[312] we cannot avoid entertaining the suspicion that the cruelties which he, the Sadducee and friend of the Greeks, is said to have inflicted upon his relatives, are calumnious inventions of the Pharisees.
[311] Josephus, Antiq. xiii. 11. 3; Wars of the Jews, i. 3. 6.
[312] Strabo in the name of Timagenes, according to Josephus, Antiq. xiii. 11. 3: ἐπιεικής τε ἐγένετο οὗτος ὁ ἀνὴρ καὶ πολλὰ τοῖς Ἰουδαίοις χρήσιμος.