A. M. 3836.

168.

embrace the opportunity they now had of aiding the two kings; that it would be the highest ingratitude in them, to forget the favours they had received from the Egyptians; and that their refusal on this occasion would be a violation of the treaties and oaths' on which the alliance was founded. As the majority were for granting the aid, Callicrates dismissed the ambassadors, upon pretence that it was contrary to the laws, to debate on an affair of that nature in such an assembly.

It therefore was held, some time after, in Sicyon; and as the members were upon the point of taking the same resolution, Callicrates read a forged letter from Q. Marcius, by which the Achæans were exhorted to employ their mediation for terminating the war between the two Ptolemies and Antiochus, and in consequence caused a decree to pass, whereby the Achæan confederates agreed to send only an embassy to those princes.

The instant that Antiochus heard of the reconciliation of the two brothers, he resolved to employ Ant. J.C. his whole force against them. Accordingly he sent his fleet early into Cyprus, to preserve the possession of that island: At the same time he marched at the head of a very powerful land army, with the design to conquer Egypt openly, and not pretend as he had before done, to fight the cause of one of his nephews. Upon his arrival at Rhinocorura, he found ambassadors from Philometor, who told him, That their sovereign was very sensible that he owed his restoration to Antiochus; that he conjured him not to destroy his own work by employing force and arms; but on the contrary, to acquaint him amicably with his pretensions. Antiochus, throwing off the mask, no longer used the tender and affectionate expressions of which he had till then been so ostentatiously lavish, but declared himself at once an enemy to both. He told the ambassadors, that he

* Liv. 1. xlv. n. 11-13. Polyb. Legat. xcii.

insisted upon having the island of Cyprus with the city of Pelusium, and all the land along the arm of the Nile, on which it was situated, resigned to him for ever; assuring them, that he was determined to conclude a peace upon no other conditions. He also fixed a day for a final answer to his demand.

The time being elapsed, and the satisfaction he claimed not being made, he began hostilities; penetrated as far as Memphis, subjecting the whole country through which he passed; and there received the submission of almost all the rest of the kingdom. He afterwards marched towards Alexandria, with design to besiege that city, the possession of which would have made him absolute master of all Egypt. He would certainly have succeeded in his enterprize, had he not been checked in his career by the Roman embassy, which broke all the measures he had been so long taking, in order to possess himself of Egypt.

We before observed, that the ambassadors who were nominated to go to Egypt, had left Rome with the utmost diligence. They landed at Alexandria, just at the time Antiochus was marching to besiege it. The ambassadors came up with him at * Eleusine, which was not a mile from Alexandria. The king seeing Popilius, with whom he had been intimately acquainted at Rome, when he was an hostage in that city, opened his arms to embrace him as his old friend. The Roman, who did not consider himself on that occasion as a private man, but a servant of the public, desired to know, before he answered his compliment, whether he spoke to a friend, or an enemy of Rome. He then gave him the decree of the senate, bid him read it over, and return him an immediate answer. Antiochus, after perusing it, said, he would examine the contents of it with his friends, and give his answer in a short

Turnebus and H. Valesius think that we should read, in Livy, Eleusinem instead of Leusinem.

time. Popilius, enraged at the king for talking of delays, drew, with the wand he had in his hand, a circle round Antiochus, and then raising his voice; "Answer," says he, "the senate, before you stir out of that circle." The king quite confounded at so haughty an' order, after a moment's reflection, replied, that he would act according to the desire of the senate. Popilius then received his civilities; and behaved afterwards in all respects as an old friend. * How important was the effect of this blunt loftiness of sentiments and expression! The Roman with a few words strikes terror into the king of Syria, and saves the king of Egypt.

The circumstance which made the one so bold, and the other so submissive, was the news that arrived just before of the great victory gained by the Romans over Perseus king of Macedonia. From that instant, every thing gave way before them; and the Roman name grew formidable to all princes and

nations.

Antiochus having left Egypt at the time stipulated, Popilius returned with his colleagues to Alexandria, where he signed the treaty of union between the two brothers, which had not been executed before. He then crossed into Cyprus; sent home Antiochus's fleet, which had gained a victory over that of the Egyptians; restored the whole island to the kings of Egypt, who laid a just claim to it; and returned to Rome, in order to acquaint the senate with the success of his embassy.

Ambassadors from Antiochus, the two Ptolemies and Cleopatra their sister, arrived there almost at the same time. The former said, "That the peace "which the senate had been pleased to grant their "sovereign, appeared to him more glorious than the "most splendid conquests; and that he had obeyed

* Quàm efficax est animi sermonisque abscissa gravitas! Eodem momento Syriæ regnum terruit, Egypti texit. VAL. Max. l. vi.

C. 4.

"the commands of the Roman ambassadors, as strictly "as if they had been sent from the gods." How groveling, and at the same time, how impious was all this! They afterwards congratulated the Romans on the victory they had gained over Perseus. The rest of the ambassadors declared, in the like extravagant strain; "That the two Ptolemies and Cleopatra thought themselves bound in as great obligations to the senate and people of Rome, as to "their parents, and even to the gods; having been "delivered, by the protection which Rome had "granted them, from a very grievous siege: and re"established on the throne of their ancestors, of "which they had been almost entirely dispossessed." The senate answered; "That Antiochus acted wisely "in paying obedience to the ambassadors; and that "the people and senate of Rome were pleased with "him for it." Methinks this is carrying the spirit of haughtiness as high as possible. With regard to Ptolemy and Cleopatra, it was answered; "That "the senate were very much pleased with the oppor

tunity of doing them some service; and that they "would endeavour to make them sensible, that they "ought to look upon the friendship and protection "of the Romans as the most solid support of their kingdom." The prætor was then ordered to make the ambassadors the usual presents.

A. M.

Ant. J.C. 168.

SECT. III. Antiochus, enraged at what had happened in Egypt, wreaks his vengeance on the Jews. He endeavours to abolish the worship of the true GOD in Jerusalem. He exercises the most horrid cruelties in that city. The generous resistance made by Mattathias, who, in his expiring moments, exhorts his sons to fight in defence of the law of GOD. Judas Maccabeus gains several victories over the generals and armies of Antiochus. That prince, who had marched into Persia, in order to amass treasures there, attempts to plunder a rich temple in Elymais, but is shamefully repulsed. Hearing that his armies had been defeated in Judæa, he sets out on a sudden to extirpate all the Jews. In his march, he is struck by the hand of Heaven, and dies in the greatest torments, after having reigned eleven years.

*ANTIOCHUS, at his return from Egypt, ex3836. asperated to see forcibly torn from him by the Romans, a crown which he looked upon already as his own, made the Jews, though they had not offended him in any manner, feel the whole weight of his wrath. In his march through Palestine, he detached twenty-two thousand men, the command of whom he gave to Apollonius, with orders to destroy the city of Jerusalem.

Apollonius arrived there just two years after this city had been taken by Antiochus. At his first coming, he did not behave in any manner as if he had received such cruel orders, and waited till the first sabbath day before he executed them. But then, seeing all the people assembled peaceably in the synagogues, and engaged in paying their religious

* 1 Maccab. i. 30-40. and 2 v. 24-27. Joseph. Antiq. 1. xii. c. 7.