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APPENDIX.

DISSERTATION IV.

On the reigns and succession of the Maccabean princes. Vide Dissertation v. vol. i. 248. Article iii.

IN the details of the hundred and twenty-six years, which Josephus assigns to the Asmonæan Dynasty, he has implicitly followed the first of Maccabees; so much so, as in many instances to copy its expressions. The notices of time, supplied by this book, are numerous: nor between them and the accounts of Josephus is there any material difference, except what concerns the alleged time of the death of Judas Maccabæus; which the former place before, and the latter after, the death of the high-priest Alcimus. But this is a discrepancy which affects only the subdivisions of the period in question. In the general outline both our authorities are agreed; and, as far as they proceed in common, the succession of the Asmonæan or Maccabæan princes may be thus exhibited:

Antiochus Eupator makes peace with Judas Maccabæusa.

Jonathan the brother of Judas, assumes the high-priesthood at the feast of Tabernacles b.

He dies in the winter season c.

Simon, his brother, is confirmed by

Demetriusd.

He is assassinated in the springe.

b

a 1 Macc. vi. 16. 20-61. X. 21. c xiii. 22, 23.
e 1 Macc. xvi. 14-17. Jos. Ant. Jud. xiii. vii. 4.

i. 2.

Æræ Sel. B. C.

150. 163-162.

160. 153-152.

170. 143-142.

177. 136-135.

d xiii. 41. Jos. De Bell. i.

The history of the first of Maccabees expires with this event; but the narrative is continued by Josephus as follows:

The first year of John Hyrcanus, as dated from the death of his father Simon, must be dated from the spring.

His son, Aristobulus I. began to reignf.

B. C.

135.

102.

The brother of this Aristobulus, Alexander Jan

næus, began to reigns.

102.

His wife, Queen Alexandra, began to reign h.

75.

Upon these statements I have to make the following observations.

The length of the reign of Hyrcanus, which bears date from the time of his father's death, viz. the eleventh month in the Jewish year, that is, from the spring, B. C. 135. was thirty-three years in all. The duration of thirty years, assigned to it by Josephus elsewhere, must be dated from his accession to the high-priesthood, B. C. 132*. The years of his reign were full years: beginning and ending with the spring; for his father died in the spring; and his son Aristobulus, who assumed the diadem three months after a feast of the Passover, or before a feast of Tabernaclesk, must have come to the throne in the spring. And as Aristobulus reigned only until some little time after the feast of Tabernacles in question, Jannæus would necessarily succeed him in the course of the same year. Jannæus also must have died about the middle or the end of some year; for he is said to have

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reigned twenty-seven years; and he died either during, or just after, the season of military operations in his last year. If he reigned twenty-seven years complete, this would be some time towards the end of B. C. 75; if twenty-seven years current only, it might be about the same time B. C. 76. His successor queen Alexandra, at least, (who is said to have reigned nine years in all1,) could not have been alive later than the beginning of B. C. 66; for the capture of Jerusalem, on the tenth of Tisri, B. C. 63, is indissolubly fixed to the fourth year current after her death. That she died either B. C. 67. exeunte, or B. C. 66. ineunte, may be collected from the mention of military operations, so soon after her deceasem, if not from the allusion to the passover; which might be the first after that event. I conclude, then, that the reigns of Jannæus and of Alexandra in succession occupied, both together, the intermediate period from B.C. 102. ab auctumno to B.C. 66. ineuntem; a period of thirty-five years, and about four months, in all; which was probably so distributed between them, that twenty-six years and the odd months belonged to Jannæus, and the remaining nine to Alexandra. To proceed, then, with the details of the account as before.

The statement that Hyrcanus the Second, the son of this Alexandra, entered on the high-priesthood, Olym. 177. 3. Coss. Q. Hortensio, et Q. Cæcilio Metello Cretico, U. C. 685, (though both these notes of time may correspond with each other, and with B. C. 69.) must still be understood with a certain latitude; viz. of some appointment in that year (if at all) before his mother's death, not of any appointment after it. I cannot help suspecting, however, some in

k Ant. xiii. xv. 5. De Bello, i. iv. 8. m Ant. xiv. i. 2. De Bello, i. vi. 1, 2.

VOL. III.

1 Ant. xiii. xvi. 6. De Bello, i. v. 4. n Ant. xiv. ii. 1, 2. o xiv. i. 2.

A a

accuracy in the statement itself. It is repeatedly asserted elsewhere that Hyrcanus was high-priest during the whole of his mother's reign P; which began long before B.C. 69: and we saw in Dissertation v. vol. i. page 261. that between B. C. 37. U.C. 717. and his original or primary appointment to that office, forty current years (which, however, were one or two years in excess) were supposed to have elapsed. This would date his appointment as far back as B. C. 75 or 76.

The true date, then, of Hyrcanus's accession to the priesthood, as such, before his mother's death, was B. C. 75; that of his accession to the throne along with the priesthood after her death 9, was B. C. 66. The mistatement of Josephus I conjecture to have been produced by forgetting that Hyrcanus was simply reinstated, B.C.63, four current years after his mother's death; and not originally appointed, B. C. 69. four current years before it.

There is no difficulty as to what remains. As the first accession of Hyrcanus is to be dated about the passover, B. C. 66, so his second appointment, on the dispossession of Aristobulus the younger, is to be dated from the tenth of Tisri, B. C. 63 s. From this time to the second capture of Jerusalem by Herod and Sosius, U.C. 717. B. C. 37. there were twenty-six years complete*; of which the first twenty-three, viz. from B. C. 63. to B. C. 40. will belong to

*Josephus calls this interval one of twenty-seven years, Š'. ŋ-a number, however, which might easily be substituted in his text for ks. ern. Syncellus, quoting from the fourteenth book of the Antiquities, i. 580, line 8. has '. also. But this cannot be the true reading, unless, by a lapse p Ant. xiii. xvi. 2: De Bello, i. vi. 1.

Hyrcanus, before his second

xv. vi. 4: xx. x: De
r Ant. xiv. ii. 1, 2.

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dispossession; and the remainder, from B. C. 40. to B. C. 37. will belong to Antigonus the son of Aristobulus, before the extinction of the Asmonæan Dynasty. Vide the places noted in the margin 1.

t Ant. Jud. xx. x. xiv. vi. 1: xiii. 3,

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