CHAPTER 2
CONCERNING THE SUCCESSORS OF JUDAS, WHO WERE JONATHAN AND SIMON, AND JOHN HYRCANUS
1. WHEN
Jonathan, who was
Judas's brother, succeeded him, he behaved himself with great circumspection in other respects,
with relation to his own people; and he corroborated his authority by preserving his friendship with the Romans. He also
made a league with
Antiochus the son.
Yet was not all this sufficient for his security; for the tyrant
Trypho, who was
guardian to Antiochus's son, laid a plot against him; and besides that, endeavored to take off his friends, and caught
Jonathan by a wile, as he was going to Ptolemais to Antiochus, with a few persons in his company, and put him in bonds,
and then made an expedition against the Jews; but when he was afterward driven away by
Simon, who was Jonathan's brother,
and was enraged at his defeat, he put Jonathan to death.
2. However,
Simon managed the public affairs after a
courageous manner, and took Gazara, and Joppa, and Jamnia, which were
cities in his neighborhood. He also got the garrison under, and demolished the citadel. He was afterward an auxiliary to
Antiochus, against Trypho, whom he besieged in
Dora, before he went on his expedition against the
Medes; yet could not he
make the king ashamed of his ambition, though he had assisted him in killing Trypho; for it was not long ere Antiochus
sent Cendebeus his general with an army to lay waste Judea, and to subdue Simon; yet he, though he was now in years,
conducted the war as if he were a much younger man. He also sent his sons with a band of strong men against Antiochus,
while he took part of the army himself with him, and fell upon him from another quarter. He also laid a great many
men in ambush in many places of the mountains, and was superior in all his attacks upon them; and when he had been
conqueror after so glorious a manner, he was made high priest, and also freed the Jews from the dominion of the
Macedonians, after one hundred and seventy years of the empire [of Seleucus].
