AT ANTIOCH.
Antioch more than deserved the praise of “a very pretty place,” which
Menelaüs had bestowed upon it. In fact, it was one of the finest cities of
the world. The old town which the first Antiochus(6) had found had been
improved away by him and his successors. All that could be done by a
despotic power that made very short work with the wishes and even the
rights of private owners of property, and by a lavish expenditure of
money, had been done by five generations of rulers, and the result was
magnificent. Broad streets ran from side to side; and those who grumbled
that the narrow alleys of the old town gave at least a shelter from the
sun were consoled by the rows of planes and limes, planted alternately,
which shaded both sides of each thoroughfare. Rows of houses, which looked
more like palaces than private dwellings, occupied the best quarter of the
city, and even the poorest regions had nothing of the squalor of poverty.
Even the filth so common in the East was conspicuously absent from
Antioch, for every gutter ran with an unceasing stream of water, drawn
from a higher point of the Orontes and carrying into that river at a lower
point all the defilement of the streets. Temples, in which a whole
pantheon of gods was worshipped, were to be seen on every hand. The pure
and harmonious outlines of Greek architecture could be seen side by side
with the _bizarre_ conceptions of Oriental art. If the kings and their
Greek subjects worshipped Zeus and Apollo, and, above all, Aphrodité, who
had here her famous grove of Daphne, so the Syrian population were
faithful to Baal and Ashtaroth. A magnificent amphitheatre, capable of
holding at least thirty thousand spectators, rose, a striking mass of
white marble, on the north side of the city; a colonnade ran round the
four sides of the market-place, gorgeous with the lavish colours of the
East, for here the art of Greece had been superseded for once by the more
ornate native taste. But the river, rushing down between its noble
embankments of stone, was the chief ornament of the place. The Orontes had
not gathered round it the splendid associations that clustered about the
Tiber, but its broad, clear stream was in everything else more than a
match for its Italian rival.
Menelaüs and his companion, who, it may be guessed, had reasons of his own
for regarding with anxiety the summons that brought him to the capital,
were not a little relieved to find that the King had been called away by
urgent affairs.
Tarsus, one of the most important cities in his dominions, had rebelled.
Its antiquity, its wealth, and its fame as a seat of culture, a character
in which it claimed to be a rival of Athens itself, had combined to give
the Tarsians a high opinion of themselves. Successive rulers, beginning
with the Assyrian kings, its first founders, had allowed the city a
certain independence; and its pride was grievously wounded when the young
King, with the reckless levity that distinguished him, handed it over as a
private possession to his mistress. The citizens pitched the lady’s
collectors into the Cydnus, shut their gates, and defied their sovereign;
Mallos, another Cilician city which had suffered the same indignity,
following their example. The King had marched to reduce the rebels—a task,
it was probable, of no little difficulty—leaving a certain Andronicus to
act as his deputy, and specially to dispose of the charge on which
Menelaüs and Sostratus had been summoned.
This charge was one of a very formidable kind. Menelaüs’s dealings with
the treasures of the Temple had not been so secret as he had hoped. Such
things cannot be done without a certain number of confederates, and such
confederates are very apt to give a finishing touch to their villainy by
betraying their chief. In this instance one of the journeymen employed had
considered himself insufficiently paid, rightly thinking, perhaps, that if
sacrilege can be recompensed at all, it ought to be recompensed
handsomely. Personally he was too insignificant to venture an attack on so
great a potentate as the high priest, but he knew whither to carry his
information. He told what he knew to a priest, who, besides being a devout
Jew, was a member of the family to which the high priesthood properly
belonged. The priest, after satisfying himself that the story was true, at
once set about bringing the offender to justice.
His course was plain. Menelaüs, we have seen, had supplanted Jason, and
Jason had himself purchased the dignity. But Oniah, the rightful high
priest, who had been displaced by Jason, was still alive. Antiochus,
naturally fearing his influence with his countrymen, had kept him at his
capital, treating him, strange to say, with remarkable consideration. But
Oniah was one of those men who extort veneration even from the most
reckless of profligates. His venerable figure, his face beaming with
benevolence, his blameless life, and the charities which he dispensed up
to and even beyond the limit of his means, had won for him the regard of
all Antioch. Even the heathen would stop him in the streets and beg his
blessing. Oniah was a power in Antioch for which even the reckless young
profligate on the throne had an unfeigned respect.
It may, then, be easily imagined that no little sensation was produced
when this venerable personage appeared before Antiochus, and, in the
presence of the Court, accused Menelaüs, whom he had steadfastly refused
to acknowledge as high priest, of having embezzled much of the treasure of
the Temple at Jerusalem. That Oniah, whose veracity and good faith were
beyond all question, should make such a charge was _primâ facie_ evidence
of its truth. As he was known to have many friends in Jerusalem, it was
more than probable that evidence would be forthcoming. The King did not
hesitate a moment in acting upon this probability. Of course, he did not
look at the matter in at all the same light as that in which it was
regarded by the devout Oniah. To the dispossessed high priest the robbery
of the sacred vessels was a monstrous sacrilege, an offence of the deepest
dye, not only against his country but against his God. Antiochus felt that
it was he who had been wronged. The treasures of the Jerusalem Temple were
_his_ treasures. He might be content to leave them, at all events for the
present, where they were; but they must be ready to his hand whenever the
occasion should arise, and any one who presumed to appropriate them was a
traitor and a villain. Hence the urgent summons to Menelaüs and to
Sostratus, who, as Governor, could hardly fail, thought Antiochus, to have
been cognizant of the whole proceeding.
Almost immediately after the despatch of the summons came the trouble with
Tarsus. The King started to chastise in person his rebellious subjects,
and left, as we have said, Andronicus in general charge of affairs, and
with a special commission to hear the accusation which Oniah was bringing
against Menelaüs. The choice was an unlucky one. Antiochus was sincerely
anxious that justice should be done in the matter; but to get justice done
in any particular case when it is not the rule of the administration is
exceedingly difficult. Andronicus, to put the facts quite simply, was an
unprincipled villain, ready to sell his decisions, when he could do so
with impunity, to the highest bidder. He was an old acquaintance and
confederate of Sostratus, and Menelaüs, who had established friendly
relations with the Governor during their journey from Jerusalem to
Antioch, soon received a hint as to how he should proceed. The hearing of
the case had been appointed for the sixth day after his arrival. Before
that date one of the sacred vessels which he had taken the precaution of
bringing with him, had been exchanged for five hundred gold pieces, and
the gold pieces had found their way into the pocket of Andronicus.
On the day appointed Oniah, supported by the principal Jewish inhabitants
of Antioch and by not a few of the most respectable Greeks, appeared to
substantiate his charges against the usurper Menelaüs. The evidence
appeared to be overwhelming. The artizan who had been employed to
fabricate the worthless imitations of the precious vessels told the whole
story of the fraud with a fulness of detail which seemed to bear all the
stamp of truth. Another witness related how he had carried one of the
original articles to a goldsmith at Sidon, and actually produced a rough
memorandum of its weight, which had been made upon the spot, to be
afterwards embodied in the formal receipt.
The line of defence adopted was bold, not to say impudent. The whole
affair, according to Menelaüs, was a conspiracy on the part of the
irreconcilable Jews to overthrow a loyal subject of the King. The
witnesses, he declared, had been suborned, the documents had been forged.
He then went on to bring a counter-charge against his accuser. And here he
found a certain advantage in the transparent honesty of Oniah.
“Do you acknowledge,” he asked the ex-high priest, “the validity of the
appointments which our most noble lord Antiochus has made to the office of
high priest?”
Oniah frankly confessed that he did not.
“Do you consider yourself to be still, according to the Law, in rightful
possession of that office?”
“I do.”
“And bound to assert that right?”
“By lawful means.”
“And you hold all means to be lawful that are enjoined in the Law of
Moses?”
“I do.”
“And among such means you would count the banishment from the precincts of
the Holy City of all such as do not worship the Lord God of Israel?”
Oniah felt that he was becoming entangled in this artful web of questions,
and made an effort to break loose. “I appeal,” he cried, “most excellent
Andronicus, to all who, in this city of Antioch, for these four years past
have known my manner of life. You see sundry of them, nor of my own nation
only, in the court this day. Ask them whether I have not lived in all
peace and quietness, not seeking to disturb, either by word or deed, the
dominions of my lord the King.”
Menelaüs, of course, had not come unprovided with witnesses. The old man
had, to tell the truth, used language of an imprudent kind. He was a
patriot and a believer. As such, he had his beliefs and his hopes, and it
was part of his character to express such beliefs and hopes quite openly.
He had talked of a day when the Holy Land should be no more the prey of
the alien and the heathen, when a king of the House of David should rule
in Mount Sion, when the Temple should regain all the sacredness and all
the glory which had ever belonged to it. Such language, construed
strictly, was not consistent with a thorough loyalty to the Syrian
monarch. But no one who knew Oniah, a man of peace who had the good sense
to recognize what was and what was not possible, could suppose that any
scheme of revolt against existing authorities had ever entered into his
mind. In fact he had not said a word that had not been said before by one
or more of the prophets. Still, words which breathed a spirit of
independence, when reported by witnesses, and acknowledged by Oniah—who
was, indeed, too honest to deny them—gave Andronicus the occasion for
which he had been looking. He gave his decision in the following terms:—
“The charge against Menelaüs is postponed for further hearing. Meanwhile
the documents produced and the witnesses will remain in the custody of the
Court. As for Oniah, he must be reserved for the judgment of the King in
person. I should myself have been disposed to release him; but in the
absence of my lord, considering that the peace of the realm is so
essentially concerned, I do not venture so far.”
He was proceeding to give orders for the removal of Oniah, when an ominous
murmur from the audience, with which the court was crowded, made him
pause. Prisoners who saw the inside of an Antioch dungeon were sometimes
not heard of again. The air had a certain power of developing very rapid
diseases, so rapid that the sufferers were not only dead but buried before
any tidings of the sickness reached their friends. Antioch was not
disposed to see the man who was probably the most widely respected of all
its inhabitants, exposed to such a risk. Andronicus, who could not even
trust the soldiers to act against so venerable a person, drew back. He was
willing, he said, to accept sureties in a sufficient amount for the due
appearance of the accused. The sureties were forthcoming in a moment, in
sums so great and so absolutely secure that Andronicus had no pretext for
refusing them. He proceeded to adjourn the Court for fourteen days.
During the interval he took the opportunity of making a change in the
garrison of the capital. Troops recruited from some of the regions
bordering on Judæa, and accordingly among the bitterest enemies of its
people, replaced some Greek mercenaries. The strangers knew nothing about
Oniah, except that he was a Jew, and, being a Jew, of course hateful. They
could be relied upon to obey orders, and those who knew Andronicus were
sure what orders he would issue.
Oniah’s friends urged him to fly. He was too old and feeble, he replied;
it would be better for him to die at his post. Then they implored him to
take sanctuary.
“What!” he cried, “take sanctuary in a heathen temple! There is none other
in the place. I would sooner die a thousand times.”
It was not in a temple, they explained, that he was to find shelter. It
was in the Gardens of Daphne that they wished him to take refuge. And they
proceeded to unfold an elaborate argument, the gist of which was that the
Gardens were a civil, and not a religious, sanctuary; that there would be
no occasion for him to enter the consecrated enclosure; he would be simply
availing himself of a custom which forbad the entrance of the Minister of
Justice into a place devoted to the amusement of the people. It is
probable that they strained their argument beyond the limits of the truth.
It was with great difficulty that Oniah could be made to yield. When he
did so at last, on the urgent representations of his friends that the
hopes of a free Israel were largely dependent on the preservation of his
life, he could not help foreboding that the concession would not profit
either himself or them.
The world scarcely contained a more beautiful place—beautiful both by
grace of nature and diligence of art—than the Gardens of Daphne; and
certainly none that seemed more unlikely to shelter a devout Jew. Its
avenues of cypress and laurels, its delicious depths of shade, its
thousand streams, clear as crystal and untouched by the drought of the
longest, most fiery summer, were but a part of its charms. Of some,
perhaps the chief of its attractions, it is best not to speak; but there
were others, less unseemly indeed, but such as must have been absolutely
scandalous to such a man as Oniah. The curious thronged to see the
gigantic statue of Apollo, a match both in size and costliness of material
to that of Zeus in the plain of Olympia. (It was sixty feet in height, and
wrought of gold and ivory.) To complete the resemblance to the famous
meeting-place of the Greek race, there was a running ground and rings for
wrestling and boxing. Finally, Daphne claimed to rival another great
centre of Greek life in its special characteristic. It was stoutly
maintained that the Apollo who haunted the laurel-groves of Daphne was as
true a prophet as he who spoke through the lips of Pythia at Delphi.
Crowds of men and women, eager to learn the secrets of the future, came to
the groves of Antioch. The method by which they saw into the secrets of
fate seemed singularly simple. The questioner dipped a laurel leaf into
the stream that flowed by the shrine, and lo! the surface appeared written
over with the intimations of fate. Simple it was, but the priests had
spent a world of pains in acquiring the art of invisible writing, and they
did their best to learn something about the history and prospects of the
applicants.
Such was Daphne, and no one could be more astonished than were its
inhabitants and visitors at the strange figure whom they saw before them;
strange to the place, indeed, rather than to them, for Oniah, as has been
said, was one of the best-known personages in Antioch. The rumour of his
coming had gone before him, and a crowd, half curious, half respectful,
had gathered to meet him. In not a few, indeed, curiosity and respect were
mingled with something of fear. The presence of this austere piety in this
haunt of vicious pleasure, was thought to augur ill for its prosperity.
Some of the priests were heard to murmur that one who was the avowed enemy
of the gods ought not to be admitted. But they did not venture to deny to
any one who sought them the privileges of sanctuary, while their fears
were not of a kind which they could make their followers understand. They
had, therefore, to acquiesce, and hope that the unwelcome visitor would
bring with him no ill-luck.
A little building, as remote as possible from the central temple, had been
secured for the residence of Oniah. On reaching the gardens he had to make
his way to it through two dense lines of eager spectators. The temple, the
shrine of the oracle, the pavilions devoted to pleasure, were for the
nonce deserted. The drunkards left their wine-cup, and, stranger still,
the dice-players their gaming-tables, to gaze upon the holy man. As he
walked up the narrow avenue that had been left for his passage, some of
the women whose venal beauty was one of the attractions of the place,
threw themselves at his feet. Unhappy creatures, they had been brought up
from childhood to this life of degradation, which indeed had a certain
hideous sanction of religious association about it; but they had not
altogether lost the womanly veneration for goodness, and, like the
Magdalen of a later time, seemed to forget themselves in its presence. The
old man, unconscious of their character, or perhaps, with the Divine Guest
of the Pharisee of Capernaum, ignoring it, stretched out his hands with
the gesture of blessing, and, though it was technically a pollution to
touch a heathen, he even laid them on some children who were almost thrust
into his arms. There was hardly a heart that was not touched with this
kindness, and when the priest, as he entered his new abode, turned and
bade the multitude farewell, he was answered with shouts of enthusiasm.
Menelaüs and his accomplices were dismayed at the escape of the victim. A
witness who knew so much, and whose word was so implicitly believed, must
be silenced at any cost. To take him by force from the sanctuary was
impossible. Any attempt of the kind would certainly end in disaster. But
it might be possible to draw him forth by fraud. Menelaüs knew enough of
the old man’s character to be sure that he had gone reluctantly, and would
gladly seize the opportunity of quitting a scene in which he must have
felt himself so much out of place. Some such fraud it would not be
difficult to contrive with the help of Andronicus. Accordingly another of
the sacred vessels found its way to the dealer, and another purse of gold
into the pocket of the viceroy, and in a few hours the plot was arranged.
As Antiochus was on his way back from the north, there was no time to be
lost.
Two days after the arrival of Oniah at the gardens a visitor to him was
announced. It was the viceroy himself.
“Venerable sir,” he began, “it has grieved me beyond measure to find that
you were distrustful of my honourable, and I may say friendly, intentions
concerning you. Whoever accused me of ill-will towards you has wronged me
most foully. And let me add that you also have been wronged no less in
that you have been persuaded to come to a place so unworthy of your
dignity. Your safety should be ensured, not by a sanctuary in which
thieves and murderers find refuge, but by the inviolable precincts of the
royal palace itself. Let me offer to you, in the name of the King, the
hospitality of his abode. In the meanwhile I am willing to swear by any
oaths that may suffice to satisfy you and your friends, that you shall
suffer no injury from my hands.”
One or two of Oniah’s friends strongly dissuaded him from trusting himself
to the viceroy. But their caution was overborne by their companions and by
the eagerness of the priest to quit so uncongenial a place. Andronicus
took every oath known to Greek or Jew that he would treat the priest with
all respect, and Oniah gladly bade farewell to the Gardens. His departure
was made at the dead of night, and unknown to any of the inhabitants of
Daphne. Had they been aware of his intention, it is probable, knowing as
they did the character of Andronicus, that they would have hindered it by
force.
Almost at the moment of Oniah’s arrival at the palace a runner reached it
from the King announcing his intended arrival on the next day.
Speedy action was necessary, and Andronicus, though not without
misgivings, determined to lose no time. A Court of Justice, so called, was
hastily held. A creature of his own was called to preside over it.
Witnesses whose testimony had been carefully prepared, deposed to
preparations for rebellion to which Oniah had been privy, and to which he
had lent his aid. The accused was not allowed to have an advocate, and
scarcely even permitted to speak. Two hours sufficed for this mockery of a
legal process, and two more for carrying into effect the sentence of death
which was of course pronounced. Though the brutal Cilicians who formed the
garrison of the palace were ready to carry out any order which their
officer might give, it was judged well to avoid anything like a public
execution. That very night Oniah was poisoned in his prison, and before
dawn the next day his body was hastily consigned to the tomb.
The punishment for this atrocious act of treachery and cruelty was not
long delayed. One of the first acts of Antiochus, after his return to his
capital, was to demand the presence of Oniah, and then the story had to be
told. Andronicus did his best to put such a colour upon it as would
deceive his master. The attempt was vain. The King saw in a moment through
the idle charges which had been brought against the dead man. “What!” he
cried, “Oniah rebel against _me_!” His vanity and self-confidence made the
accusation seem the very height of absurdity.
“Of course,” the King went on—“of course he did not acknowledge the
priesthood of Jason or Menelaüs; he has told me so himself twenty times.
He could not think otherwise, and he was as honest as the day. I only wish
that he had left another as honest behind him. Zeus and all the gods of
heaven and hell confound me if I do not avenge him to the uttermost. Tell
me,” he cried, turning to the captain of the Cilicians, who stood by
dismayed at his master’s rage—“tell me where you have buried him.”
The captain described the place.
“I will see him once more, and these villains shall see him too,” he said,
pointing to the trembling pair, Andronicus and his creature the judge.
He went on foot, his royal dress discarded for a mourner’s cloak. His
courtiers followed him, and a guard of soldiers behind brought with them
the guilty viceroy and judge.
“Open the grave,” he said, when he reached the spot.
It was soon done, for the murderers had hurried their victim into a
shallow tomb. In a few minutes the body of the dead man was exposed to
view. Decay had not commenced, and death had given fresh depth and beauty
to the serenity which had been their habitual expression in life.
Antiochus gazed awhile at the face; then, dropping on his knees, covered
his head with his mantle, and burst into a passion of tears.
In a few minutes he rose to his feet. Grief had given place to rage, and
his eyes blazed with fury.
“Bind that wretch!” he cried, pointing to the wretched Andronicus.
He was bound, and stood waiting his doom.
“He is not worth the blow of an honest sword,” cried the King; “strangle
him, as if he were a dog. But first make him look at the man whom he has
murdered.”
Andronicus was forced to the edge of the grave and compelled to look at
the dead. A halter was thrown round his neck, and the next moment he was a
corpse. The judge shared his fate. “And you, sir,” said the King, turning
to the captain who had administered the poison—“you, sir, though you are a
barbarian, and know no better, must learn that you cannot rob the world of
one who was worth a thousand such brutes as you. You are captain no more;
that is your successor,” and he pointed to an officer in his train. “You
can groom his horses, if you don’t want to starve. And think that you are
lucky that you keep your head.”
So the good Oniah was avenged.