REVERSES.
Judas met the danger with his accustomed resolution. He waited in the city
till he could be certain of the road which the invaders were taking. As
soon as he knew that it was from the south that they were approaching, he
collected all his available force, having for the purpose to raise the
siege of the fortress, and marched forth to meet them.
The fortress of Beth-zur, which was intended to be the first line in the
defence of the capital, was in danger of falling into the hands of the
enemy. Micah had received, early in the year, a commission to revictual
it, but had found the task one that was difficult, if not impossible, to
execute. There was a positive scarcity of food, and the scarcity was
aggravated as usual by the practice of hoarding. It was to little purpose
that Micah scoured the country, making requisitions of grain and other
supplies. Some few, strong in their faith, gave up what they had, and
committed themselves and their children to the Lord, whose law they were
seeking to obey. Others met the demand with a flat refusal, and at the
same time taunted Micah with the folly of enforcing an impracticable law
in times of such difficulty. Many met him with the plea of poverty, and
their wasted forms and sunken faces were proof enough that this plea was
genuine. The work, therefore, for all the zeal that Micah displayed, went
on but very slowly, and, indeed, was not half finished when the advanced
guard of the army of Lysias appeared. Beth-zur was immediately invested.
The engines, of which Lysias had a large stock, played fiercely upon the
walls, and preparations was made for an assault. Micah, on the other hand,
saw no hope that he would be able to stand a long siege. The garrison
under his command was not large enough adequately to man the walls, while
it was too large for the stock of provisions which he had been able to
collect.
Under these circumstances his resolution was soon taken. Before dawn on
the second day of the investment the whole garrison made a desperate
sally. Happily they had no non-combatants to care for, and as yet no sick
or wounded. Fire was set to the engines. The besiegers, thinking that this
was the object of the attack, and that the garrison would make their way
back into the fortress, when this had been accomplished, occupied
themselves chiefly in putting out the fire. But Micah had no intention of
returning. He availed himself of the confusion caused by the burning of
the camp, cut his way with desperate resolution through the enemy, and
succeeded in reaching the camp of Judas with the larger part of his force.
The rest were not able to follow him, but succeeded in regaining the
fortress, which they continued to hold against the Greeks.
The camp was at Beth-Zachariah, about nine miles south from Jerusalem, and
on an elevated position, not less than three thousand feet above the level
of the sea, which commanded the whole of the neighbouring country. Behind,
to the north, could be seen the towers of Jerusalem, with Bethlehem, the
City of David, in the nearer foreground, nestling among its oliveyards and
vineyards. To the west lay the plain of Philistia, with the white cliff of
Gath clearly visible in the extreme distance; to the east could be seen
the purple mountains of Moab. The road from Hebron, by which the Greek
army would approach, crept along the eastern side of the mountains. From
his elevated position Judas could see the movements of his adversaries
while they were still at a considerable distance. Observing that they
pitched their camp on the further side of a narrow defile, with the
character of which he was intimately acquainted, he conceived the idea of
an ambush.
He summoned Azariah to his tent and detailed his plan. Azariah also knew
the place well, and entered into the scheme with enthusiasm—such
enthusiasm, indeed, that Judas felt it necessary to give him a parting
caution. “Remember,” he said, “if this scheme fails, that you come back to
me immediately. If the ambush should be discovered, retreat at once. There
must be no attack. I cannot spare a man. We shall want all that we have,
if not more than all, to make head against the thousands of Lysias.”
Azariah promised obedience, and lost no time in setting out on his errand.
Shortly after sunset he started, having with him a picked force of a
thousand men. Before midnight he had reached the place fixed upon by
Judas, and there, in a hollow half-way up the side of the hill that formed
one side of the pass, he laid his ambush.
It was an anxious night for the little band. It was always an accepted
maxim in ancient warfare that it was the most steadfast courage that was
wanted for the ambush. Men who were brave enough when fighting in the open
plain found their courage fail when they had to lie for hours watching for
the moment of attack, crouched upon the ground, unable to move and
scarcely venturing to talk. Azariah’s men were brave—indeed they had been
carefully chosen for this very service—but they were not altogether
insensible of the dangers of their position. They knew, too, and even
exaggerated the strength of the advancing army. As they talked in whispers
during the night, for, as may be imagined, few could sleep, they spoke of
the chances of the coming day. The elephants, which had never before been
seen on Jewish soil, were mentioned with special awe.
“Strange and terrible beasts they are,” said one man to his neighbour;
“savage as lions, and many times larger and stronger.”
“Is it so?” said the other. “I heard once from an Arab, who had been
driver of one of these creatures, that they are marvellously gentle and
tame.”
“Maybe they are by nature; but their drivers have ways of rousing them to
fury before the battle.”
“How so?”
“They show them the blood of grapes and mulberries, and the creatures rage
terribly. ’Tis said that one of them can tread down a whole company of
men.”
“Well, but ’tis possible, I know, to stand against them. King Antiochus,
father to the madman whom the Lord smote for his sins, had an array of
them in his army when he fought against the Romans at Magnesia, but they
profited him little. So Simeon told me—you know the man, the old Benjamite
who took service with the King. The Romans stood firm in their rank, and
threw their javelins at the beasts’ trunks, and in the end, so Simeon
said, they did more damage to their own people than to the enemy.”
“The Lord grant that it be so to-morrow.”
The sun had just risen when the approach of the Greek army became visible.
And now the vanguard was almost within striking distance of the ambush
which, to all appearance, was still undiscovered. Another few steps and
they would be immediately below, at a point where they might be assailed
with disastrous effect. Behind a little rock which was within a few yards
of the pass Azariah knelt, sword in hand, waiting to give the signal to
his men. Their fears had mostly vanished in the morning light, and the
dreaded elephants did not form part of the advanced guard.
But just as Azariah was about to give the signal to charge his quick ear
caught the sound of tramping feet, which seemed to come from some place
above his own position. The next moment he caught sight, in the slanting
rays of the early sun, of the glitter of helmets and shields. A Greek
force, fully equal in number to his own, was marching in a direction
parallel to the pass but higher up the mountain-side. Lysias had learnt
wisdom from experience. He no longer despised his enemy, but credited him
with the military skill which, indeed, he had more than once proved
himself to possess. He had foreseen the ambush, and had sent a force to
guard against the danger. Azariah’s force, though out of sight of the
road, could be seen from the higher ground, and the Greeks greeted their
appearance with shouts of laughter. For one moment a wild desire to charge
swept through the mind of the Jewish captain. He had hoped to blot out by
some brilliant service the remembrance of his former disaster, and now he
had failed again. True, it was not by his own fault; yet he had failed,
and he would have to go back to Judas empty-handed. A single word would
have sent his men in furious onset against the foe. Should he say it? Then
there came back to his recollection the gentleness and forbearance of
Judas. He could not disobey such a leader a second time. He gave the
signal to retreat. His men heard it with disgust; but they knew that he
was acting against his own desire as much as against theirs, and they
obeyed without a murmur, or, if some of the youngest and fiercest among
them complained of the order, it was only under their breath that they
spoke.
Azariah now made his way to Judas with all the haste that he could use.
“I have failed,” he said. “The heathen seemed to know of our design
beforehand. There could be no surprise, so I did not attack, but came back
to you at once.”
“You have done well,” said Judas, who knew what a sacrifice the fiery
soldier had made. “A chance victory won by disobeying orders is worse than
a defeat.”
But Judas, though, as always, he did full justice to his lieutenant, was
much depressed by the failure of the attempt, and he looked with a gloomy
brow at the approaching host, as it came on in all the pomp and
circumstance of war, the sunlight gleaming on the banners, the helmets of
brass and gold, and on the long, slanting lines of spear-heads. As it came
nearer the regular tread of the columns and the clang of arms, with now
and then the shrill voice of a clarion or the deep note of a trumpet heard
above the roar, moved even the stoutest warrior to something like fear.
Judas followed once more the tactics which he had so often found
successful. To stand on the defensive was hopeless; his few thousands
would inevitably be trodden down under the feet of this huge multitude.
His only hope was in attack. If he could but break the line at a single
point his success might be again, as it had been before, the beginning of
a panic, and the great host of Lysias might melt away as the host of
Apollonius had melted; but the attack must be made while the enemy were
yet upon ground where they had not space to make full use of their
numbers. He charged with his accustomed fury before the vanguard of the
enemy had emerged into the open. For a time it seemed as if his audacity
was to be successful. The hostile army reeled under the shock of the
patriots’ furious charge. In two or three places it broke. But there was
in reserve a second line of veterans, the steadiest and best troops that
could be found in the Syrian armies, for Lysias knew by this time that
none but the very best could stand against Judas and his Ironsides. And
then the numbers were overpowering. Step by step the Jewish column was
forced back. They left six hundred of the enemy dead on the field behind
them; but the attack had failed.
Then, as the Greek army deployed upon the open ground which the retreat of
the Jews left open to them, the elephants came upon the scene—the “huge,
earth-shaking beasts,” which even the hardiest warrior could hardly see
for the first time without some sinking of heart. Each animal was
accompanied by picked bodies of horse and foot. Each carried a tower from
which skilful marksmen, whose accurate aim was greatly helped by their
elevated position, hurled missiles upon the ranks of the foe. The
creatures themselves seemed to share in all the fury of the battle. They
trumpeted loudly and furiously; at the bidding of the Indian drivers who
were perched upon their necks they seized soldiers from among the Jewish
ranks with their trunks, whirled them aloft, and then dashed them down,
mangled and lifeless corpses, upon the ground.
Then was done one of the heroic acts which stand out conspicuously on the
pages of history. Eleazar, one of the Maccabee brothers, saw how his
countrymen were being demoralized by the terror of these strange
adversaries, and felt that it was a crisis that called for personal
devotion. One of the elephants was conspicuous among the rest, not only
for its superior size but for the splendour of its equipment. He felt sure
that it must be the one that carried the boy-King himself. Immediately his
resolve was taken. He made his way, striking furiously right and left, and
dealing death with every blow, through the Syrian ranks, crept under the
huge beast, and dealt him a mortal wound. Like another Samson, he perished
by his own success. The creature fell with a suddenness that gave him no
opportunity of escape, and he was crushed to death by its weight.
[Illustration: _The Death of Eleazar._]
The hero did not accomplish his object, to rally his countrymen. One might
rather say that their panic was heightened by the fall of one of the
heroic brothers, a son of the great house to which they owed their
liberty. But his deed was not forgotten. The fourth of the Maccabee
brothers lived in the history of his people as Eleazar Avaran—Eleazar “the
Beast Slayer.”
But the battle was lost beyond all hope. The only thing left for Judas was
to save as much as he could out of the wreck. He sounded the signal for
retreat, drew off his men in good order, and, making his way back as
rapidly as possible to Jerusalem, threw himself into the Temple fortress,
resolved to stand a siege.