, slew their children and their wives, having no other
way but this of avoiding slavery for them; but the senators, who were in
all five hundred, fled to Apollo's temple, [for this attack happened
to be made as they were sitting,] whom Alexander slew; and when he had
utterly overthrown their city, he returned to Jerusalem, having spent a
year in that siege.

4. About this very time Antiochus, who was called Grypus, died [35] His
death was caused by Heracleon's treachery, when he had lived forty-five
years, and had reigned twenty-nine. [36] His son Seleucus succeeded him
in the kingdom, and made war with Antiochus, his father's brother, who
was called Antiochus Cyzicenus, and beat him, and took him prisoner,
and slew him. But after a while Antiochus, the son of Cyzicenus, who
was called Pius, came to Aradus, and put the diadem on his own head, and
made war with Seleucus, and beat him, and drove him out of all Syria.
But when he fled out of Syria, he came to Mopsuestia again, and levied
money upon them; but the people of Mopsuestin had indignation at what he
did, and burnt down his palace, and slew him, together with his friends.
But when Antiochus, the son of Cyzicenus, was king of Syria, Antiochus,
[37] the brother of Seleucus, made war upon him, and was overcome, and
destroyed, he and his army. After him, his brother Philip put on the
diadem, and reigned over some part of Syria; but Ptolemy Lathyrus sent
for his fourth brother Demetrius, who was called Eucerus, from Cnidus,
and made him king of Damascus. Both these brothers did Antiochus
vehemently oppose, but presently died; for when he was come as an
auxiliary to Laodice, queen of the Gileadites, [38] when she was making
war against the Parthians, and he was fighting courageously, he fell,
while Demetrius and Philip governed Syria, as hath been elsewhere
related.

5. As to Alexander, his own people were seditious against him; for at
a festival which was then celebrated, when he stood upon the altar, and
was going to sacrifice, the nation rose upon him, and pelted him with
citrons [which they then had in their hands, because] the law of the
Jews required that at the feast of tabernacles every one should have
branches of the palm tree and citron tree; which thing we have elsewhere
related. They also reviled him, as derived from a captive, and so
unworthy of his dignity and of sacrificing. At this he was in a rage,
and slew of them about six thousand. He also built a p