nt he sent to the consuls to Rome, to be engraven
in the capitol. The decree of the senate was this that follows: [13]
"Lucius Valerius, the son of Lucius the praetor, referred this to the
senate, upon the Ides of December, in the temple of Concord. There were
present at the writing of this decree Lucius Coponius, the son of Lucius
of the Colline tribe, and Papirius of the Quirine tribe, concerning
the affairs which Alexander, the son of Jason, and Numenius, the son of
Antiochus, and Alexander, the son of Dositheus, ambassadors of the Jews,
good and worthy men, proposed, who came to renew that league of goodwill
and friendship with the Romans which was in being before. They also
brought a shield of gold, as a mark of confederacy, valued at fifty
thousand pieces of gold; and desired that letters might be given them,
directed both to the free cities and to the kings, that their country
and their havens might be at peace, and that no one among them might
receive any injury. It therefore pleased [the senate] to make a league
of friendship and good-will with them, and to bestow on them whatsoever
they stood in need of, and to accept of the shield which was brought by
them. This was done in the ninth year of Hyrcanus the high priest and
ethnarch, in the month Panemus." Hyreanus also received honors from the
people of Athens, as having been useful to them on many occasions. And
when they wrote to him, they sent him this decree, as it here follows
"Under the prutaneia and priesthood of Dionysius, the son of Esculapius,
on the fifth day of the latter part of the month Panemus, this decree of
the Athenians was given to their commanders, when Agathocles was archon,
and Eucles, the son of Menander of Alimusia, was the scribe. In the
month Munychion, on the eleventh day of the prutaneia, a council of the
presidents was held in the theater. Dorotheus the high priest, and the
fellow presidents with him, put it to the vote of the people. Dionysius,
the son of Dionysius, gave the sentence. Since Hyrcanus, the son of
Alexander, the high priest and ethnareh of the Jews, continues to bear
good-will to our people in general, and to every one of our citizens in
particular, and treats them with all sorts of kindness; and when any of
the Athenians come to him, either as ambassadors, or on any occasion of
their own, he receives them in an obliging manner, and sees that they
are conducted back in safety, of which we have had several former
testimo