y. But he took with him
those that were the least encumbered, and were most intimate with him,
and came to the fortress, and placed there his wives and his followers,
being eight hundred in number, there being in the place a sufficient
quantity of corn and water, and other necessaries, and went directly
for Petra, in Arabia. But when it was day, the Parthians plundered all
Jerusalem, and the palace, and abstained from nothing but Hyrcanus's
money, which was three hundred talents. A great deal of Herod's money
escaped, and principally all that the man had been so provident as to
send into Idumea beforehand; nor indeed did what was in the city suffice
the Parthians, but they went out into the country, and plundered it, and
demolished the city Marissa.

10. And thus was Antigonus brought back into Judea by the king of the
Parthians, and received Hyrcanus and Phasaelus for his prisoners; but he
was greatly cast down because the women had escaped, whom he intended to
have given the enemy, as having promised they should have them, with the
money, for their reward: but being afraid that Hyrcanus, who was under
the guard of the Parthians, might have his kingdom restored to him by
the multitude, he cut off his ears, and thereby took care that the high
priesthood should never come to him any more, because he was maimed,
while the law required that this dignity should belong to none but such
as had all their members entire [25] But now one cannot but here admire
the fortitude of Phasaelus, who, perceiving that he was to be put to
death, did not think death any terrible thing at all; but to die thus by
the means of his enemy, this he thought a most pitiable and dishonorable
thing; and therefore, since he had not his hands at liberty, but the
bonds he was in prevented him from killing himself thereby, he dashed
his head against a great stone, and thereby took away his own life,
which he thought to be the best thing he could do in such a distress as
he was in, and thereby put it out of the power of the enemy to bring him
to any death he pleased. It is also reported, that when he had made a
great wound in his head, Antigonus sent physicians to cure it, and,
by ordering them to infuse poison into the wound, killed him. However,
Phasaelus hearing, before he was quite dead, by a certain woman, that
his brother Herod had escaped the enemy, underwent his death cheerfully,
since he now left behind him one who would revenge his death, and who