ent him in haste into Syria, as hoping that by his means he should
easily conquer that country, and the parts adjoining to Judea. But envy
prevented any effect of Aristobulus's alacrity, and the hopes of Caesar;
for he was taken off by poison given him by those of Pompey's party;
and, for a long while, he had not so much as a burial vouchsafed him
in his own country; but his dead body lay [above ground], preserved in
honey, until it was sent to the Jews by Antony, in order to be buried in
the royal sepulchers.

2. His son Alexander also was beheaded by Sci-pio at Antioch, and that
by the command of Pompey, and upon an accusation laid against him before
his tribunal, for the mischiefs he had done to the Romans. But Ptolemy,
the son of Menneus, who was then ruler of Chalcis, under Libanus, took
his brethren to him by sending his son Philippio for them to Ascalon,
who took Antigonus, as well as his sisters, away from Aristobulus's
wife, and brought them to his father; and falling in love with the
younger daughter, he married her, and was afterwards slain by his father
on her account; for Ptolemy himself, after he had slain his son, married
her, whose name was Alexandra; on the account of which marriage he took
the greater care of her brother and sister.

3. Now, after Pompey was dead, Antipater changed sides, and cultivated a
friendship with Caesar. And since Mithridates of Pergamus, with the
forces he led against Egypt, was excluded from the avenues about
Pelusium, and was forced to stay at Asealon, he persuaded the Arabians,
among whom he had lived, to assist him, and came himself to him, at the
head of three thousand armed men. He also encouraged the men of power in
Syria to come to his assistance, as also of the inhabitants of Libanus,
Ptolemy, and Jamblicus, and another Ptolemy; by which means the cities
of that country came readily into this war; insomuch that Mithridates
ventured now, in dependence upon the additional strength that he had
gotten by Antipater, to march forward to Pelusium; and when they refused
him a passage through it, he besieged the city; in the attack of which
place Antipater principally signalized himself, for he brought down that
part of the wall which was over against him, and leaped first of all
into the city, with the men that were about him.

4. Thus was Pelusium taken. But still, as they were marching on, those
Egyptian Jews that inhabited the country called the country of Onias
stopped