Hebrew Heroes: A Tale Founded on Jewish History

  CHAPTER XX.

  THE COURT OF ANTIOCHUS.

  Fierce had been the rage and disappointment of Antiochus Epiphanes onhearing of the result of the night attack on his forces at Emmaus, andthe subsequent retreat of Giorgias without striking a blow. In vainthe troops of that too cautious leader endeavoured, by exaggerating theaccount of the numbers of their enemies, to cover their own shame.Antiochus was furious alike at what he termed the insolence of ahandful of outlaws, and the cowardice of his picked troops, who hadflaunted their banners and gone forth as if to assured victory, and hadthen fled like some gay-plumed bird before the swoop of the eagle. Notonly the oppressed inhabitants of Jerusalem and its environs had causeto tremble at the rage of the tyrant, but his own Syrian officers andthe obsequious courtiers who stood in his presence. And none more sothan Pollux, once the chosen companion and special favourite of theSyrian king. Pollux had been so loaded with wealth and honours by hiscapricious master, as to have become an object of envy to hisfellow-courtiers, and especially so to Lysimachus, a Syrian of highbirth, who had seen himself passed in the race for royal favour by arival whom he despised. But there was little cause for envying Pollux,the wretched parasite of a tyrant. Alas, for him who has barteredconscience and self-respect to win a monarch's smile! He has left thefirm though narrow path of duty, to find himself on a treacherousquicksand, where the ground on which he places his foot soon begins togive way beneath him!

  A few months before the time of which I am writing, Pollux, after along sojourn in Antioch, then the capital of the Syrian dominions, hadrejoined Antiochus in Jerusalem, where the monarch was holding hiscourt in a luxurious palace which he had caused to be erected. It washere that Pollux first experienced the fickleness of royal favour. Thecourtier had been present at the trial of Solomona and her brave sonswithout making the slightest effort to save them, though their fate hadmoved him to something more than pity. But though Pollux could to acertain extent trample down compunction, and force his conscience tosilence, he had not perfect command over his nerves. He might consentto the perpetration of horrors, but he could not endure to witnessthem; and, as we have seen, he had quietly, and, as he hoped, withoutattracting notice, quitted the chamber of torture.

  The keen eye of jealousy had, however, keenly watched the movements ofPollux, and Lysimachus had not failed to make the most of the weaknessbetrayed by his rival.

  "Pollux has sympathy with the Hebrews," observed Lysimachus to thetyrant, when Antiochus was chafing at being baffled by the fortitude ofhis victims. "Pollux may wear the Syrian garb, and he loaded withfavours by the mighty Syrian king, but he remains at heart a Jew."

  From that day Pollux found himself an object of suspicion, and havingonce reached the quicksand, he gradually sank lower and lower,notwithstanding his desperate efforts to save himself from impendingruin. His most costly gifts, his most fulsome flattery, his assurancesof deathless devotion to "the greatest, noblest of the kings who swayrealms conquered by Alexander, and surpass the fame of Macedonia'sgodlike hero," met but the coldest response. Pollux had once been wontto delight the king with his brilliant wit; now his forced jests felllike sparks upon water. Antiochus was growing tired of his favourite,as a child grows tired of the toy which he hugs one day, to break andfling aside on the next.

  All the more embarrassed from having to simulate ease, all the morewretched because forcing himself to seem merry, with the sword ofDamocles ever hanging over his head, Pollux, in the midst of luxury andpomp, was one of the most miserable of mankind. The court became tohim at last an almost intolerable place. In an attempt at once to freehimself from its restraints, and to win back the favour of the king bymilitary service, in an evil hour for himself, he had volunteered tojoin the forces of Nicanor. The courtier was incited by no militaryardour; he had no desire to fall on the field of victory; Pollux wasnot a coward, but he clung to life as those well may cling who haveforfeited all hope of anything but misery beyond it. Pollux, as wehave seen, had accompanied Giorgias when that general led a detachmentof chosen troops to make that night attack upon Judas which had provedso unsuccessful. With Giorgias, Pollux had returned to Jerusalem,covered with shame instead of glory. More than his fair share of theobloquy incurred had fallen to the unfortunate courtier.

  "Be assured, O most mighty monarch"--thus had Lysimachus addressed thedisappointed tyrant--"that had there been no sympathizers with theHebrew rebels in the army of the king, Giorgias would have returned toJerusalem with the head of Judas Maccabeus hanging at his saddle-bow."

  The insinuation was understood--the instilled poison worked its effect.Antiochus had met his former favourite with an ominous frown. He didnot, however, consign Pollux to irremediable ruin; he gave him a chanceof redeeming his character from the imputation of treachery towards theSyrian cause. Pollux received a commission from Antiochus to attackand seize a party of Hebrews who, according to information brought byspies, were to celebrate the Passover Feast in Salathiel's house, indefiance of the edict by which the king had endeavoured to crush thereligion of those who still worshipped the God of their fathers.

  An office more repugnant to the feelings of Pollux could scarcely havebeen assigned to him, but he dared not show the slightest hesitation inobeying the mandate; nay, the courtier even feigned joy at theopportunity given him of serving the king by rooting out the religionwhich, in the secret depths of his heart, Pollux regarded as the onlytrue one; for he could not obliterate from memory lessons once learnedon his mother's knee. The poor wretch was, as it were, sunk in thequicksand up to his lips, and would have clutched at red-hot iron, hadsuch been the only means of drawing him upwards out of the living gravein which he was being gradually entombed.

  Wearing the mask of mirth to conceal his misery, Pollux, before settingout on his hateful mission, jested in regard to the number of fanaticJews whom he would enclose in his toils, and bring to make sport beforethe king, to fight wild beasts in the large gymnasium, which had beenerected within Jerusalem for games which the Jews regarded as unlawfuland sinful. The courtier, in the presence of Antiochus, affected thegay delight of the hunter, trying to cover with a garb of levity theremorse which was gnawing at his heart, and not betray even by a look,the secret torture which he felt.

  We know what followed the attack upon Salathiel's house: the flight ofthe Hebrews, the fall of Abishai, whose last word and dying lookinflicted upon Pollux a pang keen enough to have satisfied the fiercestthirst for revenge.

  When tidings were brought to the palace that the result of the boastedexertions of Pollux was the death of a single Hebrew and the capture ofone young girl, the wrath of the tyrant Antiochus Epiphanes rose higherthan before. His courtiers, catching the infection of the anger of theking, showed something of what would have been the indignant rage of anaudience crowding the Coliseum at Rome in the expectation of gloatingon the sight of many victims flung to the lions, had the spectacle beenreduced to the sacrifice of one.

  Antiochus, however, determined to have what sport he could out of thesingle poor gazelle that had been run down by his hounds. Onewho--albeit, of the weaker sex--had been venturesome enough to keep thePassover feast, might make sufficient resistance to his arbitrary willto afford him a little amusement, when none more exciting could be had.The monarch, therefore, after he had enjoyed his noonday siesta, gavecommand that the Hebrew prisoner should be brought into his presence inhis grand hall of audience.

  There sat the tyrant of Syria on an ivory throne, his footstool acrouching silver lion, over his head a canopy of gold. In front of theking was a splendid altar, on which fire was constantly burning beforea small image of Jupiter; and the luxurious fragrance of incense,frequently thrown on this fire, filled the magnificent hall. Manycourtiers, in splendid apparel, clustered on either side below the daiswhich raised the throned monarch above them all. Behind these werenumerous slaves, mostly Nubians, richly and gaudily dressed, some ofwhom held aloft large fans of the peacock's many-tinted plumes. Thewhole scene wa
s one of gorgeous magnificence, the pomp and glory of theworld throwing its false halo of beauty over guilty power.

  Antiochus himself wore a robe crusted over with sparkling jewels, worththe tribute of a conquered province. He was, as his appearance hasbeen handed down to us on coins, a kingly-looking man, with shortcurled hair, and regular, strongly-marked features, but a recedingforehead, and an expression cold and hard. No one would expect fromhim "the milk of human kindness." Antiochus looked what he was--astern, merciless tyrant. There was at this period no premonitory signin the appearance of the king of that frightful disease which, within ayear's time, was to render him an object of horror and loathing to allwho approached him--a disease so exquisitely painful, that it seemed tocombine and exceed all the tortures which the tyrant had made hisvictims endure. Antiochus, glittering on his ivory throne, appeared tobe in the prime of health as well as the zenith of power; none guessedhow brief was the term of mortal existence remaining to the despot, onthe breath of whose lips now hung fortune or ruin, whose angry frownwas a sentence of death.