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He therefore bribed an influential courtier, named Ptolemy, the son of a certain Dorymenes, to intercede with Antiochus on his behalf, and, if possible, obtain his acquittal. The affair was not one of much difficulty. Justice was commonly bought and sold at the Syro-Macedonian Court, and Antiochus readily came into the views of Ptolemy, and pronounced the High Priest innocent.
The Phoenicians in return served zealously on board the Syro-Macedonian fleet, and showed their masters all due respect and honour. They were not afraid, however, of asserting an independence of thought and judgment, even in matters where the kings were personally concerned.
In Cyprus, at the autumnal equinox, i.e., the beginning of the year in the Syro-Macedonian calendar, the death of Adonis falling on the 23rd of September, his resurrection on the 1st of October, the beginning of a New Year. He is the Eniautos Daimon. The duration of the feast varied from two days, as at Alexandria, to seven or eight.
Athens ceded her rights of primogeniture to New Athens, Alexandria, capital of Egypt, and cosmopolitan centre of the civilized world. By turns she owned the sway of the Ptolemies and the Seleucidae, until finally, in 203, she was declared a Syro-Macedonian province. Here, as in the other parts of their realm, the rulers devoted themselves energetically to the dissemination of Greek culture.
The Syro-Macedonian monarchs could always count with certainty on having powerful friends in Parthia, whatever portion of it they invaded; and even the Romans, though their ethnic connection with the cities was not so close, were sometimes indebted to them for very important assistance.
The Syrian-Greek yoke was thrown off, and, after groaning under alien rule, the Persian, the Egyptian, and the Syro-Macedonian, for four hundred years, Judea became an independent state. In its foreign relations, the new state was secured by the self-sacrificing courage of the first Maccabean brothers, and from within it was supported by the deep-sunk pillars of the spiritual life.
Their prosperity, it is true, was occasionally diminished or increased by the personal character of the sovereigns who successively occupied the throne of Cyrus; but no material change in their circumstances took place until the victories of Alexander the Great had laid the foundations of the Syro-Macedonian kingdom in Western Asia, and given a new dynasty to the crown of Egypt.
Mithridates indeed, the original conqueror, is accused of having alienated his new subjects by the harshness of his rule; and in the struggle which occurred between him and the Seleucid king, Demetrius II., Persians, as well as Elymseans and Bactrians, are said to have fought on the side of the Syro-Macedonian.
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