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Epiphanes then lost that love of his people which the wisdom of the minister had gained for him; and he governed the kingdom with the cruelty of a tyrant, rather than with the legal power of a king.
Ground down to the dust by Antiochus, however, they bewailed not only their external misfortunes, but far more bitterly the desecration of their Sanctuary and the attempt to root out their religion, which was their life. The death of Antiochus Epiphanes was therefore a great relief and rejoicing to the struggling Jews.
Epiphanes had left behind him two sons, each named Ptolemy, and a daughter named Cleopatra; and the elder son, though still a child, mounted the throne under the able guardianship of his mother, Cleopatra, and took the very suitable name of Philometor, or mother-loving. The mother governed the kingdom for seven years as regent during the minority of her son.
In another quarter, too, the Syrian power received a severe shake through the injudicious violence of Epiphanes. The Oriental temples had, in some instances, escaped the rapacity of Alexander's generals and "Successors;" their treasuries remained unviolated, and contained large hoards of the precious metals.
There was also an embassy from Miletus, and one from Clazomenæ. On the day of their arrival at Memphis, Antiochus feasted these numerous ambassadors in grand state, and on the next day gave them an audience. But their arguments for peace carried no weight with him; and he denied that his father, Antiochus the Great, had ever given Coele-Syria as a dower with his daughter Cleopatra to Epiphanes.
Perseus, king of Macedonia, and Antiochus Epiphanes, nearly four hundred years after Pisistratus, finished the grand nave, and placed the columns of the portico, Cossutius, a Roman, being the architect. It was considered, and with good reason, one of the four celebrated marble temples of Greece: the other three were that of Diana, at Ephesus; Apollo, at Miletus; and Ceres, at Eleusis.
The resistance to these dreaded evils came to a head when the Syrian ruler, Antiochus Epiphanes, embittered by his failures in conflict with Egypt, resolved to break down religious barriers among his subjects, and, for this end, to exterminate Jewish worship. In 168 B.C. he set up an altar to Jupiter in the temple at Jerusalem, and even compelled Jewish priests to immolate swine.
Alexander the Great's conquest of the East left a Macedonian dynasty ruling those regions, and one of their great kings, Antiochus Epiphanes, tried to stamp out the religion of Jehovah altogether. What did God mean? Out of all the promises to Israel, to the House of David, this is what comes. Herod follows a foreign king and an Edomite; and the Romans are over all, suzerains and rulers.
He read also, no doubt, many apocryphal works i.e., writings somewhat modern, the authors of which, for the sake of an authority only granted to very ancient writings, had clothed themselves with the names of prophets and patriarchs. This book, composed by an enthusiastic Jew of the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, under the name of an ancient sage, was the résumé of the spirit of those later times.
Rabble, indeed! why these are the noble and free citizens of Epidaphne! Beasts, did you say? take care that you are not overheard. Do you not perceive that the animal has the visage of a man? Why, my dear sir, that cameleopard is no other than Antiochus Epiphanes, Antiochus the Illustrious, King of Syria, and the most potent of all the autocrats of the East!
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