[Sidenote:  Jos.  War, I, 7:7] Moreover he reappointed Hyrcanus high priest, by which he acted the part of a good general and reconciled the people to him rather by kindness than by terrorizing them.  He took away from the nation all those cities that they had formerly taken and reduced Judea to its own bounds.  Then he made all the haste he could to go through Cilicia on his way to Rome, taking Aristobulus and his two children along with him as captives.  One of Aristobulus’s sons, Alexander, ran away on the journey, but the younger, Antigonus, with his sisters, was carried to Rome.

I. The Character and Policy of Alexander Janneus.  For the picture of the character of Alexander Janneus we are chiefly dependent upon Josephus, and it is not clear how far this late Jewish historian was influenced by the prevailing prejudices against that ruler who figured as the arch enemy of the Pharisees.  The incidents recorded reveal, however, a most sinister character.  He was ambitious, but his ambitions were selfish and low.  He was energetic and tireless, but his energy was wasted in futile undertakings.  Furthermore, he was unscrupulous, vindictive, and merciless.  There is not the slightest indication that he was actuated by any worthy ideal of service.  To the Jewish state and race it was a great calamity that a man of this type should gain control of the nation at the moment when it had attained its greatest material strength.  Under the kindly and wise guidance of Simon the subsequent history of the Jewish state would doubtless have been far different.  Janneus’s first aim was to establish his power as an absolute despot.  He ardently accepted the ideal of an Oriental ruler that had been imposed upon the Jews during the short reign of his brother Aristobulus.  In realizing this ambition he met, as did every other king in Israel’s history, the strong opposition of the people and a bold assertion of their inherited liberties.  His second aim was to break completely the power of the Pharisees.  They were the party of the people and had no sympathy with his policies.  In them, therefore, he recognized his chief opponents.  His third ambition was to extend the territory of the Jewish state to its farthest natural bounds.  Soon after the beginning of his reign he succeeded in arousing the bitter hostility of the Greek cities on his eastern and western borders, of the reigning kings of Egypt, and of the rising Arabian power to the south of the Dead Sea.  The objects for which he strove were comparatively petty:  possession of the cities of Ptolemais and Gaza and of certain east-Jordan cities, such as Gadara and Amathus.  He was more often defeated than victorious, but his love of struggle and adventure and lust for conquest ever goaded him on.  In desperation his subjects even ventured to call in Demetrius, the governor of Damascus, but when Alexander was driven away in defeat the nation’s gratitude and loyalty to the Maccabean house reasserted itself and he was recalled.