Antigonus II Mattathias ( grc-gre, Αντίγονος ''Antígonos''; he, , ''Matīṯyāhū''), also known as Antigonus the Hasmonean (died 37 BCE) was the last Hasmonean king of

Judea Judea or Judaea ( or ; from he, יהודה, Hebrew language#Modern Hebrew, Standard ''Yəhūda'', Tiberian vocalization, Tiberian ''Yehūḏā''; el, Ἰουδαία, ; la, Iūdaea) is an ancient, historic, Biblical Hebrew, contemporaneous L ...

. A puppet king installed by the

Parthians Parthian may be: Historical * A demonym "of Parthia", a region of north-eastern of Greater Iran * Parthian Empire (247 BC – 224 AD) * Parthian language, a now-extinct Middle Iranian language * Parthian shot, an archery skill famously employed by ...

, he was the son of King

Aristobulus II Aristobulus II (, grc, Ἀριστόβουλος ''Aristóboulos'') was the Jewish High Priest and King of Judea, 66 BCE to 63 BCE, from the Hasmonean dynasty. Family Aristobulus was the younger son of Alexander Jannaeus, King and High Priest ...

of Judea. In 37 BCE Herod handed him over to the Romans for execution, after Antigonus's three-year reign during which he led the

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

' fierce struggle for independence against the Romans.

Rome

Antigonus was the second son of Aristobulus II, and together with his father, were carried off to Rome as prisoners by Pompey in 63 BCE. Antigonus eventually escaped and returned to

Judaea Judea or Judaea ( or ; from he, יהודה, Standard ''Yəhūda'', Tiberian ''Yehūḏā''; el, Ἰουδαία, ; la, Iūdaea) is an ancient, historic, Biblical Hebrew, contemporaneous Latin, and the modern-day name of the mountainous south ...

in 57 BCE. Despite an unsuccessful attempt to oppose the Roman forces there, the senate released him, yet he refused to surrender his dynastic rights. After the death of his older brother

Alexander Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Al ...

, Antigonus claimed that his uncle

Hyrcanus II John Hyrcanus II (, ''Yohanan Hurqanos'') (died 30 BCE), a member of the Hasmonean dynasty, was for a long time the Jewish High Priest in the 1st century BCE. He was also briefly King of Judea 67–66 BCE and then the ethnarch (ruler) of J ...

was a puppet of the Idumaean

Antipater Antipater (; grc, , translit=Antipatros, lit=like the father; c. 400 BC319 BC) was a Macedonian general and statesman under the subsequent kingships of Philip II of Macedon and his son, Alexander the Great. In the wake of the collaps ...

and attempted to overthrow him with the help and consent of the Romans. He visited

Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and ...

, who was in Syria in 47 BCE, and complained of the usurpation of Antipater and Hyrcanus II. In 42 BCE, he attempted to seize the government of Judaea by force with the assistance of his brother-in-law,

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importanc ...

, but was defeated by Herod."Antigonus Matthathias", ''Jewish Encyclopedia''
/ref>

Parthian support

The excessive taxation wrung from the people to pay for the extravagances of

Mark Antony Marcus Antonius (14 January 1 August 30 BC), commonly known in English as Mark Antony, was a Roman politician and general who played a critical role in the transformation of the Roman Republic from a constitutional republic into the autoc ...

and

Cleopatra Cleopatra VII Philopator ( grc-gre, Κλεοπάτρα Φιλοπάτωρ}, "Cleopatra the father-beloved"; 69 BC10 August 30 BC) was Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt from 51 to 30 BC, and its last active ruler.She was also a ...

had inspired a deep hatred against Rome. Antigonus gained the allegiance of both the

aristocratic class The aristocracy is historically associated with "hereditary" or "ruling" social class. In many states, the aristocracy included the upper class of people (aristocrats) with hereditary rank and titles. In some, such as ancient Greece, ancient Ro ...

in Jerusalem and the leaders of the

Pharisees The Pharisees (; he, פְּרוּשִׁים, Pərūšīm) were a Jewish social movement and a school of thought in the Levant during the time of Second Temple Judaism. After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, Pharisaic beliefs bec ...

. The

, who invaded Syria in 40 BCE, preferred to see an anti-Roman ruler on the throne of Judaea. When Antigonus promised them large sums of gold as well as five hundred female slaves, the Parthians put five hundred warriors at his disposal. After Antigonus, with Parthian help, conquered Jerusalem, Hyrcanus was sent to

Babylon ''Bābili(m)'' * sux, 𒆍𒀭𒊏𒆠 * arc, 𐡁𐡁𐡋 ''Bāḇel'' * syc, ܒܒܠ ''Bāḇel'' * grc-gre, Βαβυλών ''Babylṓn'' * he, בָּבֶל ''Bāvel'' * peo, 𐎲𐎠𐎲𐎡𐎽𐎢 ''Bābiru'' * elx, 𒀸𒁀𒉿𒇷 ''Babi ...

after having his ears mutilated, which rendered him unfit for the office of

High Priest of Israel High Priest ( he, כהן גדול, translit=Kohen Gadol or ; ) was the title of the chief religious official of Judaism from the early post- Exilic times until the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE. Previously ...

. Herod fled from Jerusalem, and in 40 BCE Antigonus was officially proclaimed king and high priest by the Parthians.

Death of Antigonus

Following the conquest of Jerusalem by the Parthians, Herod fled quickly from Masada to Rome, where he was nominated in 40 BCE as the new king of Judea ( la, Rex socius et amicus populi Romani, allied king and friend of the Roman people) by the

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

on the recommendation of the

triumvir A triumvirate ( la, triumvirātus) or a triarchy is a political institution ruled or dominated by three individuals, known as triumvirs ( la, triumviri). The arrangement can be formal or informal. Though the three leaders in a triumvirate are ...

. On Herod's return to Judaea from Rome in 39 BCE he opened a campaign against Antigonus and laid siege to Jerusalem. In the spring of 38 BCE, Herod wrested control of the province of Galilee and eventually all of

other than Jerusalem. Due to the approach of winter, Herod postponed his siege of Jerusalem, where Antigonus and the remnants of his army took refuge, until spring. Herod and a supporting Roman army were kept out of Jerusalem for 3–5 months but the Romans did eventually capture the city. The supporters of Antigonus fought until the Romans reached the inner courtyard of the Temple. Antigonus was taken to Antioch and executed, ending Hasmonean rule.

Josephus Flavius Josephus (; grc-gre, Ἰώσηπος, ; 37 – 100) was a first-century Romano-Jewish historian and military leader, best known for ''The Jewish War'', who was born in Jerusalem—then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly d ...

states that Mark Antony beheaded Antigonus (Antiquities, XV 1:2 (8–9). Roman historian

Cassius Dio Lucius Cassius Dio (), also known as Dio Cassius ( ), was a Roman historian and senator of maternal Greek origin. He published 80 volumes of the history on ancient Rome, beginning with the arrival of Aeneas in Italy. The volumes documented the ...

says that he was crucified and records in his ''Roman History'': "These people

he Jews He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...

Antony entrusted to a certain Herod to govern; but Antigonus he bound to a cross and scourged, a punishment no other king had suffered at the hands of the Romans, and so slew him." In his ''Life of Antony'',

Plutarch Plutarch (; grc-gre, Πλούταρχος, ''Ploútarchos''; ; – after AD 119) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for his ''P ...

claims that Antony had Antigonus beheaded, "the first example of that punishment being inflicted on a king."

Disputed tomb in Jerusalem

In 1971, bulldozers removing earth in

East Jerusalem East Jerusalem (, ; , ) is the sector of Jerusalem that was held by Jordan during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, as opposed to the western sector of the city, West Jerusalem, which was held by Israel. Jerusalem was envisaged as a separat ...

for a construction project uncovered a tomb with an inscription that, according to some opinions, indicated that this was the tomb of King Antigonus, the last Hasmonean king. However, according to anthropologist

Joe Zias Joseph E. Zias, most commonly cited as Joe Zias, was the Curator of Archaeology and Anthropology for the Israel Antiquities Authority from 1972 until his retirement in 1997, with responsibility for items such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, pre-historic h ...

, former Curator of Archaeology and Anthropology for the

Israel Antiquities Authority The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA, he, רשות העתיקות ; ar, داﺌرة الآثار, before 1990, the Israel Department of Antiquities) is an independent Israeli governmental authority responsible for enforcing the 1978 Law of ...

, this theory is just little more than an urban myth, since the only beheaded skeleton found in 1971 and at the later re-examination of the previously untouched tomb, belonged to an elderly woman. In his view, no other set of remains found there could be associated with King Antigonus II and it is only due to the efforts of the owner of the building located on top of the tomb that the myth is still being promoted (as seen here:).

Qumran Scrolls connection

Biblical scholar Gregory Doudna proposed in 2013 that Antigonus II Mattathias was the figure known as the

Wicked Priest Wicked Priest ( he, הכהן הרשע; Romanized Hebrew: ''ha- kōhēn hā-rāš'ā'') is a sobriquet used in the Dead Sea Scrolls '' pesharim'', four times in the Habakkuk Commentary (1QpHab) and once in the Commentary on Psalm 37 (4QpPsa), to r ...

in the

Qumran Scrolls The Dead Sea Scrolls (also the Qumran Caves Scrolls) are Jewish history, ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious biblical manuscript, manuscripts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at the Qumran Caves in what was then Mandatory Palestine, near Ein ...

.Gregory Doudna
A Narrative Argument that the Teacher of Righteousness was Hyrcanus II.
Excerpted from pp. 95–107 of the book According to Doudna, Antigonus was the figure underlying the 'Wicked Priest' of Pesher Habakkuk, and the doomed ruler of Pesher Nahum, documents found at Qumran.

References

Sources

External links

Antigonus
entry in historical sourcebook by Mahlon H. Smith {{Authority control 1st-century BC births 37 BC deaths 1st-century BC Hasmonean monarchs 1st-century BCE High Priests of Israel Jewish royalty Kings of ancient Judah People executed by the Roman Republic Executed monarchs People executed by decapitation People executed by crucifixion Vassal rulers of the Parthian Empire