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CHAPTER VI: Egypt
After their return from the Babylonish captivity, they continued in subjection to the Persians till the time of Alexander; and subsequently, as the fortune of either Egypt or Syria happened to prevail, they were under its dominion. On the subjugation of Egypt by Antiochus Epiphanes, the Jews being treated with great severity by him , naturally, but imprudently, expressed their joy on hearing a report of his death; and it was not long before the enraged monarch took the fiercest vengeance on them.
He marched at the head of a powerful army, took Jerusalem by storm in 170 B. C., and committed the most horrid cruelties on the inhabitants. Their religion was for awhile abolished, their altars defiled, and every indignity offered to the people that tyranny and hate could suggest. An image of Jupiter Olympius was erected in the holy place, and unclean beasts were sacrificed on the altar of burnt offerings. But the Jews soon rallied; and under Mattathias the true worship was restored in most of the cities of Judea; the temple was purified by Judas Maccabæus, 165 B. c.; and a long series of wars ensued between the Syrians and the Jews, in which the latter gained many signal advantages.
About 150 years before the birth of Christ the principal empires and states of the world may be thus enumerated. In Asia were the empires of Syria, India, and Parthiaeach of them powerful and extensive-with Arabia, Pontus, Armenia, and some other countries of less importance. In Africa were the kingdoms of Egypt, Ethiopia, Numidia, Mauritania, and Getulia; the last named three, now that Carthage was destroyed, appearing to the eyes of the ambitious Romans as their easy prey. In Europe there were none able to oppose the Roman legions, save the Gauls and some of the nations inhabiting Spain. It was not long, therefore, after the conquest of Carthage and Corinth that the final subjugation of Spain was resolved on; for all the possessions which the Carthaginians held in that country had already fallen into the hands of the victorious Romans. They accordingly began by attacking the Lusitanians ; but this brave people, under the conduct of Viriatus, a leader whose skill, valor, and prudence eminently qualified him for his post, long bid defiance to the Roman arms: in the field he was not to be subdued; and he at last met his death from the hands of assassins hired by his treacherous enemy. The Romans now, in the wantonness of their power, scrupled not to use the basest and most corrupt means for reducing the whole country; and though many tribes bravely maintained their independence for years, Spain ultimately became a Roman province. But all-powerful as Rome had now become, her civil and political condition was far from enviable. Her conquests in Greece and Asia brought luxury, cruelty and general corruption in their train; and those heroic virtues for which in the early days of the republic she was renowned, had totally disappeared. We must, however, reserve for its proper place an account of the civil commotions, proscriptions, and assassinations which followed: and pass onward in our brief recital of such events as peculiarly appertain to general history.
Attalus, king of Pergamus, had left all his goods and treasures, by will, to the Roman people; upon which his kingdom was speedily converted into a Roman province, under the name of Asia Proper. Next followed the conquest of the Balearic Isles (now called Majorca, Minorca, and Ivica); Numidia was soon after reduced; but the subjugation of Mauritania and Getulia was for a time delayed. While Rome was approaching her zenith, the decline of the Syrian empire was apparent. The civil dissensions between the two brothers, Antiochus Gryphus and Antiochus Cyzicenus, gave an opportunity for the cities of Tyre, Sidon, Ptolemais, and Gaza to declare their independence; while the Jews not only recovered their liberty, but extended their dominions as far as in the days of Solomon. About the year 83 в. c., Tigranes, king of Armenia, became master of Syria; but the Romans soon wrested it from him, and added it to the immensely extensive possessions of the republic.
Egypt, which had hitherto maintained its proper station, fell after the battle of Actium, and, like its predecessors, was reduced to a Roman province, about the year 30 B. C. Rome must no longer be regarded as a republic; and its change from that form of government to an empire may be looked upon as advantageous to those nations who were still free; for the inordinate desire of conquest which had hitherto marked the Roman character, for a time seemed to be lulled; and during the reign of Augustus the temple of Janus was thrice closed, -a ceremony coeval with the origin of the state, to denote that it was at peace with the whole world. This pacific prince died in the 76th year of his age and in the 45th of his reign, A. D. 14; his empire extending, in Europe, to the ocean, the Rhine, and the Danube; in Asia, to the Euphrates; and in Africa, to Ethiopia, and the sandy deserts. It was in this memorable reign, in the year of Rome 752, that Jesus Christ was born; and the holy religion of which he was the founder, persecuted and despised though it was at first, gradually spread over the Roman world.