from Demetrius the high priesthood (Menelaus having been done away
with by Antiochus V). Alcimus received military assistance in subjugating
Judas and his agitators. This precipitated a series of military engagements
between Syrian forces and Alcimus’s Jewish opponents, culminating in Ju-
das’s death in the spring of 161.
It was in the midst of these campaigns, immediately following a dra-
matic victory over Demetrius’s general, Nicanor, that Judas is said to have
sent an embassy to Rome seeking friendship and alliance. According to
1 Maccabees, the Senate acceded to Judas’s request, conferring a treaty of
mutual assistance and delivering a heated letter of condemnation to
Demetrius (1 Macc. 8:23-31). The authenticity of the treaty and its atten-
dant letter has had its share of detractors, but there are no persuasive rea-
sons for rejecting either document out of hand. The more pertinent ques-
tion is why Judas would have appealed to Rome in the first place. Second
Maccabees reports the involvement of Roman envoys in negotiations con-
ducted between Lysias and the Jews three years earlier, but their role ap-
pears to have been marginal (2 Macc. 11:34-38); it supplied no obvious
precedent for Judas’s action in 161. Nor is it likely that Judas seriously ex-
pected Roman arms to defend the Maccabean cause. A more plausible in-
terpretation would see the overture as a propaganda ploy on Judas’s part to
shore up his claim to act as representative and defender of the Jewish peo-
ple. Conversely, a senatorial rebuke of Demetrius, casting him in the role
of aggressor, would serve to discredit Alcimus’s regime. Whatever its in-
tent, Judas’s Roman mission had no tangible impact on the ground. It did,
however, set in motion a tradition of diplomacy that Judas’s successors
would intermittently draw upon as part of their arsenal of legitimation.
Alcimus died (seemingly of natural causes) not long after Judas’s own
demise. Demetrius made no move to appoint a new high priest, and ap-
parently no candidates stepped forward. This anomalous state of affairs
would persist for seven years, indicating that the contending Jewish fac-
tions had reached some kind of stalemate. During this period, Judas’s sur-
viving supporters gathered around his brother Jonathan, who continued
to agitate the status quo. The stalemate broke down around 158, when Jon-
athan’s enemies summoned a Seleucid force to eliminate his guerilla band.
The plan backfired when the commander of this force made peace with
Jonathan and returned to Antioch. But the position of the Maccabean
group did not change dramatically until 153.
In that year, the rule of Demetrius was challenged by a pretender, Alex-
ander Balas, who established himself at Ptolemais. This development strate-43Jewish History from Alexander to HadrianEERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
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