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[387]
AFTER this, Antiochus, who was called Dionysus, 1
and was Philip's brother, aspired to the dominion, and carne to Damascus,
and got the power into his hands, and there he reigned; but as he was making
war against the Arabians, his brother Philip heard of it, and came to Damascus,
where Milesius, who had been left governor of the citadel, and the Damascens
themselves, delivered up the city to him; yet because Philip was become
ungrateful to him, and had bestowed upon him nothing of that in hopes whereof
he had received him into the city, but had a mind to have it believed that
it was rather delivered up out of fear than by the kindness of Milesius,
and because he had not rewarded him as he ought to have done, he became
suspected by him, and so he was obliged to leave Damascus again; for Milesius
caught him marching out into the Hippodrome, and shut him up in it, and
kept Damascus for Antiochus [Eucerus], who hearing how Philip's affairs
stood, came back out of Arabia. He also came immediately, and made an expedition
against Judea, with eight thousand armed footmen, and eight hundred horsemen.
So Alexander, out of fear of his coming, dug a deep ditch, beginning at
Chabarzaba, which is now called Antipatris, to the sea of Joppa, on which
part only his army could be brought against him. He also raised a wall,
and erected wooden towers, and intermediate redoubts, for one hundred and
fifty furlongs in length, and there expected the coming of Antiochus; but
he soon burnt them all, and made his army pass by that way into Arabia.
The Arabian king [Aretas] at first retreated, but afterward appeared on
the sudden with ten thousand horsemen. Antiochus gave them the meeting,
and fought desperately; and indeed when he had gotten the victory, and
was bringing some auxiliaries to that part of his army that was in distress,
he was slain. When Antiochus was fallen, his army fled to the village Cana,
where the greatest part of them perished by famine.
1 Spanheim takes notice that this Antiochus Dionysus [the brother of Philip, and of Demetrius Eucerus, and of two otbsrs] was the fifth son of Antiochus Grypus; and that he is styled on the coins, "Antiochus, Epiphanes, Dionysus."
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