Читать книгу Claimants to Royalty - John Henry Ingram - Страница 14

In the foremost ranks of classic claimants may be placed the false Alexander, who claimed the Jewish crown under the pretence of being a son of Herod Antipas. Herod, although tributary to the Roman empire, raised the Jewish kingdom to a higher pitch of grandeur than it had reached since the days of Solomon. Great, however, as were his military successes, and extraordinary the pomp and magnificence of his court, his tyranny and cruelty render the annals of his lengthy reign almost unreadable. The record of his crimes, as detailed by Josephus, equals in enormity the worst page of Roman history.

Amongst the relatives whom he singled out to inflict death upon were three of his own sons. Having accused his two sons by his second wife, the beautiful Marianne, of having plotted against his crown, he had them both arrested and condemned to death. After the barbarous execution of an old soldier, Tero, who had nobly pleaded the cause of the imprisoned princes, he sent them both—Alexander and Aristobulus—to Sebaste, a city in the vicinity of Caesarea, and caused them to be there strangled. After the execution of his sons, whose lives Herod had so embittered that, guilty or not of the terrible accusation made against them, their fate was deplored by many of their countrymen, he had their dead bodies brought to Alexandrium, and buried by the side of their maternal grandfather, Alexander.

About twelve years after the tragic death of the princely brothers, and when Herod himself had died in the horrible manner described by Josephus, the Hebrew nation, subdivided by its Roman lord, and infested by hordes of robbers, afforded a good opening for a royal claimant; and accordingly one appeared.

A Jew resident in Sidon, greatly resembling Alexander, the elder of the deceased brothers, in features, was persuaded by a Roman freedman, with whom he had been brought up, to personate the late prince. Before airing his pretensions, the claimant obtained the assistance of a countryman of his who was well versed in the affairs of the kingdom, and under his instructions the pseudo Alexander came forth from his obscurity with a plausible story of how the persons commissioned to execute him and his brother Aristobulus had compassion upon them, and putting dead bodies in their place, had allowed them to escape. As usual, a credulous multitude believed in the impostor, and from the Cretan Jews he and his fellow plotters reaped a rich harvest. Furnished with money, he next sailed to Mitylene, where he obtained a further supply of cash, and persuaded some of the believers in his identity to accompany him to Rome, where he probably expected the Emperor Augustus would assist him to obtain possession of the kingdom of Judea; although Josephus strangely asserts that he went to Rome in hopes of avoiding detection.

On landing at Pozzuoli, near Naples, he was received by the Jews resident there in truly regal manner, and treated in every respect as if he were really the legitimate son and successor of Herod. Many persons who had been personally acquainted with Prince Alexander positively asserted his identity with the claimant. Accompanied by a large concourse of people, and bearing with him his accumulated costly gifts, the impostor entered Rome in regal state, the whole of the Jews in the city going out in a body to welcome him.

Augustus Cæsar would appear to have suspected the deceit from the first, but allowing the common belief to have some weight with him, he sent Celadus, to whom Alexander had been well known, to bring the pseudo prince to him. "Directly the emperor saw the claimant," says Josephus, "he discerned a difference in his countenance; and when he had discovered that his whole body was of a more robust texture and like that of a slave, he understood the whole was a contrivance." The emperor, however, in order to thoroughly sift the strange matter, cross-questioned the pseudo prince, asking him what had become of his brother Aristobulus, who, he had stated, was saved also, and why they did not appear together. The impudent impostor replied that his brother had been left in the Isle of Cyprus, for fear of treachery, as, if separated, it would be more difficult for their enemies to make away with both of them.

Augustus, getting weary of the conspiracy, took the claimant aside, and said to him privately: "Do not think to abuse my credulity as you have done with so many. I am not deceived. Frankly confess the whole truth, and I give you my word to spare your life. Tell me who you are, and what prompted you to engage in this plot, for this is too considerable a piece of villany for one of your age to have undertaken alone."

Seeing that there was no chance of escape, the pretender discovered the whole affair to the emperor, pointing out to him the Jew who, noticing his likeness to the murdered prince, had persuaded him to engage in the daring undertaking; whose object in the contrivance of the plot, says our principal authority, being only to get money, in which respect he had so far succeeded that "he had received more presents in every city than ever Alexander did when he was alive."

Augustus could not forbear laughing at the man's story; but, for all his merriment, did not restrain his anger. He had promised the pretender his life, and, therefore, spared it; but he put him amongst his rowers, doubtless deeming him fitter to wield an oar than a sceptre. The contriver of the plot, however, had to expiate his cleverness with his life, and was crucified,—a usual method, in those days, of executing important criminals.