|
1 In the year one hundred and forty-nine Judas and his men discovered that Antiochus Eupator was advancing in force against Judaea, 2 and with him Lysias his tutor and vizir; he had moreover a Greek force of one hundred and ten thousand infantry, five thousand three hundred cavalry, twenty-two elephants, and three hundred chariots fitted with scythes.
3 Menelaus sided with them, and with great duplicity kept encouraging Antiochus, not for the welfare of his own country but in the hope of being confirmed in office. 4 But the King of kings stirred up the anger of Antiochus against the guilty wretch, and when Lysias made it clear to the king that Menelaus was the cause of all the troubles, Antiochus have orders for him to be taken to beroea and there put to death by the local method of execution.
5 In that place there is a tower fifty cubits high, filled with ash, with a circular construction sloping steeply down from all sides towards the ashes. 6 If anyone is convicted of sacrilegious theft or notoriously guilty of certain other crimes, they take him up to the top and thrust him down to perish.
7 In such a manner was the renegade fated to die; Menelaus had not even the privilege of burial. 8 Deserved justice, this; since he had committed many sins against the altar whose fire, whose very ashes were holy, if was in ashes that he met his death. |