Aristobulus
(Ἀριστόβουλος).
1. Of Cassandreia, the son of Aristobulus, one of the companions of Alexander the Great in his Asiatic conquests, wrote a history of Alexander, which was one of the chief sources used by Arrian in the composition of his work. Works
Aristobulus lived to the age of ninety, and did not begin to write his history till he was eighty-four. (Lucian, Macrob. 22.) His work is also frequently referred to by Athenaeus (ii. p. 43d. vi. p. 251a. x. p. 434d. xii. pp. 513, f. 530, b.), Plutarch (Alex. cc. 15, 16, 18, 21, 46, 75), and Strabo (xi. pp. 509, 518, xiv. p. 672, xv. pp. 691-693, 695, 701, 706, 707, 714, 730, xvi. pp. 741, 766, xvii. p. 824.) The anecdote which Lucian relates (Quoslodo hist. conscrib. 100.12) about Aristobulus is supposed by modern writers to refer to Onesicritus.
2. Plutarch refers to a work upon stones, and another upon the affairs of Italy, written by an Aristobulus, but whether he is the same person as the preceding, is uncertain. (Plut. de Fluv. 100.14. Parall. Min. 100.32.)
3. An Alexandrine Jew, and a Peripatetic philosopher, who is supposed to have lived under Ptolemy Philometor (began to reign B. C. 180), and to have been the same as the teacher of Ptolemy Evergetes. (2 Maccab. 1.10.) Works
Aristobulus is said to have been the author of commentaries upon the books of Moses (Ἐξηγήσεις τῆς Μωϋσέως γραφῆς), addressed to Ptolemy Philometor, which are referred to by Clemens Alexandrinus (Strom. i. pp. 305, b. 342, b. v. p. 595c. d), Eusebius (Euseb. Praep. Ev. 7.13, 8.9, 9.6, 13.12), and other ecclesiastical writers. The object of this work was to prove that the Peripatetic philosophy, and in fact almost all the Greek philosophy, was taken from the books of Moses.
It is now, however, admitted that this work was not written by the Aristobulus whose name it bears, but by some later and unknown writer, whose object was to induce the Greeks to pay respect to the Jewish literature. Further Information
Valckenaer, Diatribe de Aristobulo, Judaeo, &c. edita post auctoris mortem ab J. Luzacio, Lugd. Bat. 1806.
4. A brother of Epicurus, and a follower of his philosophy. (D. L. 10.3, Plut. Non posse suaviter vivi sec. Epic. p. 1103a.)
(Ἀριστόβουλος), princes of Judaea.
1. The eldest son of Johannes Hyrcanus. In B. C. 110 we find him, together with his second brother Antigonus, successfully prosecuting for his father the siege of Samaria, which was destroyed in the following year. (J. AJ 13.10. §§ 2, 3; Bell. Jud. 1.2.7.) Hyrcanus dying in 107, Aristobulus took the title of king, this being the first instance of the assumption of that name among the Jews since the Babylonish captivity (but comp. Strab. xvi. p.762), and secured his power by the imprisonment of all his brothers except his favourite Antigonus, and by the murder of his mother, to whom Hyrcanus had left the government by will. The life of Antigonus himself was soon sacrificed to his brother's suspicions through the intrigues of the queen and her party, and the remorse felt by Aristobulus for this deed increased the illness under which he was suffering at the time, and hastened his death. (B. C. 106.) In his reign the Ituraeans were subdued and compelled to adopt the observance of the Jewish law. He also received the name of Φιλέλλην from the favour which he shewed to the Greeks. (J. AJ 13.11 ; Bell. Jud. 1.3.)
2. The younger son of Alexander Jannaeus and Alexandra. (J. AJ 13.16.1; Bell. Jud. 1. 5.1.) During the nine years of his mother's reign he set himself against the party of the Pharisees, whose influence she had restored; and after her death, B. C. 70, he made war against his eldest brother Hyrcanus, and obtained from him the resignation of the crown and the high-priesthood, chiefly through the aid of his father's friends, whom Alexandra had placed in the several fortresses of the country to save them from the vengeance of the Pharisees. (J. AJ 13.16, 14.1.2; Bell. Jud. 1.5, 6.1.) In B. C. 65 Judaea was invaded by Aretas, king of Arabia Petraea, with whom, at the instigation of Antipater the Idumaean, Hyrcanus had taken refuge. By him Aristobulus was defeated in a battle and besieged in Jerusalem but Aretas was obliged to raise the siege by Scaurus and Gabinius, Pompey's lieutenants, whose intervention Aristobulus had purchased. (J. AJ 14.2, 3.2; Bell. Jud. 1.6. §§ 2, 3.) In B. C. 63, he pleaded his cause before Pompey at Damascus, but, finding him disposed to favour Hyrcanus, he returned to Judaea and prepared for war. On Pompey's approach, Aristobulus, who had fled to the fortress of Alexandreion, was persuaded to obey his summons and appear before him; and, being compelled to sign an order for the surrender of his garrisons, he withdrew in impotent discontent to Jerusalem. Pompey still advanced, and Aristobulus again met him and made submission; but, his friends in the city refusing to perform the terms, Pompey besieged and took Jerusalem, and carried away Aristobulus and his children as prisoners. (J. AJ 14.3, 4; Bell. Jud. 1.6, 7; Plut. Pomp. cc. 39, 45; Strab. xvi. p.762; D. C. 37.15, 16.) Appian (Bell. Mith. 100.117) erroneously represents him as having been put to death immediately after Pompey's triumph. In B. C. 57, he escaped from his confinement at Rome with his son Antigonus, and, returning to Judaea, was joined by large numbers of his countrymen and renewed the war; but he was besieged and taken at Machaerus, the fortifications of which he was attempting to restore, and was sent back to Rome by Gabinius. (J. AJ 14.6.1; Bell. Jud. 1. 8.6; Plut. Ant. 100.3; D. C. 39.56.) In B. C. 49, he was again released by Julius Caesar, who sent him into Judaea to forward his interests there; he was, however, poisoned on the way by some of Pompey's party. (J. AJ 14.7.4; Bell. Jud. 1.9.1; D. C. 41.18.)
3. Grandson of No. 2, was the son of Alexander and brother of Herod's wife Mariamne. His mother, Alexandra, indignant at Herod's having conferred the high-priesthood on the obscure Ananelus, endeavoured to obtain that office for her son from Antony through the influence of Cleopatra. Herod, fearing the consequences of this application, and urged by Mariamne's entreaties, deposed Ananelus and made Aristobulus high-priest, the latter being only 17 years old at the time. The king, however, still suspecting Alexandra, and keeping a strict and annoying watch upon her movements, she renewed her complaints and designs against him with Cleopatra, and at length made an attempt to escape into Egypt with her son. Herod discovered this, and affected to pardon it; but soon after he caused Aristobulus to be treacherously drowned at Jericho, B. C. 35. (J. AJ 15.2, 3; Bell. Jud. 1.22.2.)
4. One of the sons of Herod the Great by Mariamne, was sent with his brother Alexander to Rome, and educated in the house of Pollio. (J. AJ 15.10.1.) On their return to Judaea, the suspicions of Herod were excited against them by their brother Antipater [Antipater], aided by Pheroras and their aunt Salome, though Berenice, the daughter of the latter, was married to Aristobulus; the young men themselves supplying their enemies with a handle against them by the indiscreet expression of their indignation at their mother's death. In B. C. 11, they were accused by Herod at Aquileia before Augustus, through whose mediation, however, he was recon ciled to them. Three years after, Aristobulus was again involved with his brother in a charge of plotting against their father, but a second reconciliation was effected by Archelaus, king of Cappadocia, the father-in-law of Alexander. A third accusation, through the arts of Eurycles, the Lacedaemonian adventurer, proved fatal : by permission of Augustus, the two young men were arraigned by Herod before a council convened at Berytus (at which they were not even allowed to be present to defend themselves), and, being condemned, were soon after strangled at Sebaste, B. C. 6. (J. AJ 16.1-4, 8, 10, 11; Bell. Jud. 1.23-27; comp. Strab. xvi. p.765.)
5. Surnamed "the Younger" (ὁ νεώτερυς, J. AJ 20.1.2) was son of Aristobulus and Berenice, and grandson of Herod the Great. (J. AJ 18.5.4; Bell. Jud. 1.28.1.) Himself and his two brothers,--Agrippa I., and Herod the future king of Chalcis,--were educated at Rome together with Claudius, who was afterwards emperor, and who appears to have always regarded Aristobulus with great favour. (J. AJ 18.5.4, 6.1, 20.1.2.) He lived at enmity with his brother Agrippa, and drove him from the protection of Flaccus, proconsul of Syria, by the charge of having been bribed by the Damascenes to support their cause with the proconsul against the Sidonians. (J. AJ 18.6.3.) When Caligula sent Petronius to Jerusalem to set up his statues in the temple, we find Aristobulus joining in the remonstrance against the measure. (J. AJ 18.8; Bell. Jud. 2.10; Tac. Hist. 5.9.) He died as he had lived, in a private station (Joseph. Bell. Jud. 2.11.6), having, as appears from the letter of Claudius to the Jews in Josephus (J. AJ 20.1.2), survived his brother Agrippa, whose death took place in A. D. 44. He was married to Iotapa, a princess of Emessa, by whom he left a daughter of the same name. (J. AJ 18.5.4; Bell. Jud. 2.11.6.)
6. Son of Herod king of Chalcis, grandson of the Aristobulus who was strangled at Sebaste, and great-grandson of Herod the Great. In A. D. 55, Nero made Aristobulus king of Armenia Minor, in order to secure that province from the Parthians, and in A. D. 61 added to his dominions some portion of the Greater Armenia which had been given to Tigranes. (J. AJ 20.8.4; Tac. Ann. 13.7, 14.26.) Aristobulus appears also (Joseph. Bell. Jud. 7.7.1) to have obtained from the Romans his father's kingdom of Chalcis, which had been taken from his cousin Agrippa II., in. A. D. 52; and he is mentioned as joining Caesennius Paetus, proconsul of Syria, in the war against Antiochus, king of Commagene, in the 4th year of Vespasian, A. D. 73. (Joseph. l.c.) He was married to Salome, daughter of the infamous Herodias, by whom he had three sons, Herod, Agrippa, and Aristobulus; of these nothing further is recorded. (J. AJ 18.5.4.) [E.E]
a painter, to whom Pliny (35.40.42) gives the epithet Syrus, which Sillig understands of one of the Cyclades. [P.S]
9. who obtained the throne B. C. 68. [Aristobulus, No. 2.] For the remainder of the history of the house of the Maccabees see Hyrcanus II. and Herodes I.
(Ἀριστόβουλος). A Greek historian, who in his youth accompanied Alexander the Great on his campaigns. In his eighty-fifth year, when living at Cassandrea in Thrace, he wrote a work upon Alexander, in which he recorded his careful observations on geography, ethnography, and natural science. The book is highly praised for its trustworthiness, but only fragments of it have reached us. He and Ptolemy were the chief authorities for Arrian's Anabasis.