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[81]
Hereupon Aristobulus repented of the great crime he had been guilty
of, and this gave occasion to the increase of his distemper. He also grew
worse and worse, and his soul was constantly disturbed at the thoughts
of what he had done, till his very bowels being torn to pieces by the intolerable
grief he was under, he threw up a great quantity of blood. And as one of
those servants that attended him carried out that blood, he, by some supernatural
providence, slipped and fell down in the very place where Antigonus had
been slain; and so he spilt some of the murderer's blood upon the spots
of the blood of him that had been murdered, which still appeared. Hereupon
a lamentable cry arose among the spectators, as if the servant had spilled
the blood on purpose in that place; and as the king heard that cry, he
inquired what was the cause of it; and while nobody durst tell him, he
pressed them so much the more to let him know what was the matter; so at
length, when he had threatened them, and forced them to speak out, they
told; whereupon he burst into tears, and groaned, and said, "So I
perceive I am not like to escape the all-seeing eye of God, as to the great
crimes I have committed; but the vengeance of the blood of my kinsman pursues
me hastily. O thou most impudent body! how long wilt thou retain a soul
that ought to die on account of that punishment it ought to suffer for
a mother and a brother slain! How long shall I myself spend my blood drop
by drop? let them take it all at once; and let their ghosts no longer be
disappointed by a few parcels of my bowels offered to them." As soon
as he had said these words, he presently died, when he had reigned no longer
than a year.
1
1 WHAT ACTIONS WERE DONE BY ALEXANDER JANNEUS, WHO REIGNED TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS.
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