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Hosmonean Kingdom of Judaea
Mattathias (Mattatayah) Antigonus – King 40 to 37 B.C.
Bronze 8 Prutot 23mm (14.22 grams) Struck at Jerusalem circa 40-37 B.C.
Reference: Hendin 1162 (5th Edition); Hendin 481 (3rd Edition); Sear 6103; AJC I, Group U
Double cornucopia with Hebrew (Mattatayah the high priest and council of the Jews), around and between horns.
Ivy wreath tied at top with ribbons handing down, BACIΛEΩC ANTIГONY (of King Antigonus).
In 40 BCE, at the head of a Parthian army, Mattathias II Antigonus drove Herod the Great and his puppet, the Hasmonaean ethnarch, John Hyrcanus II, out of Jerusalem and was proclaimed king and High Priest by the Parthians and his Jewish supporters. Unfortunately, the wily Herod was not so easily defeated and returned in 39 BCE armed with recognition as the Roman client-king of Judaea. The hapless Mattathias II was ultimately defeated and crucified for his troubles, leaving Judaea to begin a new period in its troubled history under the often hated Herodian dynasty.
Hatred of Herod had led to his [Orodes II] taking part in bringinb back the exiled Antigonus, a son of Aristobulus … (Josephus, BJ: 239)
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Antigonus II Mattathias (Antigonus the Hasmonean) was the son of King Aristobulus II of Judea. In 40 BCE he led, along with Barzapharnes, a Parthian-supported invasion of Judea, seized Jerusalem, and sent his uncle Hyrcanus II to Babylon in chains (after biting or cutting off his ears to render him ineligible for the office of High Priest).
In 37 BCE, Herod the Great took back Judea with Roman support. Herod turned Antigonus over to Mark Antony, who had him beheaded, ending the rule of the Hasmonean dynasty. Antigonus II Mattathias was the last legitimate King of Judaea of the Hasmonean dynasty, which had recovered Jewish independence from the Hellenistic Seleucid monarchy of Syria.
Antigonus was handed over by Herod to the Romans for execution in 37 BCE, after a short reign of three years during which he had led a fierce struggle of the people for independence against the Romans and Romanizers such as Herod.
Antigonus II Mattathias was the only anointed King of the Jews (messiah) historically recorded to have been scourged, crucified and beheaded by the Romans. Cassius Dio’s Roman History records: “These people [the Jews] Antony entrusted to a certain Herod to govern; but Antigonus he bound to a stake and scourged, a punishment no other king had suffered at the hands of the Romans, and so slew him.” In his Life of Antony, Plutarch claims that Antony had Antigonus beheaded, “the first example of that punishment being inflicted on a king”.
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