Dagon

1 Macc. xvi. 11. Joseph. Antiq. l. 13. c. 15.DAGON, Dog or Docus, a fortress in the plain of Jericho, where Ptolemy the son of Abubus dwelt, and where he treacherously killed his father-in-law Simon Maccabæus, together with Mattathias and Judas his two sons. John Hircanus the son of Simon, who was then at Gazara, went and besieged Ptolemy his brother-in-law in the castle of Dagon: but Josephus relates, that when Hircanus drew near with an intention to assault the fortress, Ptolemy produced his mother and two brothers upon the walls, and ordered them to be scourged cruelly in his sight; withal threatning him, that he would have them put to death, if he continued to distress him. His compassion for his mother’s sufferings, was the reason of the siege’s drawing out into length; and the sabbatical year coming on, Hircanus was obliged to raise it. Ptolemy took this opportunity and fled to Zeno, surnamed Cotyla, Tyrant of Philadelphia, after having first dispatched Hircanus’s mother and two brothers. Which seems to contradict the relation of the first book of Maccabees, which declares, that Ptolemy murdered Mattathias and Judas, together with their father Simon, in the room of entertainment, where they sup’d.

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