The Romans, who had defeated Antiochus III. at Magnesia in 190 B. C., forbade Antiochus IV. to make war on their protégé Ptolemy VII. in Egypt. Whether in wrath and disappointment he revenged himself on his Jewish subjects, or whether he regarded the consolidation of power as best effected by Hellenising them--as Russian Tsars have regarded the Russianising of Germans, Finns, and Jews in our own times--may be doubtful. But whatever the object with which Antiochus IV. deserted the tolerant policy of his predecessors, it is recorded that, on his return from Egypt in 170 B. C., he entered Jerusalem and plundered the city[183]; and two years later, on Cisleu 25, 168 B. C., he placed a Greek altar on that of Jehovah, and offered swine upon it, as also on other altars in every city and village of the country. Swine were offered to Aphrodite among Greeks in connection with the legend of Adonis, and to Osiris in Egypt.[184] Their bones have been found--as sacrifices to Demeter--in the ruins of the temple at Cnidus; but the pig was an unclean animal to Semitic peoples, and we can hardly doubt that the desecration was wilful, especially as the Semitic custom of circumcision was then also forbidden. [Sidenote: THE AKRA] At the same time Antiochus IV., having--according to Josephus--burned the principal buildings and thrown down the city walls, “built a citadel in the lower part of the city; for the place was high and overlooked the Temple, on which account he fortified it with high walls and towers, and put into it a garrison of Macedonians.” This was the famous _Akra_ (or “citadel”) which played so important a part in the history of the struggle between Judas Maccabæus and his brothers on the one part, and the Greek kings of Syria on the other, and concerning which so many mistaken views survive from pre-scientific days.[185] The statements in the First Book of Maccabees are not very definite, though it is clear that this Akra was in the city of David, and that it was “alongside” the “hill of the Temple.” The Greek translators of the Old Testament, as already noticed, identified this Akra with the Millo of Solomon’s time. Josephus is more definite, and his evidence should not be lightly set aside because it contradicts the theories of modern literary critics, who have no hesitation in saying that the Jewish historian is wrong when his words cannot be reconciled with their understanding of the topography. Some writers[186] have placed the Akra south of the Temple, supposing the existence of an intervening valley (which, it may be said with certainty, never existed, since the levels of the rock forbid the supposition) and the existence of a summit on Ophel which was afterwards cleared away, and which would have had to be 150 feet high. They crowd all the nomenclature--city of David, Zion, Akra, Millo, Ophel, lower city, and the _m’ṣudah_ or “hill-top”--into the narrow area of 15 acres (including also the