He tells us of Stratonice, daughter of Antiochus Soter and wife of Demetrius of Macedon, who was induced by a dream to remain in a dangerous position, where she was taken and killed. The occasion is an excellent one to enlarge upon the topic of superstition, and Agatharchidas relates in this connection an incident that is said to have happened one hundred years before Stratonice, the capture of Jerusalem by Ptolemy Soter through the fact that the Jews would not fight upon the Sabbath. “So,” says Agatharchidas, “because, instead of guarding their city, these men observed their senseless rule, the city received a harsh master, and their law was shown to be a foolish custom.” One cannot reproduce in English the fine antitheses of the related words φυλάττειν τὴν πόλιν balanced by διατηρούντων τὴν ἄνοιαν, νόμος answering to ἐθισμόν; but, besides the artificiality of the phrases, the total absence of any attempt to make the words fit the facts is shown by the conclusion to which Agatharchidas, by rule of rhetoric, had to come. Now a “harsh master” is just what Ptolemy was not to the Jews, and Agatharchidas of all men must have been aware of that fact, for he wrote not only at Alexandria, but at the court of Philometor, an especial patron of the Jews individually and as a corporation. The practice of the Sabbath was one of the first things that struck foreigners. It is likely that the congregations of Sabbatistae in Asia Minor were composed of Jewish proselytes.[189] The name of the Jewish Sibyl Sambethe,[190] the association of Jewish worship with that of the Phrygian Sabazios,[191] were based upon this highly peculiar custom of the Jews. But its utter irrationality seemed to be exhibited in such instances as Agatharchidas here describes, the abstention from both offensive and defensive fighting on the Sabbath. Whether the incident or others of the same kind ever occurred may reasonably be doubted. The discussion of the question in Talmudic sources is held at a time when Jews had long ceased to engage in warfare.[192] Their nation no longer existed, and their legal privileges included exemption from conscription, if they chose to avail themselves of it. In the Bible there is no hint in the lurid chronicles of wars and battles that the Sabbath observance involved cessation from hostilities during time of war, and the supposition that no resistance to attack was offered on that day is almost wholly excluded. It is not easy to imagine one of the grim swordsmen of David or Joab allowing his throat to be cut by an enemy because he was attacked on the Sabbath.