He then despatches his chief general Holofernes to take vengeance on the nations of the west who had withheld their assistance.
This expedition has already succeeded in its main objects when Holofernes proceeds to attack Judaea.
Holofernes now inquires of the chiefs who are with him about the Israelites,and is answered by Achior the leader of the Ammonites, who enters upon a long historical narrative showing the Israelites to be invincible except when they have offended God.
After four days Holofernes, smitten with her charms, at the close of a sumptuous entertainment invites her to remain within his tent over night.
The book in its fuller form was most probably written in the 2nd century B.C. The writer places his romance two centuries earlier, in the time of Ochus, as we may reasonably infer from the attack made by Holofernes and Bagoas on Judaea; for Artaxerxes Ochus made an expedition against Phoenicia and Egypt in 350 B.C., in which his chief generals were Holofernes and Bagoas.
