Alexander Yannai pelted with the citrons

[lethargic_man]

Flavius Josephus recounts an incident concerning the Hasmonean king Alexander Yannai:

As to Alexander, his own people were seditious against him; for at a festival which was then celebrated, when he stood upon the altar, and was going to sacrifice, the nation rose upon him, and pelted him with citrons [which they then had in their hands, because] the law of the Jews required that at the feast of tabernacles every one should have branches of the palm tree and citron tree.

A similar story is told in the Mishna (Succah 4:9), in which the priest carrying out the water libation poured the water of his feet instead of into the correct bowl (according to Rashi, he was a Sadducee and rejected the Pharisaic procedure), and got pelted with esrogs. ISTR that ArtScroll commentators argue that the both are accounts of the same incident (which makes a pleasant change from ArtScroll's normal ahistorical attitude).

Anyhow, I found this image so striking (and also farcical, if you don't think about what happened next) that I was surprised there wasn't a Renaissance-era painting depicting it. So (after waiting thirteen years for the technology to become available), I got ChatGPT to remedy this: