this, by procuring the assassination of Malichus, by a party of the Roman garrison at Tyre, in obedience to the orders of Cassius, which Herod procured.

After the defeat and death of Cassius and Brutus at Philippi, B.C. 42, by Antony and Octavius, the troubles broke out afresh in Judea. The faction of Malichus gained Hyrcanus to their side, and Felix, the commander of the Roman forces at Jerusalem, by representing the overgrown power of the sons of Antipater. But Phasael and Herod soon mastered the faction, drove Felix out of Jerusalem, and recovered Massada, and all the fortresses that they had taken; and upbraided Hyrcanus with favouring the adverse faction, who had always strove to curb his power, while he owed his support to the wise and vigorous counsels of their father Antipater. Hyrcanus judged it imprudent to oppose "these sons of Zeruiah," who controuled him as much as David was controuled by Joab and Abishai. And a match was set on foot between Herod and Miriam, or Mariamne, the beautiful and accomplished grand-daughter of the high-priest, which for the present reconciled all differences between them.

But the adverse faction, though repressed, was not extinguished. It soon found another head in Antigonus, the younger son of Aristobulus, and under pretence of restoring him to his father's throne, raised new disturbances in the state. And his claim was supported by Marion, king of Tyre, Fabius, governor of Damascus, and Ptolemy, prince of Chalcis, who had married a sister of Antigonus.

The next year, B.C. 41, after the victory at Philippi, Anthony passed over into Asia, to secure that important country in the interest of the conquerors. At Daphne, near Antioch, a deputation of a hundred of the principal Jews came to complain against the sons of Antipater. Anthony gave them a hearing, and asked Hyrcanus, then present, whom he thought the fittest to conduct the administration of affairs under them? to which he replied, the two brothers; induced, probably, by the contract of marriage between Herod and his grand-daughter. Whereupon Anthony, who was well disposed towards them before, made Herod and Phasael Tetrarchs, committed the affairs of Judea to their administration, imprisoned fifteen of the deputies, and would have put them to death, had not Herod saved them by his intercession. Still not baffled, they renewed their complaints to him against the two brothers at Tyre, in a body

had revolted during the civil war, and extended his conquests beyond Jordan. He returned to Jerusalem victorious in B. C. 82, and gave himself up to luxury and drunkenness, which brought on a quartan ague, under which he languished for three years, and at length died at the siege of Ragaba, beyond Jordan, in the country of the Gerasenes.

In his last moments he advised Alexandra his queen, to conceal his death, until the capture of the fortress, and then on their triumphant return to Jerusalem, he recommended her to convene the heads of the Pharisees, and offer to be guided by their counsels in the administration of the kingdom; and to lay his dead body before them, and resign it wholly to their discretion, whether to treat it with ignominy, in revenge for all the evils they had suffered from him, or otherwise; adding, that if she followed this advice, she would not only procure him an honourable funeral, but security for herself and her children. And the event justified the prediction: for his funeral obsequies were more splendid than those of any of his predecessors; and Alexandra, according to his will, was quietly established in the government, B.C. 78.

Q. ALEXANDRA.

And now the Pharisees, having gotten the upper hand in the state, released the prisoners, and recalled the exiles of their party, and being strengthened by this accession, they demanded justice against the advisers of the crucifixion of the eight hundred; which in fact involved all the adherents of the late king. They began with Diogenes, a chief confident of Alexander, and having cut him off, proceeded to the most obnoxious of the royalists. The queen, much against her will, acquiescing in their vindictive measures, for fear of involving the country again in a civil war; and submitting to a less evil, in order to avoid a greater.

Alexandra had two sons; the elder, Hyrcanus, who was of a quiet, indolent temper, she appointed high priest; but the younger, Aristobulus, inherited his father's spirit, and highly disapproved of his mother's proceedings. In the seventh year of her reign, B.C. 72, he came to her at the head of the royalists, seeing no end of the prosecutions, and proposed, either that they should go into voluntary exile; or else, that they might be

self, than to govern the country under Aristobulus, in the same manner as under Hyrcanus. But Anthony chose to make Herod himself king, in reward of his past services, and for the promise of a great sum of money; and by his interest with Octarian, procured from the senate, contrary to their usual policy, a decree to that effect, in the course of that same year, B.C. 40. Herod made such dispatch, that he returned to Judea before the end of it, and raising forces of every kind, foreigners as well as Jews, relieved his friends at Massada, who had been closely besieged all the while by Antigonus. At one time they were reduced to the utmost distress for want of water, and must have surrendered next day, had not a providential rain fallen the night before, and filled all their cisterns, so as to enable them to hold out until Herod came to their succour.

Next year, B.C. 39, Herod carried on the war against Antigonus, with various success. The Roman generals sent to his assistance, by order of Anthony, namely, Silo and Machæras, doing him more hurt than good. And his brother Joseph, who had defended Massada so gallantly, being left to command in Judæa, while Herod attended Anthony in Syria, contrary to his orders, went on an expedition against Jericho, in which he was slain, and most of his forces cut in pieces. This disaster encouraged a revolt of the disaffected in Galilee and Idumea. Afterwards Herod himself was wounded and repulsed at Jericho, but near the end of the year obtained a signal victory over the army of Antigonus, commanded by Pappus, whom he slew.

The following year, B.C. 38, Herod besieged Jerusalem. During the siege, he consummated his marriage with Miriam, or Mariamne, whom he had espoused four years before. This affinity with the Asamonean family, he hoped would conciliate the people to his government. On his return to the siege, he was joined by Sosius, president of Syria, with a powerful force which Anthony sent to his assistance. Their joint army, at the lowest computation, amounted to 60,000 men. At length, after they had vigorously besieged the city about half a year, they stormed it, the year following, B. C. 37. And the Roman soldiers, exasperated at the opposition they had experienced, plundered the city, and massacred the inhabitants without mercy, Sosius encouraging his men. Insomuch that Herod complained, that the Romans were going to make him king of a desert; and was forced to redeem the city from total destruction, by the present

Alexander Jannæus, and his wife Alexandra, and had been appointed by them governor of the province of Idumæa. He had amassed considerable wealth, and formed a connexion with the Arabs in the east, and the Gazites and Ascalonites in the west. Fearing Aristobulus, he instigated Hyrcanus, to whom he had attached himself, to fly for refuge to Aretas, king of the Arabs, for that his brother meant to put him to death; and with much solicitation prevailed on him at length to escape by night to Petra, the residence of Aretas. Espousing the interest of Hyrcanus, the Arabian prince brought him back to Judea, with an army of fifty thousand men; and being there joined by the Jews of his party, gave battle to Aristobulus, defeated him, and compelled him and his party to take refuge in the temple mount, and besieged him there.

While Pompey, who succeeded Lucullus in the command of the war against Tigranes, was employed in Armenia against him and Mithridates, he sent Scaurus into Syria; who finding that Lollius and Metellus had taken Damascus, marched directly to Judea. The two brothers having separately attempted to gain him to their side, by the offer of four hundred talents each; he preferred that of Aristobulus, not only because he was more solvent, being in possession of the royal treasures, while Hyrcanus was poor, but because it was easier to intimidate the fugitives with their Arabian auxiliaries, than to reduce a fortress of the greatest strength. He therefore commanded Aretas to withdraw his troops, threatening him with war from the Romans if he refused. After which Scaurus returned to Damascus. Meanwhile Aristobulus, having raised a powerful force, invaded Aretas and Hyrcanus in turn, and defeated them with great slaughter; among others of the Jews attached to Hyrcanus, who fell in that battle, was Cephalion, the brother of Antipater.

Not long after the conquest of Armenia and Iberia, Pompey having finished the war in the north, B. C. 65, came to Damascus, and went through Cole-Syria; and stripping Antiochus Asiaticus of all his dominions, (the last of the Seleucian family,) he reduced them to a Roman province, under the pretext that he was a weak prince, and unable to protect the country from the ravages and depredations of the Jews and Arabs; and that the Romans having taken this country, by conquest, from Tigranes, were not to lose the fruits of their victory. Here Pompey was met by ambassadors from all Syria, Egypt, and Judea; and

Aristobulus sent him a golden vine, of the value of 400 talents; which Strabo afterwards saw in the capitol at Rome with the inscription, Alexander the king of the Jews, which he had presented as an offering to the temple, and his son now sent to the Romans.

Pompey, on his return next year, B. C. 64, from the Mithridatic war in Pontus and Cappadocia, to Cœle-Syria, was addressed by Antipater and Nicodemus, the deputies of the two brothers, Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, to settle the controversy between them; but he put them off till the ensuing spring, in order to finish the conquest of Syria, and repress Aretas, who had taken advantage of his absence in Pontus, to recover a good part of his dominions, and to make incursions into Syria. Accordingly, next year, B. C. 63, on his return to Damascus, the two brothers came in person to plead their cause before him; several of the Jews complaining of both, that they had changed the form of government to regal, instead of pontifical, contrary to the established usage, in order to enslave the people. Hyrcanus pleaded his prior claim to the crown, as the elder brother, and complained of the usurpation of Aristobulus; while Aristobulus alleged the imbecility of Hyrcanus. This last circumstance, probably, decided the artful Roman in favour of Hyrcanus; he did not, however, openly declare his sentiments, but left the matter undecided, till he should have leisure to come in person, and settle the matter at Jerusalem,

Disappointed in his expectations, Aristobulus prepared for

war.

Pompey, therefore, on his return from an expedition against the Nabathean Arabs, marched against Aristobulus, and summoned him into his presence from his strong fortress of Alexandrium. Aristobulus unwillingly complied, for fear of irritating the Roman general by a refusal, who, when he had got him into his power, compelled him to sign an order for the surrendering of all his fortresses to the Romans. But he grievously resented this imposition, and when he was dismissed, fled to Jerusalem, and there prepared for a siege. Pompey followed him with his army. On his approach, Aristobulus, wavering in his resolution, went again to Pompey, promising submission and a sum of money to prevent a war. His proposal was accepted, and Gabinius, one of Pompey's lieutenants, was sent with a body of troops to recover the city and the money. But when he came to Jerusalem, he was disappointed; the gates were