LITMIR.BIZ

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      Hyrcanus, supreme in Judea, now reduced Samaria and Idumea, and was only troubled by the conflicting parties of Pharisees and Sadducees, whose quarrels agitated the State. He joined the party of the Sadducees, who asserted free will, and denied the more orthodox doctrines of the Pharisees, a kind of epicureans, opposed to severities and the authority of traditions. It is one proof of the advance of the Hebrew mind over the simplicity of former ages, that the State could be agitated by theological and philosophical questions, like the States of Greece in their highest development.

      Hyrcanus reigned twenty-nine years, and was succeeded by his son, Aristobulus, B.C. 106. His brief and inglorious reign was disgraced by his starving to death his mother in a dungeon, and imprisoning his three brothers, and assassinating a fourth, Antigonus, who was a victorious general. This prince died in an agony of remorse and horror on the spot where his brother was assassinated.

      Alexander Jannaus succeeded to the throne of the Asmonean princes, who possessed the whole region of Palestine, except the port of Ptolemais, and the city of Gaza. In an attempt to recover the former he was signally defeated, and came near losing his throne. He was more successful in his attack on Gaza, which finally surrendered, after Alexander had incurred immense losses.

      While this priest-king was celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles, a meeting, incited by the Pharisaic party, broke out, which resulted in the slaughter of ten thousand people. While invading the country to the east of the Jordan, the rebellion was renewed, and the nation, for six years, suffered all the evils of civil war. Routed in a battle with the Syrian monarch, whose aid the insurgents had invoked, he was obliged to flee to the mountains; but recovering his authority, at the head of sixty thousand men,—which shows the power of Judea at this period,—he marched upon Jerusalem, and inflicted a terrible vengeance, eight hundred men being publicly crucified, and eight thousand more forced to abandon the city. Under his iron sway, the country recovered its political importance, for his kingdom comprised the greater part of Palestine. He died, after a turbulent reign of twenty-seven years, B.C. 77, invoking his queen to throw herself into the arms of the Pharisaic party, which advice she followed, as it was the most powerful and popular.

      The high priesthood devolved on his eldest son, Hyrcanus II., while the reins of government were held by his queen, Alexandra. She reigned vigorously and prosperously for nine years, punishing the murderers of the eight hundred Pharisees who had been executed.

      Hyrcanus was not equal to his task amid the bitterness of party strife. His brother Aristobulus, belonging to the party of the Sadducees, and who had taken Damascus, was popular with the people, and compelled his elder brother to abdicate in his favor, and an end came to Pharisaic rule.

      But now another family appears upon the stage, which ultimately wrested the crown from the Asmodean princes. Antipater, a noble Idumean, was the chief minister of the feeble Hyrcanus. He incited, from motives of ambition, the deposed prince to reassert his rights, and influenced by his counsels, he fled to Aretas, the king of Arabia, whose capital, Petra, had become a great commercial emporium. Aretas, Antipater, and Hyrcanus, marched with an army of fifty thousand men against Aristobulus, who was defeated, and fled to Jerusalem.

      At this time Pompey was pursuing his career of conquests in the East, and both parties invoked his interference, and both offered enormous bribes. This powerful Roman was then at Damascus, receiving the homage and tribute of Oriental kings. The Egyptian monarch sent as a present a crown worth four thousand pieces of gold. Aristobulus, in command of the riches of the temple, sent a golden vine worth five hundred talents. Pompey, intent on the conquest of Arabia, made no decision; but, having succeeded in his object, assumed a tone of haughtiness irreconcilable with the independence of Judea. Aristobulus, patriotic yet vacillating,—“too high-minded to yield, too weak to resist,”—fled to Jerusalem and prepared for resistance.

      Pompey approached the capital, weakened by those everlasting divisions to which the latter Jews were subjected by the zeal of their religious disputes. The city fell, after a brave defense of three months, and might not have fallen had the Jews been willing to abate from the rigid observance of the Sabbath, during which the Romans prepared for assault. Pompey demolished the fortifications of the city, and exacted tribute, but spared the treasures of the temple which he profaned by his heathen presence. He nominated Hyrcanus to the priesthood, but withheld the royal diadem, and limited the dominions of Hyrcanus to Judea. He took Aristobulus to Rome to grace his triumph.

      But he contrived to escape, and, with his son Alexander, again renewed the civil strife; but taken prisoner, he was again sent as a captive to the “eternal city.” Gabinius, the Roman general—for Hyrcanus had invoked the aid of the Romans—now deprived the high priest of the royal authority, and reorganized the whole government of Judea; establishing five independent Sanhedrims in the principal cities, after the form of the great Sanhedrim, which had existed since the captivity. This form lasted until Julius Cæsar reinvested Hyrcanus with the supreme dignity.

      Jerusalem was now exposed to the rapacity of the Roman generals who really governed the country. Crassus plundered all that Pompey spared. He took from the temple ten thousand talents—about ten million dollars when gold and silver had vastly greater value than in our times. These vast sums had been accumulated from the contributions of Jews scattered over the world—some of whom were immensely wealthy.

      Aristobulus and his son Alexander were assassinated during the great civil war between the partisans of Cæsar and Pompey. After the fall of the latter. Cæsar confirmed Hyrcanus in the high priesthood, and allowed him to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. But Antipater, presuming on the incapacity of Hyrcanus, renewed his ambitious intrigues, and contrived to make his son, Phasael, governor of Jerusalem, and Herod, a second son, governor of Galilee.

      Herod developed great talents, and waited for his time. After the battle of Philippi Herod made acceptable offerings to the conquering party, and received the crown of Judea, which had been recently ravaged by the Parthians, through the intrigues of Antigonas, the surviving son of Aristobulus. By his marriage with Mariamne, of the royal line of the Asmoneans, he cemented the power he had won by the sword and the favor of Rome. He was the last of the independent sovereigns of Palestine. He reigned tyrannically, and was guilty of great crimes, having caused the death of the aged Hyrcanus, and the imprisonment and execution of his wife on a foul suspicion. He paid the same court to Augustus that he did to Antony, and was confirmed in the possession of his kingdom. The last of the line of the Asmonæans had perished on the scaffold, beautiful, innocent, and proud, the object of a boundless passion to a tyrant who sacrificed her to a still greater one—suspicion. Alternating between his love and resentment, Herod sank into a violent fit of remorse, for he had more or less concern in the murder of the father, the grandfather, the brother, and the uncle of his beautiful and imperious wife. At all times, even amid the glories of his palace, he was haunted with the image of the wife he had destroyed, and loved with passionate ardor. He burst forth in tears, he tried every diversion, banquets and revels, solitude and labor—still the murdered Mariamne is ever present to his excited imagination. He settles down in a fixed and indelible gloom, and his stern nature sought cruelty and bloodshed. His public administration was, on the whole, favorable to the peace and happiness of the country, although he introduced the games and the theatres in which the Romans sought their greatest pleasures. For these innovations he was exposed to incessant dangers; but he surmounted them all by his vigilance and energy. He rebuilt Samaria, and erected palaces. But his greatest work was the building of Cæsarea—a city of palaces and theatres. His policy of reducing Judea to a mere province of Rome

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