He had allowed Hyrcanus to return to Jerusalem and he had even appointed him High Priest to pacify the Pharisees.As a final act of grace,he had given him the rank of Ethnarch.This was a rather hazy title sometimes bestowed upon former independent sovereigns.It carried little power but flattered the national pride of the conquered race.The Romans were very generous with this titular distinction,provided the candidate followed their instructions and behaved with the necessary discretion.
If Hyrcanus had been a capable man,even then something might have been saved out of the ruin of his country.
But the Ethnarch was wholly incompetent and soon lost what little prestige he still enjoyed.
Some thirty years before,when Alexander Jannaeus,the father of Hyrcanus and Aristobulus,was king,he had appointed a certain Antipater to be governor of the district of Edom or Idumaea,situated south of Jerusalem.
The original Antipater loved to fish in that troubled water which according to the old proverb is apt to provide a clever and unscrupulous sportsman with a liberal catch.
He pretended to be a faithful friend of Hyrcanus and often whispered discreet words of advice into his ear.
But such bits of gratuitous council were inevitably followed by further complications and by additional difficulties in the land of Judah.
So intelligently did Antipater play his game that he soon found himself basking right royally in the pleasant sun of Roman favour.
When civil war broke out in Rome and when the armies of Pompey were pitched against those of his rival,Caesar,Antipater waited to see who should be the victor.
As soon as Pompey had been defeated on the field of Pharsalia in the year 48before the birth of Christ,the Idumaean ruler made common cause with Caesar.
In return for this loyal support,Caesar bestowed upon Antipater the dignity of a Roman citizen and tacitly allowed him to become the power behind the tottering throne of the country which was now called Judaea.
The new “citizen”made good use of his favoured position.
He strengthened his hold upon the people.
His Jewish subjects were given a greater degree of liberty than they had enjoyed for a long time.
They were exempted from service in the Roman armies and were allowed to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.
They were no longer forced to pay the small tribute which Pompey had exacted from them.
And they regained almost complete judicial and religious independence.
But Antipater fared no better at the hands of the Pharisees than Pompey had done.They accused him of being a foreigner and an upstart and a usurper who had no right to the throne of David.
They talked of making Antigonus,the son of Aristobulus and the grandson of Alexander Jannaeus,their king.Once more they behaved as if they,and not the Romans,were the masters of western Asia.
In this instance it did not matter very much,for Antipater was easily their superior both in his shrewdness and in his complete lack of scruples.
He had certain ambitious plans for his own dynasty and felt that the hour had come to dispose of the house of Maccabee.
He moved slowly,but never lost sight of his ultimate purpose.
Just when everything was ready,he was unfortunately poisoned by a friend of Hyrcanus.
But his son Herod continued the work along the lines laid down by his father and with equal success.
Antigonus was foolishly encouraged to begin a revolution against the Roman government.
This ill-timed uprising ended in the disaster which Herod had anticipated.
Antigonus with a few soldiers fled to the Temple and after a long siege which greatly embittered the Romans he was forced to surrender.
Antigonus begged that his life be spared.
The Romans,however,refused to show mercy upon this occasion.
Hardly a year had gone by without some sort of disturbance,in their Judaean province.
They had granted the Jews all sorts of privileges,and the Jews in return had repaid them with a succession of very costly rebellions.
This time they were resolved to make an example which should be remembered until the end of time.
Antigonus was treated like an ordinary criminal.
He was publicly whipped and thereupon decapitated.
The Maccabee dynasty came to an end and Herod received the throne.
He married Mariamne,the granddaughter of Hyrcanus,and thereby established a vague relationship with the legitimate rulers of Judaea.
In this way,Herod,by the grace of the Roman legions,became king of part of the Jews.
It was the thirty-seventh year before the beginning of our era,and much was wrong with the world.