[Sidenote:  Jos.  Jew.  War, I, 17:8, 9] Now near the end of winter Herod marched to Jerusalem and brought his army up to its wall.  This was the third year after he had been made king at Rome.  So he pitched his camp before the temple, for on that side it might be besieged and there Pompey had formerly captured the city.  Accordingly he divided the work among the army and laid waste the suburbs, and gave orders to raise three mounds and to build towers upon these mounds.  But he himself went to Samaria to marry the daughter of Alexander, the son of Aristobulus, who had been betrothed to him before.  And when he was thus married, he came back to Jerusalem with a greater army.

[Sidenote:  Jos.  Jew.  War, I, 18:1, 2c, 4a] Now the multitude of the Jews who were in the city were divided into several factions.  For the people that crowded about the temple, being the weaker party, became fanatical and raved wildly over the situation.  But some of the bolder men gathered together in companies, and began robbing in many different ways and especially plundering the provisions that were about the city, so that no food was left over for the horses or the men.  After a siege of five months some of Herod’s chosen men ventured upon the wall and fell into the city.  They first captured the environs of the temple, and as the army poured in there was a slaughter of vast multitudes everywhere, on account of the rage in which the Romans were because of the length of the siege, and because the Jews who were about Herod were eager that none of their opponents should remain.  Thereupon Herod made those who were on his side still more his friends by the honors he conferred upon them; but those of Antigonus’s party he slew.

I. The Fruitless Struggle against Rome.  The first quarter century of Roman rule was in many ways the most complex in Israel’s intricate history.  There were three chief actors in the drama:  (1) Rome, represented first by the leaders of the Republic and later by Pompey, Caesar, and their successors; (2) the popular Jewish party led by Aristobulus and his son Alexander, and Antigonus; and (3) Antipater, supported by his able sons Phasaelus and Herod.  Rome’s general policy was to allow the Jews as much freedom as possible, but above all to hold Palestine under firm control, for it lay on the eastern border and faced Parthia, the one foe that had successfully defied the powerful mistress of the Mediterranean.  The popular Jewish party bitterly resented Rome’s interference.  True, the Pharisees welcomed the relief from civil war, but they could not hold the majority of the people in leash.  The inoffensive Hyrcanus was left in possession of the high-priesthood and from time to time was elevated to positions of nominal civil authority, but he was little more than the plaything of circumstance and party intrigue.  The ambitions of Aristobulus and his sons kept Palestine in a state of constant political ferment.  Three times in five years they stirred the Jews to rebellion