His death (4 B.C.) gave the signal for an insurrection of small beginnings which gradually spread until it ultimately infected all the people; it was repressed by Varus with great cruelty.  Meanwhile Herod’s connexions were at Rome disputing about the inheritance.  The deceased king (who was survived by several children of various marriages) had made a will, which was substantially confirmed by Augustus.  By it his son Philip received the northern portion of the territory on the east of the Jordan along with the district of Paneas (Caesarea Philippi); his thirty-seven years’ reign over this region was happy.  Another son, Herod Antipas, obtained Galilee and Peraea; he beautified his domains with architectural works (Sepphoris, Tiberias; Livias, Machaerus), and succeeded by his fox-like policy in ingratiating himself with the emperors, particularly with Tiberius, for that very cause, however, becoming odious to the Roman provincial officials.  The principal heir was Archelaus, to whom Idumaea, Judaea, and Samaritis were allotted; Augustus at first refused him the title of king.  Archelaus had experienced the greatest difficulty in carrying through his claims before the emperor in face of the manifold oppositions of his enemies; the vengeance which he wreaked upon his subjects was so severe that in 6 A,D. a Jewish and Samaritan embassy besought the emperor for his deposition.  Augustus assented, banishing Archelaus to Vienne, and putting in his place a Roman procurator.  Thenceforward Judaea continued under procurators, with the exception of a brief interval (41-44 A.D.), during which Herod Agrippa I. united under his sway all the dominions of his grandfather. 1

**************************************** 1.  Agrippa was the grandson of Mariamne through Aristobulus.  Caligula, whose friendship he had secured in Rome, bestowed upon him in 37 the dominions of Philip with the title of king, and afterwards the tetrarchy of Antipas, whom he deposed and banished to Lugdunum (39).  Claudius added the possessions of Archelaus.  But the kingdom was again taken away from his son Agrippa II. (44), who, however, after the death of his uncle, Herod of Chalcis, obtained that principality for which at a later period (52) the tetrarchy of Philip was substituted.  His sister Berenice is known as the mistress of Titus; another sister, Drusilla, was the wife of the procurator Felix.  The descendants of Mariamne through Alexander held for some time an Armenian principality. ****************************************

The termination of the vassal kingship resulted in manifest advantage to the Sadducees.  The high priest and synedrium again acquired political importance; they were the responsible representatives of the nation in presence of the suzerain power, and conceived themselves to be in some sort lords of land and people (John xi. 48).  For the Pharisees the new state of affairs appears to have been less satisfactory.  That