Yet the biggest threat to the survival of the dynasty was the infighting
within the royal family. Each succession was accompanied by a dynastic crisis,
and often bloodshed. The worst came at the end of the reign of Salome
Alexandra, as the shadow of Rome loomed larger. In 67, her son, Hyrcanus
and grandson Aristobulus, both claimed the right to succeed her, bringing
Judea to the verge of civil war for the next four years. Finally, the two
claimants agreed to submit to arbitration by a neutral third party, the Roman
general Pompey. In 63 B.C.E., Pompey arrived at the head of an armed legion.
Instead of arbitrating, he conquered Jerusalem, the first step toward reducing
Judea from an independent kingdom to a province of the Roman Empire.
Most of the territories that had been conquered under John Hyncanus and
Alexander Yannai became separate provinces.
Pompeii imprisoned Aristobulus in Rome (which some have argued was
the beginning of the Jewish community there) and named Hyncanus high
priest. Hyrcanus, though, was a Roman puppet, whose authority was trun-
cated to presiding over the Temple service and levying a Temple tax. Real
power in Judea was now in the hands of Gubinius, the governor of Syria. In
57, Gubinius divided Judea into five administrative districts, replacing a cen-
turies-old system that some claimed had been in effect in Judea since the time
of Solomon. From this point, Judea was affected by larger events in the
Roman Empire.
The reign of Herod
In 55, Gubinius was replaced as governor by Antipater, whose father had
served under Alexander Yannai as strategosof Idumea. Antipater had two sons,
Herod and Phasael, whom he repeatedly attempted to place in the limelight
of Roman politics. To this end, he appointed Herod to govern Galilee and
Phasael to govern Jerusalem. For Herod, this was to be the first step toward
becoming king of Judea.
From 50 to 47, Herod – ruthless, ambitious, impetuous, and paranoid –
began hunting down and executing cells of Jewish resistance to Roman rule
in Galilee. In 47, he was summoned to appear before the Sanhedrin in
Jerusalem to stand trial for murder and other criminal acts. Instead, he
arrived at the trial with a legion of soldiers. The Sanhedrin was on the verge
of convicting him, possibly incurring a major reprisal from Rome, when
Hyrcanus intervened on orders of the governor and disbanded the Sanhedrin,
thus avoiding a major confrontation. Herod wanted to attack Jerusalem at
this point, but his brother and father dissuaded him, pointing out that civil
wars would not look good on the résumé of an aspiring Roman statesman.
In 42, Herod and Phasael were promoted to tetrarchs of Judea. Two years
later, the Parthians invaded the Near East. Antigonus, the son of imprisoned
Aristobulus II, offered the Parthians Judean support if they restored him to
the throne of Judea. After defeating the Romans, the Parthians restored
34 The challenge of Hellenism