Cneius Pompeius was the first of our countrymen to
subdue the Jews. Availing himself of the right of conquest, he entered the
temple. Thus it became commonly known that the place stood empty with no
similitude of gods within, and that the shrine had nothing to reveal. The
walls of
Jerusalem were destroyed, the temple was
left standing. After these provinces had fallen, in the course of our civil
wars, into the hands of Marcus Antonius, Pacorus, king of the Parthians,
seized
Judæa. He was slain by Publius
Ventidius, and the Parthians were driven back over the
Euphrates.
JEWISH HISTORY
UNTIL VESPASIAN |
Caius Sosius reduced the Jews to subjection. The
royal power, which had been bestowed by Antony on Herod, was augmented by
the victorious Augustus. On Herod's death, one Simon, without waiting for
the approbation of the Emperor, usurped the title of king. He was punished
by Quintilius Varus then governor of
Syria, and the
nation, with its liberties curtailed, was divided into three provinces under
the sons of Herod. Under Tiberius all was quiet. But when the Jews were
ordered by Caligula to set up his statue in the temple, they preferred the
alternative of war. The death of the Emperor put an end to the disturbance.
The kings were either dead, or reduced to insignificance, when Claudius
entrusted the province of
Judæa to the Roman
Knights or to his own freedmen, one of whom, Antonius Felix, indulging in
every kind of barbarity and lust, exercised the power of a king in the
spirit of a slave. He had married Drusilla, the granddaughter of Antony and
Cleopatra, and so was the grandson-in-law, as Claudius was the grandson, of
Antony.