An opportunity soon presented itself for carrying out her design. Successful in subjugating Ituræa, Antigonus returned to Jerusalem, and at the Feast of Tabernacles hastened to the Temple, with his body-guard, to offer up his petitions for his brother’s recovery. This act was represented to Aristobulus as covering a seditious design against his own life. Scarcely able to credit such a calumny, the king, who still lay sick in his chamber in the tower of Baris, desired that his brother should appear before him, but without arms. A dark underground passage led from the Temple to the tower, and here, by the queen’s connivance, a company of soldiers was stationed with instructions to put Antigonus to death if he appeared clad in armour. She then caused it to be represented to the unfortunate prince that it was the royal will he should appear in a suit of splendid armour, which his brother wished to see. Thus deceived he entered the underground passage, and was instantly assassinated. What had occurred was reported to Aristobulus, and brought on a sudden paroxysm of his malady followed by an excessive hæmorrhage. A slave bore away the vessel into which the blood had flowed, and stumbling on the very spot where Antigonus had been murdered, caused the blood of the two brothers to mingle on the floor. A cry of horror ran through the palace, and reaching the ears of the king, roused a wish to know the cause. For some time his attendants refused to tell the truth, but at length he forced them to declare what had occurred, and had no sooner heard it than he was seized with such an agony of remorse that he instantly expired. After this tragical event, Alexander Jannæus, the eldest of the imprisoned brothers, was placed upon the throne, B.C. 104. Taking advantage of the disordered condition of the Syrian kingdom, he turned his arms against Moab, Gilead, Ammon, and Arabia Petræa, and after several successes laid siege to the port of Ptolemais. The inhabitants called in the aid of Ptolemy Lathyrus, who came to their aid with an army of 30,000 men. But no sooner did he appear before the gates, than the very party which had invoked his aid refused to admit him. On this he turned his arms against Gaza, and Jannæus, while pretending to negotiate with him for a friendly surrender of the place, secretly corresponded with his mother Cleopatra, the queen of Egypt, and besought her aid in expelling him from the country. Discovering this, Ptolemy marched into Judæa, defeated Alexander with enormous loss, and to spread the terror of his name, fell upon some villages, murdered the women and children, and cutting their bodies in pieces boiled their flesh.