=105.= After her death, her two sons, Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, quarreled seven years for the sovereignty. Pompey the Great, who was then at Damascus, interfered and captured Jerusalem, carried off Aristobulus to Rome, and established the elder brother in the government. He reigned six years in peace, B. C. 63-57. In the latter year Aristobulus escaped, and being joined by many of his partisans, renewed the war. He was besieged and taken in Machæ´rus by the Roman proconsul, who also deposed Hyrcanus, and set up a sort of oligarchy in Jerusalem. Pompey, in taking the city, had left its sacred treasures untouched, but during this period, Crassus, on his way to Parthia, seized and plundered the temple. After ten years (B. C. 57-47), Hyrcanus was restored to the high priesthood, while his friend Antipater, the Idumæan, was appointed procurator, or civil governor, of Judæa. In B. C. 40, Antigonus, son of Aristobulus, with the aid of a Parthian force, captured Jerusalem and reigned three years, the last of the Asmonæan princes. Antipater had been poisoned; his son Herod repaired to Rome, and received from the Senate the title of King of Judæa. Returning speedily, he conquered Galilee and advanced to the siege of Jerusalem. This was protracted several years, for the Jews were firmly attached to Antigonus, and resented equally the interference of Rome and the reign of an Edomite. After hard fighting the walls were taken, and the king was executed like a common criminal. =106.= THIRD PERIOD, B. C. 37-A. D. 44. Herod was justly surnamed “the Great,” for his talents and the grandeur of his enterprises, though his character was stained by the worst faults of a tyrant, cruelty and reckless caprice. At the age of fifteen he had been made governor of Galilee by Julius Cæsar, and had ruled with great energy and success, suppressing the banditti who infested the country, and putting their leaders to death. He began his reign in Judæa by a massacre of all who had been opposed to him, especially those whose wealth would best enable him to reward his Roman benefactors. The Temple, which, being used as a fortress, had been nearly destroyed in the repeated sieges, was rebuilt, by his orders, with a magnificence which rivaled the glories of Solomon. His liberality was equally shown during a famine which visited Judæa and the surrounding countries. He bought immense quantities of corn in Egypt, and fed the entire people at his own expense, beside supplying several provinces with seed for the next harvest.