For the Aesop fable of the two bears quarrelling over a find, thus affording opportunity for a third to step in and seize it, was here to be exemplified. Rome was ever on the watch to bring all outlying provinces into her net. Pompey, her victorious general, whose head Julius Caesar was later to demand, was just now making his triumphant march through Asia. The warring brothers, Hyrcanus and Aristobolus, appealed to his lieutenant. To leave the decision with Rome was a dangerous precedent, for the power that could grant a throne by its decision might also take it away. So, while the decision was rendered in favor of Aristobulus, it was as vassal rather than as independent king that he held his throne for some two years. The real gainer was Rome. It had now the right to revoke its decision; and it did. The people, disgusted with their unworthy leaders who cared nothing for the nation, but only for its honors--appealed to Rome to abolish the monarchy that had been gradually introduced and restore the old regime of the High Priesthood. But the headstrong Aristobulus dared resist even Rome and entrenched himself against invasion. This was fatal both for him and Judea. The temple mount was besieged. It was taken with frightful massacre by lustful Romans. This was in 63. Pompey sacrilegiously entered the Holy of Holies, in which to his surprise he found no idol; a spiritual God was an unfamiliar concept to the pagan mind. He curtailed the Jewish state and made it tributary. Aristobulus must grace Pompey's triumph at Rome. So much for the vain conquests of John Hyrcanus and Alexander Janneus. They evaporated with a word from Pompey. Thus ended the Judean independence for which the early Maccabees had fought so nobly. It had endured but seventy-nine years. Over this tributary State Hyrcanus II. was made High Priest. The kingship created by the first Aristobulus was short-lived indeed. The scheming Antipater had won, but graver issues were to be the outcome. CHAPTER X. JUDEA UNDER ROMAN SUZERAINTY. Growth of Rome. Rome, from the city on the Tiber, had spread over all Italy. Then gradually it mastered the lands on both sides of the Mediterranean. Greece and Carthage were absorbed in the same year, 146 B.C.E. Soon its tide of conquest reached Asia, and nearly all the lands in the East conquered by Alexander--excepting Persia--were under its sway. When Greco Syria--which had included Judea until the Maccabean independence--fell before its arms, it was to be expected that the never-satisfied Rome would not rest until the land of our fathers had been added to its possessions. We have seen how an unhappy series of events played into its hands and hastened this end. In a sense Rome was becoming the "mistress of the world." Nor was her sway as transitory as that of earlier world powers--Assyria, Babylonia, Persia or Macedonia. It was to endure for many centuries and it has left a lasting impress upon the world's civilization.