the open gates of the city, but did not capture the citadel for three weeks, finally taking advantage of the day of Pentecost, when the Jews would not fight. The Roman period began with the slaughter of twelve thousand citizens. Priests were slain at the altar, and the temple was profaned. Judaea became a Roman province, and was compelled to pay tribute. Herod the Great became governor of Galilee, and later the Roman senate made him king of Judaea. He besieged Jerusalem, and took it in 37 B.C. "A singular compound of good and bad--mostly bad--was this King Herod." He hired men to drown a supposed rival, as if in sport, at Jericho on the occasion of a feast, and in the beginning of his reign he slaughtered more than half of the members of the Sanhedrin. The aged high priest Hyrcanus was put to death, as was also Mariamne, the wife of this monster, who was ruling when the Messiah was born at Bethlehem. Herod was a great builder, and it was he who reconstructed the temple on magnificent lines. He also built Caesarea, and rebuilt Samaria. After his death, the country was divided and ruled by his three sons. Achelaus reigned ingloriously in Jerusalem for ten years, and was banished. Judaea was then ruled by procurators, Pilate being the fifth one of them, ruling from A.D. 26-36. In the year A.D. 65 the Jews rebelled against the Romans, after being their subjects for one hundred and twenty-two years. They were not subdued until the terrible destruction of the Holy City in A.D. 70, when, according to Josephus, one million one hundred thousand Jews perished in the siege, two hundred and fifty-six thousand four hundred and fifty were slain elsewhere, and one hundred and one thousand seven hundred prisoners were sold into bondage. The Temple was completely destroyed along with the city, which for sixty years "lay in ruins so complete that it is doubtful whether there was a single house that could be used as a residence." The land was annexed to Syria, and ceased to be a Jewish country. Hadrian became emperor in A.D. 117, and issued an edict forbidding the Jews to practice circumcision, read the law, or to observe the Sabbath. These things greatly distressed the Jews, and in A.D. 132 they rallied to the standard of Bar Cochba, who has been styled "the last and greatest of the false Messiahs." The Romans were overthrown, Bar Cochba proclaimed himself king in Jerusalem, and carried on the war for two years. At one time he held fifty towns, but they were all taken from him, and he was finally killed at Bether, or Bittir. This was the last effort of the Jews to recover the land by force of arms. Hadrian caused the site of the temple to be plowed over, and the city was reconstructed being made thoroughly pagan. For two hundred years the Jews were forbidden to enter it. In A.D. 326 the Empress Helena visited Jerusalem, and built a church on the Mount of Olives. Julian the Apostate undertook to rebuild the Jewish temple in A.D.