No political events of any great importance occurred during Alexandra's reign. Tigranes, king of Armenia, master of nearly the whole of Syria, had threatened to invade some of the Judæan provinces which had formerly belonged to the Syrian kingdom. The proximity of this ruler had greatly alarmed the queen, and she endeavored by gentle words and rich presents to prevent a contest with this powerful Armenian king. Tigranes had received the Judæan embassy, and accepted the queen's gifts most courteously, but they would hardly have prevented him from moving upon Judæa, had he not been compelled to devote himself to the defense of his own country from the attack of the Roman commander Lucullus (69). Alexandra fell hopelessly ill, and her illness occasioned the saddest of entanglements. The violent and ambitious Aristobulus, supposing that his mother destined his weak brother Hyrcanus as her successor, left the capital secretly, and arriving at the Galilean fortress of Gabata in the neighborhood of Sepphoris, upon the friendship of whose governor, the Sadducee Galaistes, he could rely, insisted upon its being entirely given up to him. He garrisoned it with mercenaries, furnished by some of the minor Syrian trans-Jordanic princes and the robber-hordes of Trachonitis, and was thus enabled to hold a large force at his command. Hyrcanus and the chiefs of the Synhedrion, fearing an impending civil war, entreated of the queen to take measures to prevent it, but without avail. Alexandra bade them trust to the army, to the fortresses that had remained faithful, and to the rich treasury, and devoted herself exclusively to preparation for death. She expired soon after, in the year 69, leaving her people and her kingdom to all the horrors of a civil war which was ultimately to destroy their dearly won independence. Salome Alexandra had reigned for only nine years; she had witnessed the happy days of her people's freedom, and, when lying on her death-bed, may have felt in her troubled soul the presentiment that the coming night of slavery was at hand. She was the only queen in Judæan history whose name has been handed down to us with veneration, and she was also the last independent ruler of Judæa. CHAPTER III. HYRCANUS II. ARISTOBULUS II. Brothers contend for the throne--Arrangement between the brothers--The Idumæan Antipater--Hyrcanus's weakness--Aretas besieges Jerusalem--Interference of Rome--Pompey at Jerusalem--The Judæan colony in Rome--Flaccus in Asia Minor--Cicero's oration against the Judæans--Weakening of the power of the Synhedrion--Shemaya and Abtalion--Violent death of Aristobulus and his son Alexander--Julius Cæsar and the Judæans--Antipater's sons Phasael and Herod--Herod before the Synhedrion--Operations of Cassius in Judæa--Malich--Antigonus as King--Herod escapes to Rome. 69.40 B. C. E.