Meanwhile the three most eminent men of Rome--Julius Cæsar, distinguished by his brilliant sagacity, Pompey by his martial renown, and Crassus by his boundless wealth--had agreed to break the power of the Senate, and to manage the affairs of the State according to their own will. The triumvirs began by dividing the fairest lands into provinces, which they separately appropriated. Syria fell to the share of Crassus, who was intensely avaricious in spite of his vast riches. Judæa from this time on was annexed to Syria quite as a matter of course. Crassus went out of his way, when marching against the Parthians, to enter Jerusalem, being tempted thither by the rich treasury of the Temple. He made no secret of his wish to seize upon the two thousand talents that Pompey had spared. In order to satisfy his greed, a pious priest, Eleazer, delivered up to him a solid bar of gold, the existence of which, hidden as it was in a hollow staff of curiously carved wood, had been unknown to the priests. Upon the receipt of this gift, Crassus swore solemnly that he would spare the treasury of the Temple. But when was a promise known to be binding that was made by a Roman to a Judæan? He took the golden bar, the two thousand talents, and all the golden vessels of the Temple, which were worth another eight thousand talents (54). Laden with these and other spoils of the Sanctuary, Crassus marched against the Parthians; but the Roman arms had always failed to subdue this people. Crassus was slain, and his army was so entirely disabled that his legate, Cassius Longinus, returned to Syria with scarcely the tenth part of the army of one hundred thousand men (53). The Parthians pursued the weakened army, and the Syrians, weary of the Roman yoke, lent them secret aid. To the Judæans this seemed an auspicious moment also for their own emancipation. It fell to Pitholaus to call the army together, which he led against Cassius. Fortune, however, always deserted the Judæan arms when they were turned against the Romans. Shut up in Tarichea on the lake of Tiberias, the troops were obliged to surrender. Upon the urgent demand of Antipater, Pitholaus was sentenced to death by Cassius, and thirty thousand Judæan warriors were sold into slavery (52).