=1. Antipater the Idumean.=――When the wise queen Salome Alexandra died (B.C. 70) the differences between the characters and the interests of her two sons resulted in open discord. A certain Antipater, the son of a governor of Idumea, found opportunity for his ambition in fanning the flame. He was a bold, crafty, unscrupulous man, this Antipater, and wanted the sovereignty for himself. He grasped the position at once. He saw that it would be important not to make enemies of both brothers. To gain his object he must seem to espouse the cause of one or the other. He did not covet the position of priest-king, only of king. Hyrcanus, the weak elder son of Alexander Jannæus, was already installed in the priesthood. Antipater determined, for the present, to support him in the double dignity. He shrewdly thought that it would be easier to hoodwink, and, when the time came, to supplant such a puppet as Hyrcanus, than to make a tool of the younger brother. =2. Rome arbitrates.=――So after the death of their mother the two brothers began fighting for the crown. The Pharisees were mostly on the conservative side of Hyrcanus, and the Sadducees with the more attractive Aristobulus. In an evil hour Aristobulus asked Pompey, the great Roman consul, to arbitrate on the matter. Pompey was busy himself at the time with his conquests in Asia, but presently he received envoys at Damascus from the rival brothers. For a while Pompey’s decision was held doubtful, and the impatient Aristobulus one day withdrew without waiting for it any longer. This disrespectful action helped Pompey to come to a decision. The victorious Roman general determined to settle the dispute in his own fashion. He marched against Jerusalem, reduced it after a three months’ siege (B.C. 63), declared the possessions of Alexander Jannæus to be forfeit to Rome, proclaimed Aristobulus a rebel, and confirmed Hyrcanus in the priesthood, but with the lower title of ethnarch instead of king. It was a strong measure on the part of Pompey. Still it was strictly political and not religious warfare, and in that sense to be honourably distinguished from the tactics of Antiochus Epiphanes. Pompey made war on the Jews, and not on Judaism. Though the Temple was in his power, he left its altars undesecrated and its treasures untouched.