The government was enjoyed during a brief space by Aristobulus, the son of Hyrcanus, whose reign was only distinguished by the most painful domestic calamities. The throne was next occupied by Alexander Jannaeus, a man of ignoble birth, but of a warlike and very ambitious temper. The distracted state of the neighbouring countries induced him to take the field, with the view of reducing several towns on the coast of the Mediterranean,--an undertaking which finally involved him in the troubled politics of Egypt and Cyprus. In process of time, the severity of his measures, or the meanness of his extraction, rendered him so unpopular at Jerusalem that the inhabitants expelled him by force of arms. A civil war of the most sanguinary nature raged several years, during which the insurgents invited the assistance of Demetrius Euchaerus, one of the kings of Syria. This measure seems to have united a large party of Jews, who were equally hostile to the dominant faction within the city, and to the ally whom they had called to their aid. Alexander, after having repeatedly suffered the heaviest losses, saw himself again at the head of a powerful army, with which he resolved to march against the rebellious capital. He inflicted a signal punishment upon such of the unfortunate citizens as fell into his hands; ordering nearly a thousand of them to be crucified, and their wives and children to be butchered before their eyes. Having fully re-established his power to the remotest parts of Palestine, the victorious high-priest, now drawing towards the close of his days, gave instructions to his wife for the future government of the country. Alexandria, a woman of a vigorous mind, held the reins of civil power with great steadiness, while her eldest son, Hyrcanus the Second, was decorated with the sacred diadem as the head of the nation. But, unhappily, the commotions which had disturbed the reign of her husband were again excited, and once more divided the people into two furious parties. Aristobulus, the younger son of Jannaeus, gave his countenance to the body who opposed his brother, and at length threw off his disguise so completely as to aspire to supreme power in defiance of the rights of birth and of a legal investiture. Hyrcanus, who was far inferior to his ambitious relative in point of talent and resolution, would probably, after the death of their mother, have been unable to keep his seat on the throne, had he not received the powerful aid of Antipatar, a son of Antipas, the governor of Idumea. Both sides were making preparation for an appeal to arms, when the Romans, who had already overrun the finest parts of Syria, advanced into the province of Palestine in the character at once of umpires and of allies.