Hyrcanus she appointed high priest, because he was the elder, but still more on account of his temperamental inaction. She allowed the Pharisees complete freedom, and ordered the people to obey their behests. She also reinstated the customs which the Pharisees had introduced in accordance with ancestral tradition and her father-in-law, Hyrcanus, had abrogated.[379] She was thus nominally Queen, but the real power was in the hands of the Pharisees.—_Ant._ XIII. 15. 5-16. 2 (399-409) Footnote 376: Ragaba. Footnote 377: Conj. Niese; MSS “send for their soldiers.” Footnote 378: Another reading, “fifty years save one.” Footnote 379: Cf. § (56). (58) How the Pharisees rose to Power under Queen Alexandra A supplement to the final paragraph in the preceding section. [Sidenote: 78-69 B.C.] Beside Alexandra, and growing as she grew,[380] arose the Pharisees, a body of Jews with the reputation of excelling the rest of their nation in the observances of religion, and as exact exponents of the laws. To them, being herself devoutly religious, she listened with too great deference; while they, gradually taking advantage of an ingenuous woman, became at length the real administrators of the state, at liberty to banish and to recall, to loose and to bind, whom they would. In short, the enjoyments of royal authority were theirs; its expenses and burthens fell to Alexandra. She proved, however, to be a wonderful administrator of large affairs of state, and, by continual additions to her levies, doubled her (home) army, besides collecting a considerable body of foreign troops; so that she not only strengthened her own nation, but became a formidable foe to foreign potentates. Thus she ruled the nation, and the Pharisees ruled her.—_B.J._ I. 5. 2 (110-112). Footnote 380: Reading αὐτῆς; lit. “grew up beside into her power” (like suckers round a tree). With the reading αὐτῇ, “Beside A. there rose to power....” (59) Herod the Great exempts Pharisees and Essenes from the Oath of Allegiance. The Essene Prophet Menahem [Sidenote: _c._ 37 B.C.] Most of Herod’s subjects, either from obsequiousness or fear, yielded to his demands;[381] those who showed a bolder front and took offence at the compulsory order, he found one means or other of putting out of the way. He endeavoured to persuade Pollio the Pharisee and Sameas and most of their disciples to take the oath with the rest; but they refused, and the respect in which Pollio was held secured them from sharing the penalty of the other objectors.