A brief account of the Roman conquest of the holy city will close this narrative of the Greek age in Jerusalem. The power of Rome was constantly increasing in the north, as she successively defeated Mithridates of Pontus and Tigranes of Armenia; and Pompey in 65 B. C. deposed Antiochus Asiaticus, last of the Seleucidæ, and set up Antiochus of Commagene in north-eastern Syria--a ruler half Greek, half Persian, whose remarkable tomb, with its valuable Greek texts, has been found on the Taurus north of Samosata. [Sidenote: POMPEY] Judea had been wisely ruled for nearly ten years by Salome Alexandra, the widow of Alexander Jannæus, supported by the Pharisees, who are first noticed as a Jewish sect in the time of Jonathan, but who now became the leaders of the nation, adding many traditions--which often seem to be of Persian rather than of Hebrew origin--to the law of Moses. The quarrels of the degenerate sons of Alexander Jannæus, after the death of their mother in 69 B. C., gave a pretext to Pompey for interference in Jewish affairs. They at first agreed that Aristobulus the elder should be high-priest, and Hyrcanus the younger king. But the latter called to his aid the powerful Arab king Aretas (or Ḥârith) from Petra, and Aristobulus offered Pompey a bribe of 400 talents for his support. So Scaurus was sent by the great conqueror of Armenia to settle the affairs of the Jews.[223] Hyrcanus had been persuaded by Antipater the Idumæan, whom his father had made commander in Edom,[224] to flee to Petra, and he thence returned with his Arab allies to besiege his brother in Jerusalem. Scaurus commanded them to depart, and leaving Aristobulus in the city, he returned to Damascus. Pompey, having subdued Tigranes, soon followed and marched to Jericho.[225] Aristobulus was ready to submit to Pompey’s demand that he should surrender his strongholds, but the Jerusalem Jews refused to admit the Roman envoy Gabinius within the walls of Jerusalem. The city at this time is described as having strong walls, and was only weak on the north, where there was no deep outer valley. The patriotic party and the unhappy Aristobulus held the Temple, defended on the north by the citadel afterwards called Antonia, which had a deep ditch dug beneath great towers, and was also protected by a natural valley. The ditch still exists, and will be noticed again. The valley is to the east, and is an affluent of the Kidron, the existence of which was unknown before the excavations of Sir Charles Warren on the north and north-east sides of the Ḥaram enclosure. The defenders also broke down the bridge leading from the upper city to the Temple hill, and--though the natural slopes of the ridge of Moriah were still visible on the west side--it is possible that there was already a wall between the city and the Temple. The voussoirs of this bridge lie jammed in the rock-cut aqueduct, 20 feet below the later Herodian pavement.