Herod the Great, on his death-bed, had sent his seal, together with an ample present, to Augustus, in token of the entire dependence upon Rome in which he held his dominions [4 B.C.]. This act of vassalage procured him, perhaps, the ratification of the disposition he had made of his territories between Archelaus, Herod Antipas, and Philippus. To the first was allotted the kingdom of Judea, including Samaria and Idumæa, but with the loss of the cities of Gaza, Gadara, and Hippus, which were now annexed to the government of Syria. To the second fell the districts of Galilee to the west, and Peræa to the east of the Jordan; while the Trachonitis, Auranitis, and Gaulonitis formed with Ituræa the tetrarchy of Philip, extending northward to the desert borders of Damascus. But the rival kinsmen were not satisfied with this division. Archelaus and Antipas repaired to Rome to plead against one another; but while they were urging their suits before the tribunal of the senate, the provisional government which the Romans had established in Judea was suddenly attacked on all sides by bodies of armed insurgents. Their leaders, however, were not men of rank or commanding influence, and the revolt was in no sense a national movement. It was speedily crushed by Varus, then proconsul of Syria, the same who ten years afterwards perished so miserably in Germany, and punished with the atrocious severity too commonly employed in such cases. Archelaus, confirmed in his sovereignty, continued to reign under these lamentable auspices in Judea. His subjects, still mindful of the sons of their beloved Mariamne, never regarded him with favour; and it has been mentioned how they complained to Augustus of his tyranny, and obtained his removal from the throne. He was finally sent into exile at Vienne in Gaul. The fall of Archelaus left the throne of Judea and Samaria without a direct claimant, and the emperor took the opportunity of attaching them to the Roman dominions. This acquisition was placed under the general administration of the proconsul of Syria, but governed more directly by an imperial procurator, who took up his abode at Cæsarea Philippi. Of the character of the new government we find no complaints even in the Jewish writers whose accounts of this period have been preserved to us.