(1) The Herods.—In 37 B. C. Herod the Great, whose father had served under the Romans, by the aid of a Roman army furnished him by Mark Antony, drove Antigonous out and began his notable reign. Herod was a man of great energy, an Edomite by descent, whose ancestors had become Jews by compulsion. While professedly a Jew, he was deeply enamored of the Græco-Roman culture. He wrung taxes from the people in order to beautify Palestine with cities and temples built on Hellenic models. He rebuilt, among other undertakings, the Jewish temple at Jerusalem and the city of Samaria. This last he named Sebaste, the Greek for Augusta, naming it in honor of the Emperor Augustus. He built a heathen temple there, surrounded the city with a colonnaded street, many of the columns of which are still standing, and otherwise adorned it. He built for himself a palace at Jericho, and another on the top of a hill to the southeast of Bethlehem, today called Gebel Fureidis; (see Figs. [31] and [39]).
Upon his death, in 4 B. C., his kingdom was divided, Archelaus receiving Judah and Samaria; Antipas, Galilee and Peræa, and Philip, Iturea and Trachonitis. None of his sons was permitted by the Romans to be called king, but all bore the title of “tetrarch.” The rule of Archelaus proved so unbearable that in 6 A. D. Augustus banished him to Gaul and placed Judæa and Samaria under Procurators, who were responsible to the Proconsuls of the province of Syria. Pontius Pilate was the fifth of these Procurators. After the death of Herod Antipas in 39 A. D., the Emperor Caligula made Herod Agrippa I, a grandson of Herod the Great, king of the dominions over which that monarch had ruled. Agrippa assumed control in 41 and ruled till his death in 44 A. D. His death is described in Acts 12:23. After his death the whole country was governed by Procurators.
(2) The Destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A. D.—Roman rule was always distasteful to the Jews, and as the years passed they became more and more restive. These smouldering fires broke into the flame of open rebellion in the year 66 A. D., and after four years of terrible warfare Jerusalem was captured and destroyed in 70 A. D. The temple, also razed to the ground, has never been rebuilt. The country about Jerusalem was peopled by some of the poorer of the peasantry, and the tenth Roman legion remained in the city for a long time to keep order in that region.
12. Later History.—In 132 A. D., in the reign of Hadrian, a man called Bar Chocaba, or the “Son of the Star,” came forward, claiming to be the Messiah, and headed a Jewish revolt. So fiercely did the Jews fight that the insurrection was not quelled by Rome until 135 A. D. When it was finally put down, Hadrian determined to blot the name of Jerusalem from the map. He rebuilt Jerusalem, making it a Roman colony, named it Ælia Capitolina, and built a temple to Jupiter on the spot where the temple of Jehovah had formerly stood. No Jew was permitted to come near the city. Jerusalem as built by Hadrian continued until the time of Constantine, and the form thus imposed upon it lasted much longer.
When Constantine made Christianity the religion of the empire, both he and his mother began to take an interest in the Holy City and the Holy Land. Other Christians followed them. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher was built, and the temple of Jupiter built by Hadrian was turned into a Christian church. Pilgrimages to the Holy Land began, and monasteries, churches, and bishoprics in time sprang up over all the country. Thus for three hundred years the influences which were felt in Palestine emanated from Byzantium or Constantinople. In 615 A. D. the land was overrun by Chosroes II of Persia, who captured Jerusalem and destroyed many of its churches. The Persians held it until 628, when the Byzantine kings regained it. The control of Jerusalem by the Christians was, however, of short duration, for in 636 Palestine was captured by the Mohammedans, and with the exception of 89 years has ever since been under Mohammedan control.[131] During these long centuries the country was ruled by the Caliphs of Medina, Damascus, and Bagdad; by the Buvide Sultans, the Fatimite Caliphs of Egypt, and the Seljuk Turks. The cruelties inflicted by these last rulers upon Christians led to the Crusades, the first of which established the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem,[132] which continued from 1099 to 1188 A. D. This kingdom, organized on the feudal basis then existing in western Europe, extended over all of Palestine and Syria, including Antioch, and for nearly half the time, Edessa beyond the Euphrates. Its existence marks an epoch in the archæology of the country.
Since the fall of this Latin kingdom, Palestine has remained under Moslem control. First the Eyyubide Sultans of Egypt, then the Mamelukes of that same land held sway. In 1517 the Ottoman Turks captured it, and have since inflicted their misrule upon it. What fortunes the great war now raging may bring to this land of sacred associations, we await with intense interest.
CHAPTER VI
THE CITIES OF PALESTINE