Antipater the Idumaean.This, however, was soon changed. Hyrcanus, or rather the minister governing for him, the Idumaean Antipater,[164] attained once more the leading position in southern Syria doubtless through Gabinius himself, to whom he knew how to make himself indispensable in his Parthian and Egyptian undertakings (iv. 345)iv. 329.. After the pillage of the temple of Jerusalem by Crassus the insurrection of the Jews thereby occasioned was chiefly subdued by him (iv. 355)iv. 339.. It was for him a fortunate dispensation that the Jewish government was not compelled to interfere actively in the crisis between Caesar and Pompeius, for whom it, like the whole East, had declared. Nevertheless, after the brother and rival of Hyrcanus, Aristobulus as well as his son Alexander, had on account of their taking part for Caesar lost their lives at the hands of the Pompeians, the second son, Antigonus, would doubtless after Caesar’s victory have been installed by the latter as ruler in Judaea. But when Caesar, coming to Egypt after the decisive victory, found himself in a dangerous position at Alexandria, it was chiefly Antipater who delivered him from it (iv. 452)iv. 430., and this carried the day; Antigonus had to give way before the more recent, but more effective, fidelity.
Caesar’s arrangements.Caesar’s personal gratitude was not the least element in promoting the formal restoration of the Jewish state. The Jewish kingdom obtained the best position which could be granted to a client-state, complete freedom from dues to the Romans[165] and from military occupation and levy,[166] whereas certainly the duties and the expenses of frontier-defence were to be undertaken by the native government. The town of Joppa, and thereby the connection with the sea, were given back, the independence of internal administration as well as the free exercise of religion was guaranteed; the re-establishment, hitherto refused, of the fortifications of Jerusalem razed by Pompeius was allowed (707)47 B.C.. Thus under the name of the Hasmonaean prince, a half foreigner—for the Idumaeans stood towards the Jews proper that returned from Babylon nearly as did the Samaritans—governed the Jewish state under the protection and according to the will of Rome. The Jews with national sentiments were anything but inclined towards the new government. The old families, who led in the council of Jerusalem, held in their hearts to Aristobulus, and, after his death, to his son Antigonus. In the mountains of Galilee the fanatics fought quite as much against the Romans as against their own government; when Antipater’s son Herod took captive Ezekias, the leader of this wild band, and had caused him to be put to death, the priestly council of Jerusalem compelled the weak Hyrcanus to banish Herod under the pretext of a violation of religious precepts. The latter thereupon entered the Roman army, and rendered good service to the Caesarian governor of Syria against the insurrection of the last Pompeians. But when, after the murder of Caesar, the republicans gained the upper hand in the East, Antipater was again the first who not merely submitted to the stronger but placed the new holders of power under obligation to him by a rapid levying of the contribution imposed by them.
Herod.
Thus it happened that the leader of the republicans, when he withdrew from Syria, left Antipater in his position, and entrusted his son Herod even with a command in Syria. Then, when Antipater died, poisoned as it was said by one of his officers, Antigonus, who had found a refuge with his father-in-law, the prince Ptolemaeus of Chalcis, believed that the moment had come to set aside his weak uncle. But the sons of Antipater, Phasael and Herod, thoroughly defeated his band, and Hyrcanus agreed to grant to them the position of their father, nay, even to receive Herod in a certain measure into the reigning house by betrothing to him his niece Mariamne. Meanwhile the leaders of the republican party were beaten at Philippi. The opposition in Jerusalem hoped now to procure the overthrow of the hated Antipatrids at the hands of the victors; but Antonius, to whom fell the office of arbiter, decidedly repelled their deputations first in Ephesus, then in Antioch, and last in Tyre; caused, indeed, the last envoys to be put to death; and confirmed Phasael and Herod formally as “tetrarchs”[167] of the Jews (713) 41 B.C. .
The Parthians in Judaea.
Soon the vicissitudes of world politics dragged the Jewish state once more into their vortex. The invasion of the Parthians in the following year (714)40 B.C. put an end in the first instance to the rule of the Antipatrids. The pretender Antigonus joined them, and possessed himself of Jerusalem and almost the whole territory. Hyrcanus went as a prisoner to the Parthians: Phasael, the eldest son of Antipater, likewise a captive, put himself to death in prison. With great difficulty Herod concealed his family in a rock-stronghold on the border of Judaea, and went himself a fugitive and in search of aid first to Egypt, and, when he no longer found Antonius there, to the two holders of power just at that time ruling in new harmony (714) 40 B.C.at Rome. Readily they allowed him—as indeed it was only in the interest of Rome—to gain back for himself the Jewish kingdom; he returned to Syria, so far as the matter depended on the Romans, as recognised Herod, king of Judaea.ruler, and even equipped with the royal title. But, just like a pretender, he had to wrest the land not so much from the Parthians as from the patriots. He fought his battles pre-eminently with the help of Samaritans and Idumaeans and hired soldiers, and attained at length, through the support of the Roman legions, to the possession of the long-defended capital. The Roman executioners delivered him likewise from his rival of many years, Antigonus; his own made havoc among the noble families of the council of Jerusalem.
Herod under Antonius and Cleopatra.
But the days of trouble were by no means over with his installation. The unfortunate expedition of Antonius against the Parthians remained without consequences for Herod, since the victors did not venture to advance into Syria; but he suffered severely under the ever increasing claims of the Egyptian queen, who at that time more than Antonius ruled the East; her womanly policy, primarily directed to the extension of her domestic power and above all of her revenues, was far indeed from obtaining at the hands of Antonius all that she desired, but she wrested at any rate from the king of the Jews a portion of his most valuable possessions on the Syrian coast and in the territory lying between Egypt and Syria, nay, even the rich balsam plantations and palm-groves of Jericho, and laid upon him severe financial burdens. In order to maintain the remnant of his rule, he was obliged either himself to lease the new Syrian possessions of the queen or to be guarantee for other lessees less able to pay. After all these troubles, and in expectation of still worse demands as little capable of being declined, the outbreak of the war between Antonius and Caesar was hopeful for him, and the fact that Cleopatra in her selfish perversity released him from active participation in the war, because he needed his troops to collect her Syrian revenues, was a further piece of good fortune, since this facilitated his submission to the victor. Fortune favoured him yet further on his changing sides; he was able to intercept a band of faithful gladiators of Antonius, who were marching from Asia Minor through Syria towards Egypt to lend Herod under Augustus.assistance to their master. When he, before resorting to Caesar at Rhodes to obtain his pardon, caused the last male offshoot of the Maccabaean house, the eighty-years old Hyrcanus, to whom the house of Antipater was indebted for its position, to be at all events put to death, he in reality exaggerated the necessary caution. Caesar did what policy bade him do, especially as the support of Herod was of importance for the intended Egyptian expedition. He confirmed Herod, glad to be vanquished, in his dominion, and extended it, partly by giving back the possessions wrested from him by Cleopatra, partly by further gifts; the whole coast from Gaza to Strato’s Tower, the later Caesarea, the Samaritan region inserted between Judaea and Galilee, and a number of towns to the east of the Jordan thenceforth obeyed Herod. On the consolidation of the Roman monarchy the Jewish principality was withdrawn from the reach of further external crises.
Government of Herod.From the Roman standpoint the conduct of the new dynasty appears correct, in a way to draw tears from the eyes of the observer. It took part at first for Pompeius, then for Caesar the father, then for Cassius and Brutus, then for the triumvirs, then for Antonius, lastly for Caesar the son; fidelity varies, as does the watchword. Nevertheless this conduct is not to be denied the merit of consistency and firmness. The factions which rent the ruling burgess-body, whether republic or monarchy, whether Caesar or Antonius, in reality nowise concerned the dependent provinces, especially those of the Greek East. The demoralisation which is combined with all revolutionary change of government—the degrading confusion between internal fidelity and external obedience—was brought in this case most glaringly to light; but the fulfilment of duty, such as the Roman commonwealth claimed from its subjects, had been satisfied by king Herod to an extent of which nobler and greater natures would certainly not have been capable. In presence of the Parthians he constantly, even in critical circumstances, held firmly to the protectors whom he had once chosen.
In its relation to the Jews.From the standpoint of internal Jewish politics the government of Herod was the setting aside of the theocracy, and in so far a continuance of, and in fact an advance upon, the government of the Maccabees, as the separation of the political and the ecclesiastical government was carried out with the utmost precision in the contrast between the all-powerful king of foreign birth and the powerless high-priest often and arbitrarily changed. No doubt the royal position was sooner pardoned in the Jewish high-priest than in a man who was a foreigner and incapable of priestly consecration; and, if the Hasmonaeans represented outwardly the independence of Judaism, the Idumaean held his royal power over the Jews in fee from the lord-paramount. The reaction of this insoluble conflict on a deeply-impassioned nature confronts us in the whole life-career of the man, who causes much suffering, but has felt perhaps not less. At all events the energy, the constancy, the yielding to the inevitable, the military and political dexterity, where there was room for it, secure for the king of the Jews a certain place in the panorama of a remarkable epoch.