name was Hyrcanus, succeeded him,
after he had held the high priesthood one year longer than his brother.
This Hyrcanus enjoyed that dignity thirty years, and died an old man,
leaving the succession to Judas, who was also called Aristobulus, whose
brother Alexander was his heir; which Judas died of a sore distemper,
after he had kept the priesthood, together with the royal authority; for
this Judas was the first that put on his head a diadem for one year. And
when Alexander had been both king and high priest twenty-seven years, he
departed this life, and permitted his wife Alexandra to appoint him that
should be high priest; so she gave the high priesthood to Hyrcanus, but
retained the kingdom herself nine years, and then departed this life.
The like duration [and no longer] did her son Hyrcanus enjoy the high
priesthood; for after her death his brother Aristobulus fought against
him, and beat him, and deprived him of his principality; and he did
himself both reign, and perform the office of high priest to God. But
when he had reigned three years, and as many months, Pompey came upon
him, and not only took the city of Jerusalem by force, but put him and
his children in bonds, and sent them to Rome. He also restored the high
priesthood to Hyrcanus, and made him governor of the nation, but forbade
him to wear a diadem. This Hyrcanus ruled, besides his first nine years,
twenty-four years more, when Barzapharnes and Pacorus, the generals of
the Parthians, passed over Euphrates, and fought with Hyrcanus, and took
him alive, and made Antigonus, the son of Aristobulus, king; and when he
had reigned three years and three months, Sosius and Herod besieged him,
and took him, when Antony had him brought to Antioch, and slain there.
Herod was then made king by the Romans, but did no longer appoint high
priests out of the family of Asamoneus; but made certain men to be so
that were of no eminent families, but barely of those that were priests,
excepting that he gave that dignity to Aristobulus; for when he had made
this Aristobulus, the grandson of that Hyrcanus who was then taken by
the Parthians, and had taken his sister Mariarmne to wife, he thereby
aimed to win the good-will of the people, who had a kind remembrance of
Hyrcanus [his grandfather]. Yet did he afterward, out of his fear lest
they should all bend their inclinations to Aristobulus, put him to
death, and that by contriving how to have him suffocated as he was
swimming a