fate with arms
in hand; at one time he seemed on the point of submitting to Pompeius,
at another he seemed as though he would summon the national party
among the Jews to a struggle with the Romans. When at length,
with the legions already at the gates, he yielded to the enemy,
the more resolute or more fanatical portion of his army refused
to comply with the orders of a king who was not free. The capital
submitted; the steep temple-rock was defended by that fanatical band
for three months with an obstinacy ready to brave death, till at last
the besiegers effected an entrance while the besieged were resting
on the Sabbath, possessed themselves of the sanctuary, and handed over
the authors of that desperate resistance, so far as they had
not fallen under the sword of the Romans, to the axes of the lictors.
Thus ended the last resistance of the territories newly annexed
to the Roman state.

The New Relations of the Romans in the East

The work begun by Lucullus had been completed by Pompeius;
the hitherto formally independent states of Bithynia, Pontus,
and Syria were united with the Roman state; the exchange--which
had been recognized for more than a hundred years as necessary--
of the feeble system of a protectorate for that of direct sovereignty
over the more important dependent territories,(17) had at length
been realized, as soon as the senate had been overthrown and the Gracchan
party had come to the helm. Rome had obtained in the east
new frontiers, new neighbours, new friendly and hostile relations.
There were now added to the indirect territories of Rome
the kingdom of Armenia and the principalities of the Caucasus,
and also the kingdom on the Cimmerian Bosporus, the small remnant
of the extensive conquests of Mithradates Eupator, now a client-state
of Rome under the government of his son and murderer Pharnaces;
the town of Phanagoria alone, whose commandant Castor had given
the signal for the revolt, was on that account recognized by the Romans
as free and independent.

Conflicts with the Nabataeans

No like successes could be boasted of against the Nabataeans.
King Aretas had indeed, yielding to the desire of the Romans,
evacuated Judaea; but Damascus was still in his hands,
and the Nabataean land had not yet been trodden by any Roman soldier.
To subdue that region or at least to show to their new neighbours
in Arabia that the Roman eagles were now dominant on the Orontes
and on the Jordan, and that t