the inward
and outward peace, the absence of which had been so long
and so painfully felt.

The East after the Departure of Pompeius

Peace continued substantially in the east, till the idea--merely
indicated by Pompeius with his characteristic timidity--of joining
the regions eastward of the Euphrates to the Roman empire was taken
up again energetically but unsuccessfully by the new triumvirate
of Roman regents, and soon thereafter the civil war drew the eastern
provinces as well as all the rest into its fatal vortex.
In the interval the governors of Cilicia had to fight constantly
with the mountain-tribes of the Amanus and those of Syria with the hordes
of the desert, and in the latter war against the Bedouins especially
many Roman troops were destroyed; but these movements had no farther
significance. More remarkable was the obstinate resistance,
which the tough Jewish nation opposed to the conquerors. Alexander,
son of the deposed king Aristobulus, and Aristobulus himself
who after some time succeeded in escaping from captivity,
excited during the governorship of Aulus Gabinius (697-700)
three different revolts against the new rulers, to each of which
the government of the high-priest Hyrcanus installed by Rome impotently
succumbed. It was not political conviction, but the invincible repugnance
of the Oriental towards the unnatural yoke, which compelled them
to kick against the pricks; as indeed the last and most dangerous
of these revolts, for which the withdrawal of the Syrian army
of occupation in consequence of the Egyptian crisis furnished
the immediate impulse, began with the murder of the Romans
settled in Palestine. It was not without difficulty
that the able governor succeeded in rescuing the few Romans,
who had escaped this fate and found a temporary refuge
on Mount Gerizim, from the insurgents who kept them blockaded there,
and in overpowering the revolt after several severely contested
battles and tedious sieges. In consequence of this the monarchy
of the high-priests was abolished and the Jewish land was broken up
as Macedonia had formerly been, into five independent districts
administered by governing colleges with an Optimate organization;
Samaria and other townships razed by the Jews were re-established,
to form a counterpoise to Jerusalem; and lastly a heavier tribute
was imposed on the Jews than on the other Syrian subjects of Rome.

The Kingdom of Egypt

It still remains that we shoul