Herod the Great had been declared king of the Jews by the Romans; but
Jerusalem refused to acknowledge him. This prince, aided by Sosius,
whom Antony had sent to him with several legions, marched against that
city, at the head of a numerous army. He laid siege to it, raised three
platforms, which dominated over the towers, poured from their summits
a continuous shower of darts, arrows, and stones upon the besieged,
and unceasingly battered the ramparts with rams and other machines he
had brought with him from Tyre. But the Jews, still intrepid, despised
death, and only sought to inflict it upon their assailants. If a wall
was destroyed, another arose as if by magic. If a ditch was dug, it
was rendered useless by a countermine, and they constantly appeared
in the midst of the besiegers when least expected. Thus, without
being depressed, either by frequent assaults or by the famine which
now made itself cruelly felt, they resisted during five months the
united efforts of the Romans and the Jewish partisans of Aristobulus.
At length, both the city and the Temple were carried by assault. Then
death assumed one of his most awful characters. The Romans bathed
themselves in the blood of an obstinate enemy; and the Jews of the
king’s party, rejecting every feeling of humanity, immolated to their
fury every one of their own nation whom they met in the streets and
houses, or even found in the temple. Herod, however, by means of
prayers, promises, and menaces, at length obtained a cessation of
this horrible butchery, and to prevent the pillaging of the city and
the Temple, he generously offered to purchase them of the Romans with
his own wealth. This capture of Jerusalem occurred thirty-seven years
before Christ, on the very day on which Pompey had carried it by
assault twenty-seven years before.