Ac. was now too late that prince had got back into his A. R kingdom. His wife Cleopatra, who wanted only to reign at any rate, returned quickly with him, and Rodogune was soon forgot. Hyrcanus improved the juncture: be took Sichem from the Samaritans, and utterly demolished the temple of Gerizim, two hundred years after it had been built by Sanballat. Its destruction did not hinder the Samaritans from continuing their worship in that mountain, and the two na129. tions remained irreconcilable. The year after, all 625 Idumea, united by the victories of Hyrcanus to the kingdom of Judea, received the law of Moses with circumcision. The Romans continued their protection to Hyrcanus, and caused the cities to be restored, 128. which the Syrians had taken from him. The pride 6 and violence of Demetrius Nicator suffered not Syria to enjoy long tranquillity. The people revolted. To cherish their revolt, Egypt, their enemy, gave them a 125. king; Alexander Zabina son of Balas. Demetrius 629 was beaten, and Cleopatra, thinking to reign more absolutely under her children, than under her husband, 124. brought him to a miserable end. No better did she 630 serve her eldest son Seleucus, who had a mind to reign in spite of her. Her second son Antiochus, called Grypus, was just returned victorious from the defeat of 121. the rebels, when Cleopatra presented to him in form 635. the poisoned cup, which, her son warned of her pernicious designs, forced herself to swallow. She died, and left an eternal bone of contention between the children she had had by the two brothers, Demetrius Nicator, and Antiochus Sidetes. Syria thus distracted, was no longer in condition of disturbing the Jews. 109. Joannes Hyrcanus took Samaria, but could not con- (64 vert the Samaritans. He died five years after, and Judea remained in the peaceable possession of his two 104. sons, Aristobulus, and Alexander Janneus; who reign- 650 163. ed, one after the other, unmolested by the kings of 651 Syria. The Romans suffered that rich kingdom to waste away of itself, and extended their dominion

A. C. westward. During the wars of Demetrius Nicator A. R 125. and Zebina, they began to extend their domain beyond 629 124. the Alps; and Sextius, having conquered the Gauls, 680.

631

named Salii, established in the city of Aix a colony, which bears his name to this day. The Gauls made 23. but a sorry defence. Fabius subdued the Allobroges, est 121. and all the neighbouring nations; and the same year 6 that Grypus caused his mother to drink the poison she had prepared for him, Gallia Narbonensis, reduced into a province, received the name of a Roman province. Thus the Roman empire grew in greatness, and gradually possessed itself of all the lands and seas of the then known world. But as fair as the face of the republic seemed outwardly by its conquests, so disfigured was it by the inordinate ambition of its citizens, and by its intestine broils. The most illustrious of the Romans became the most pernicious to the public weal. The two Gracchi, by flattering the people, begun divisions, which did not end but with the commonwealth. Caius, brother of Tiberius, could not brook their having put to death so great a man, in so tragical a manner. Animated to vengeance by impulses, which were thought inspired by the ghost of Tiberius, he armed all the citizens against one another, and as he 119. was upon the point of destroying the whole, he was 63. 114. cut off by a death like to that he meant to revenge. 640. 13. Money did every thing at Rome. Jugurtha king of 64.

Numidia, stained with the murder of his brothers, whom the Roman people protected, defended himself res. longer by his largesses than by his arms; and Marius, 648, who completed his overthrow, could not arrive at the 10s. command, but by spiriting up the people against the 651. nobles. The slaves took up arms once more in Sicily; and their second revolt cost the Romans no less blood 102 than the first. Marius beat the Teutons, Cimbrians, 652. and other northern nations, who were penetrating into ro. the Gauls, into Spain, and into Italy. The victories 6: he obtained over them were an occasion of proposing a new distribution of lands. Metellus, who opposed

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A. c. it, was forced to give way to the juncture, nor were A. R. the divisions extinguished but by the blood of Saturnius, a tribune of the people. Whilst Rome protect91 ed Cappadocia against Mithridates king of Pontus, €60. 88. and so great a foe yielded to the Roman force, with 66c. 91. Greece, which had espoused bis interest; Italy, long 63. exercised in arms by so many wars, maintained either against, or with the Romans endangered their empire by an universal revolt. Rome felt herself at the same 38 time torn by the furious animosities of Marius and Syl- 666. 37.& la, one of whom had made both the south and north 667. to tremble, and the other was the conqueror of Greece and Asia. Sylla, who was styled the fortunate, was too 32. much so against his country, which his tyrannical dic- 672. 79. tatorship brought into servitude. He might well lay 675. voluntarily down the sovereign power, but he could not hinder the effect of bad example. Every one would be master. Sertorious, a zealous partisan of Marius, 74 cantoned himself in Spain, and entered into a league, 680. 73. with Mithridates. Against so great a captain, force £81, was of no avail; and Pompey could find no way of reducing that party but by sowing division in it. Not even Spartacus the gladiator, but thought he might aspire to the chief command. That slave caused no 71. less trouble to the pretors and consuls, than Mitbri- 683. dates was creating to Lucullus. The war of the gladiators became formidable to the Roman power. Crassus finding difficulty to put an end to it, the great Pompey behoved to be sent against them. Lucullus 63. was getting the better in the east. The Romans pass- 686. ed the Euphrates; but their general, invincible against the enemy, could not keep his own soldiers in their duty. Mithridates, often beat, but never losing courage, was recruiting his force, and Pompey's good fortune seemed necessary to put a happy termination to 67. the war. He was just come from scouring the seas of 687. the pirates, that infested them from Syria as far as the pillars of Hercules, when he was sent against Mithridates. His glory appeared then at its height. He to

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A. c. tally subjected that valiant king, and Armenia, whither A. R 65. he had fled for refuge; Iberia and Albania, which sup- 691 ported him; Syria torn by its factions; Judea, where the division of the Asmoneans left Hyrcanus II. the son of Alexander Janneus but a shadow of power; and, in sbort, the whole east. But he had not bad where to triumph over so many enemies, but for the consul Cicero, who saved the city from the flames that were preparing for it by Catiline, backed by the most illustrious of the Roman nobility. That formidable party was ruined by Cicero's eloquence, rather than the arms of C. Antonius his colleague. The liberty of the Roman people was nothing the more secure. Pompey reigned in the senate, and his great name made 58. him absolute master of all deliberations. Julius Ce- 696. sar, by subduing the Gauls, gained his country the most useful conquest it had ever made. So signal a service enabled him to establish his dominion in his country. He wanted first to equal, and then to surpass Pompey. Crassus's immense riches made him fancy he might share the glory of these two great (51. men, as he did their authority. He rashly undertook 700. the war against the Parthians, which proved fatal to 53. himself and to his country. The Arsacida victorious, 701. insulted with cruel railleries, the ambition of the Romans, and the insatiable avarice of their general. But the disgrace of the Roman name was not the worst effect of Crassus's overthrow. His power counterbalanced that of Pompey and Cesar, whom he kept uni49. ted, as it were, against their will. By his death, the 705 mound, that confined them, was broke down. The two rivals, who had all the forces of the common48. wealth in their hands, decided their quarrel at Phar- 700. 47. salia, by a bloody battle: Cesar, victorious, appeared 707. 46. in a moment all over the world; in Egypt, in Asia, in 708. 45. Mauritania, in Spain: conqueror on all sides, he was 709. 44. acknowledged master at Rome, and in. the whole em- 710. 43. pire. Brutus and Cassius thought to set their fellow- 711. citizens free by murdering him as a tyrant, notwith

- c. standing his clemency. Rome fell again into the hands A. R. of Mark Antony, Lepidus, and the young Cesar Octavianus, grand nephew to Julius Cesar, and his adopt42. ed son; three insupportable tyrants, whose triumvi- 712 rate and proscriptions cannot yet be read without horror. But they were too violent to last long. These three persons divide the empire among them. Cesar keeps Italy; and changing instantly his former cruelties into mildness, he makes it believed that he was drawn into them by his colleagues. The remains 36. of the commonwealth perish with Brutus and Cassius. 718. 92. Antony and Cesar, after ruining Lepidus, fall next up- 722. on each other. The whole Roman power puts to sea. 31. Cesar wins the battle of Actium: the forces of Egypt, 725, and of the east, which Antony brought with him, are dispersed; all his friends abandon him, and even his Cleopatra, for whom he had lost the world. Herod the Idumean, who owed every thing to him, is forced 30. to submit to the victor, and maintains himself, by this 724. means, in possession of the kingdom of Judea, which the weakness of old Hyrcanus had entirely lost to the Asmoneans. Every thing yields to Cesar's fortune: Alexandria opens her gates to him: Egypt becomes a Roman province: Cleopatra, despairing of being able to preserve it, kills herself after Antony: Rome stretches out her arms to Cesar, who, under the name 27. of Augustus, and title of emperor, remains sole mas- 727. ter of the empire. He subdues, towards the Pyrenees, the revolted Cantabrians and Asturians; Ethiopia sues 24. for peace the Parthians, in fear, send him back the 730. 22. standards taken from Crassus, together with all the 732. 20. Roman prisoners; the Indies court his alliance; the 15. Rheti, or Grisons, feel the force of his arms; their 799. 7. mountains cannot defend them; Pannonia acknow- 742, ledges him: Germany dreads him; and the Weser receives his laws. Victorious by sea and land, he shuts the temple of Janus. The whole earth lives in 758. peace under his power, and JESUS CHRIST comes into 7:4. the world.

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