| abstract | - According to historical sources including the books 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees and the first book of The Wars of the Jews by the Jewish historian Josephus (37–c. 100 AD),[2] the Hasmonean Kingdom rose after a successful revolt by the Jews against the Seleucid king Antiochus IV. After Antiochus' successful invasion of Ptolemaic Egypt was turned back by the intervention of the Roman Republic[3] he moved instead to assert strict control over Israel, sacking Jerusalem and its Temple, suppressing Jewish religious and cultural observances, and imposing Hellenistic practices. The ensuing Maccabbee Revolt (167 BC) began a twenty-five-year period of Jewish independence potentiated by the steady collapse of the Seleucid Empire under attacks from the rising powers of the Roman Republic and the Parthian Empire. However, the same power vacuum that enabled the Jewish state to be recognized by the Roman Senate c. 139 BC was next exploited by the Romans themselves. Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II, Simon's great-grandsons, became pawns in a proxy war between Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great that ended with the kingdom under the supervision of the Roman governor of Syria (64 BC). The deaths of Pompey (48 BC), Caesar (44 BC), and the related Roman civil wars relaxed Rome's grip on Israel, allowing a brief Hasmonean resurgence backed by the Parthian Empire. This short independence was rapidly crushed by the Romans under Mark Antony and Octavian. The installation of Herod the Great as King of Israel as a Roman client state in 37 BC ended the Hasmonean dynasty. In 44 AD, Rome installed the rule of a Roman procurator side by side with the rule of the Herodian kings (specifically Agrippa I 41-44 and Agrippa II 50-100, see also Iudaea province).
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