Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II were fighting and then Pompey came in and was like, "Yo, I'm the Roman. Y'all are fighting. Now I'm in charge." So he besieged the city and annexed it for the Roman Empire. He also put in ethnarchs, or leaders of a certain ethnicity, which was Hyrcanus II because that is who Pompey intervened on the side of. He also installed an Idumean Antipater. The Idumeans were people who lived south of Judah and were forcibly converted to Judaism after the Hasmonean revolution. (I know it's not called a revolution but I'll call it that anyways.) So he installed one dude as the head of Jerusalem and then his sons, including Herod, for different cities around the area. In 43BCE, the antipater is murdered and Herod exacts revenge. In 37 he took control of Jerusalem starting his reign as Herod the Great.
So Herod did a lot of stuff. But I like the question of whether Herod was a good king or not? Its definitely a complicated question, because he did many great things but did them ultimately for himself and his glory and not for the people. He also was a paranoid freak. Professor Cargill said he had his wife killed but he failed to say that Herod also had her embalmed in honey, and then he had sex with her. Gross, I know. But that ultimately doesn't affect whether he was a good king of not. I would say that he was a good King because he is the one that we remember and talk about. We don't ever talked about any of the Hasmonean rulers except the first and the last.
I have to go write my paper for this class. I apologize for sleeping in class today. I had a quiz at 8 AM. The sleep conquered me.
Peace.
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