The five "synedria" or "aristocracies"
of Gabinius were superseded, the most important conquest of the
Hasmonaeans restored, the walls of Jerusalem, which Pompey had razed,
rebuilt.
However indisputable the advantages conferred by the rule of
Antipater, the Jews could not forget that the Idumaean, in name
of Hyrcanus, the rightful heir of the Hasmonaeans, was in truth
setting up an authority of his own. The Sadducaean aristocracy
in particular, which formerly in the synedrium had shared the
supreme power with the high priest, endeavoured to restore
reality once more to the nominal ascendancy which still continued
to be attributed to the ethnarch and the synedrium. "When the
authorities (hoi 'en telei) of the Jews saw how the power of
Antipater and his sons was growing, their disposition towards him
became hostile" (Josephus, Antiquities, xiv. 9, 3). They were
specially jealous of the youthful Herod, to whom Galilee had been
entrusted by his father. On account of the arbitrary execution
of a robber chief Ezechias, who perhaps had originally been a
Hasmonaean partisan, they summoned him before the synedrium,
under the impression that it was not yet too late to remind him
that he was after all but a servant.
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