After the death of Alexander, the Great, the Seleucids of Syria gained control of the region of Judea in 198 BC. Initially, Judea remained under the authority of the Temple priesthood. However, the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes (174–163 BC) tried to impose Hellenistic culture – including the Greek pagan religion – on them. He sacked Jerusalem, plundered the Temple, outlawed the worship of Yahweh in the Temple and set up a statue of the Greek high god Zeus near it. His actions of course inflamed the Jews, who rose in rebellion against the Seleucid regime (167). After a fierce struggle lasting more than 10 years, the rebels succeeded in gaining control of the province. Their leaders, the Maccabbees family, became the high priests in Jerusalem, and returned the Temple to Jewish worship. Eventually, the Maccabbees (or Hasmoneans, as they were also called), established the Hasmonean Kingdom, with themselves as its kings. By the end of the 2nd century BC, the Jewish state had regained nearly all of the territory that made up the ancient Davidic Kingdom of Israel as it existed under kings David and Solomon. Then in 63 BC, a Roman army under the famous general, Pompey the Great, first extinguished the Seleucid kingdom, then marched into Judea. Eventually Pompey installed Antipater the Idumaean to rule all Judea. In 47 BC, Pompey was defeated and killed by a rival Roman general named Julius Caesar. Caesar made Antipater a Roman citizen and appointed him governor of Judea. Antipater was assassinated in 43 BC. Antipater’s son, Herod, thereupon hurried to Rome, and persuaded the senate that he was the man they needed to be in charge of Judea. Herod was appointed King of the Jews. Herod reigned over Judea until his death in 4 BC. In 41 AD, Herod’s grandson, Herod Agrippa, took control of Judea. Agrippa died in 44 AD. The Romans continued to rule Judea by installing a Roman governor who had complete disregard for Jewish religious feelings, a fierce revolt flared up, in 66 CE. The Roman army had to commit large numbers of troops to stamping it out. It was finally defeated in 73 CE, by which time much of Jerusalem and almost the entire Temple, the center and focus of the Jewish faith, lay in ruins.