THE privilege of self-government in Jerusalem ended after Pompey brought the Romans in 63 BC. The Roman Senate elevated the governor of Galilee, Herod, to King of Judaea, and Herod ordered the most ambitious remodelling of Jerusalem and her Temple so far, indulging his admiration for all things Greco-Roman while trying to reassure doubters of his Jewish pride.
After his death in 4 BC, Herod’s squabbling heirs continued to blend Roman ways with Jewish and the discontent simmered on. Some, such as the Pharisees, rejected Rome’s creeping Hellenisation, and criticised Herod’s Temple as a tainted compromise.* Others renounced the Temple and its clergy altogether.
In AD 66 the Jews rebelled again, but this time Emperor Vespasian broke their resistance, and during the fighting Herod’s magnificent Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by fire.** It was never rebuilt, and in 692 Muslim invaders buried the ruins of Judaism’s holiest site under a mosque — to mark, they claimed, the place where their all-conquering general, Mohammed, had lately ascended into heaven.
For example, Herod initially put an eagle, a recognised Roman symbol, on top of the Temple gates; two enraged young scholars, Judas son of Saripheus and Matthias son of Margalothus, climbed up and tore it down. See ‘Antiquities of the Jews’ XVII.6.2, by Josephus.
** The First Jewish Revolt dragged on from 66 to 74. The Temple itself fell in 70, after soldiers defied the orders of their commander, Titus, and allowed a fire in the city to spread to the Temple.