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Gabinius now proceeded with Antonius to Egypt to place Ptolemy Auletes upon the throne, and both generals were strenuously assisted by Hyrcanus and Antipater, who sent supplies for their armies, and urged the Jews at Leontopolis to befriend them in like manner. Taking advantage of the absence of the legions, Alexander made a second attempt to recover the supreme power, but only to be a second time defeated near Mount Tabor by the Roman commanders on their return from Egypt, with a loss of 10,000 men.

The next year, B.C.54, the prefect was recalled to Rome, where numerous charges of rapacity and extortion were preferred against him, and though defended by Cicero he was ignominiously banished68. The celebrated triumvir Marcus Crassus now succeeded to the prefecture of Syria, a man of mean abilities, but enormous wealth, and unbounded avarice. Armed like Pompeius with proconsular authority for five years, and empowered to maintain as large a force as he might see fit, and to carry on wars without consulting the senate and people of Rome, Crassus resolved on entering upon a war with Parthia. Hurrying to his province, with some of the troops he had already collected, he entered Jerusalem, attracted by the well-known fact that the treasury of its Temple contained 2,000 talents, equivalent to nearly £2,000,000 sterling, besides vessels of gold and silver to an almost equal amount. The Jews were powerless to resist his intentions, but Eleazar, the guardian of the Temple, offered him a solid bar of gold weighing nearly 1000 pounds, concealed in a beam of wood, on condition that he left the rest of the treasures untouched. Crassus solemnly promised to be satisfied with this huge ingot, took it, and then, in defiance of his plighted faith, robbed the Temple of all the treasures he could lay his hands on, not sparing even the sacred vessels. The total amount he carried off is said to have been worth upwards of 10,000 Attic talents, and consisted of the gifts and offerings which during a hundred years the annual contributions of Jews from well-nigh every quarter of the world had amassed69. He then set out against the Parthians, crossed the Euphrates, and plunged into the sandy deserts of Mesopotamia, to be defeated with the loss of nearly his entire army at the disastrous battle of Carrhæ, B.C.53.