After the death of Alexander in 76 BCE, his widow succeeded to the rule of Judea and installed her elder son Hyrcanus as High Priest.

[3] When Salome died in 67 BCE, she named Hyrcanus as her successor as ruler of Judea as well,[4] but soon he and his younger brother, Aristobulus II, began fighting over who had the right to the throne.

During the siege, Josephus states that the adherents of Hyrcanus stoned the pious Onias (Honi ha'Me'agel, also Khoni or Choni ha-Me'agel), who had refused to pray for the demise of their opponents, and further angered the priests who were fighting along with Aristobulus by selling them cattle for the paschal sacrifice for the enormous price of one thousand drachmae and then refused to deliver the promised animals for the sacrifice.

(Antiquities of the Jews Book 14, 2:2)[7] During the Roman civil war, general Pompey defeated armies of the kingdoms of Pontus and the Seleucids.

Aristobulus, suspicious of Pompey's intentions, entrenched himself in the fortress of Alexandrium, but when the Roman army approached Judea, he surrendered and undertook to deliver Jerusalem over to them.

Then Hyrcanus was taken by the Parthians into captivity in Babylonia,[10] where he lived for four years amid the Babylonian Jews, who paid him every mark of respect.

In 36 BCE, Herod I, who had vanquished Antigonus with Roman help and feared that Hyrcanus might persuade the Parthians to help him regain the throne, invited the former High Priest to return to Jerusalem.

Hyrcanus accepted and Herod received him with every mark of respect, assigning to him the first place at his table and the presidency of the state council.