Herod returned from Rome with a crown but no kingdom. Antigonus, backed by the Parthians, controlled Jerusalem. It took Herod three years of brutal campaigning to claim what the Roman Senate had given him.
He landed at Ptolemais (modern Acre) and began gathering forces, marching through Galilee where much of the population rallied to him. Josephus reports in his <i>Antiquities</i> that Herod's army grew daily, but the Roman commanders assigned to help him were unreliable. Silo, one of the Roman generals, had been bribed by Antigonus and kept finding excuses to delay.
Meanwhile, Herod's family was trapped at Masada, besieged and running out of water. Josephus records that only a miraculous rainstorm saved them from being forced to flee to the Nabateans. Herod fought his way south to relieve them, then turned to systematic conquest. He cleared Galilee of resistance, hunted down bandits hiding in caves along sheer cliff faces by lowering soldiers in baskets to smoke them out, and gradually tightened his grip on the country.
Tragedy struck while he was away. His brother Joseph led an ill-advised attack near Jericho and was killed. Antigonus cut off Joseph's head. The Galileans revolted. Herod rushed back, crushed the rebellion, and drove Antigonus's forces into retreat.
The final siege of Jerusalem came in 37 BCE. Herod arrived with the Roman general Sosius and eleven legions. The city held out for five months. When the outer walls fell, the fighting continued street by street, then court by court within the Temple compound itself. Josephus notes that the Romans, once inside, began an indiscriminate slaughter. Herod had to beg them to stop, arguing that if they killed everyone and destroyed everything, he would be king of a desert.
Antigonus surrendered and was sent to Mark Antony, who had him beheaded at Herod's urging. It was the first time Rome had ever executed a king in this manner. With Antigonus dead, the Hasmonean dynasty that had ruled Judea for 126 years came to its end. The kingdom now belonged to Herod, a man Josephus describes as "of no more than a vulgar family," who had won his throne not by birthright but by sheer ruthlessness and Roman favor.