Before he turned to Jerusalem, Sennacherib, master of the mighty, rapacious Assyrian em-pire, stormed Hezekiah’s second city, Lachish. The bas-reliefs in his Nineveh palace depict the bloody siege and the punishments suffered by its citizens. Here Judaean families are led away by an Assyrian. (illustration credit ill.6)

King Darius, seen here in a relief from his Persepolis palace, was the real creator of the Persian empire that ruled Jerusalem for more than two centuries. He allowed the Jewish priests to govern themselves, even issuing this Yehud (Judaea) coin). (illustration credit ill.7)

(illustration credit ill.8)

After Alexander the Great’s early death, two Greek families vied to control his empire. Ptolemy I Soter (above left) hijacked Alexander’s corpse, founded a kingdom in Egypt and stormed Jerusalem. After a century under the Ptolemies, their Seleucid rivals grabbed Jerusalem. The effete, flamboyant King Antiochus IV (above right) polluted the Temple and tried to annihilate Judaism, provoking a revolt by Judah the Maccabee (shown here in a fanciful medieval engraving, below), whose family created the new Jewish kingdom that lasted until the arrival of the Romans.

(illustration credit ill.9)

The Roman strongman of the East, Mark Antony (above left), backed a new ruler, Herod, but his mistress Cleopatra, the last Ptolemaic queen (above right), wanted Jerusalem for herself. (illustration credit ill.10)