Hasmonean queen. The wife of Alexander Yannai and ruler after his death in the years 76 to 67 BCE. She sought to ensure peace for her country both at home and abroad, and to this end she was conciliatory to the Pharisees who were popular among the people. According to talmudic sources, Simeon ben Shetah was her brother, and on his return from Egypt where he had fled to escape from King Yannai, he and Judah ben Tabbai became heads of the Sanhedrin. Other Pharisees were called back and appointed to the Sanhedrin, while the Sadducees were kept at arm's length. The Pharisees laid down the law according to their interpretation. Thus, for example, they annulled the Sadducean rules of evidence; Shavuot was celebrated on the fiftieth day after the first day of Passover, and they instructed the priests to conduct worship at the Temple as required by their principles. Salome worked to strengthen Judea by doubling the army and mobilizing a large force of mercenaries. But she made no further wars of expansion.
Her period of rule remained in the historic record as the last happy years of independence and tranquillity before the growth of internal quarrels and subjugation by the Romans. An echo of this is preserved in the sources, with the talmudic reference that during the time of Salome "the rain fell on Sabbath nights until the wheat was as big as kidneys, the barley as big as olive seeds and the lentils were as brilliant as gold dinars."
