When Jews returned from the Babylonian exile, following the Edict of Cyrus (538 BC), they rebuilt the Temple on a modest scale, dedicating it in 515 BC. This was the Second Temple, following that built by Solomon, which the Babylonians had destroyed. The modest structure remained in place – desecrated by the Greeks, re-dedicated by the Maccabees – until Herod the Great won priestly agreement to tear it down and build a grander version. His structure, then, was the third on the site, but because the process occurred by agreement, scholars refer to his new version too as the Second Temple. The period of the Second Temple, then, extends from 515 BC until the destruction by the Romans in 70 AD.