Herod the Great

• 1. Introduction

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  Herod the Great, king of Judea, inspired a joke from the Roman emperor Augustus that was still being retold around 400 CE. The writer Macrobius recorded it. Augustus heard that Herod had ordered his own son killed, and he remarked, "It is better to be Herod's pig than his son." The jab worked because Herod, as a Jew, would not kill a pig. Herod lived from about 72 BCE until 4 or 1 BCE, and the quip captures only one side of him. He ruled as a client king under Rome and is remembered for colossal building projects. Much of what is known about his life comes from the Roman-Jewish historian Josephus, who wrote in the 1st century CE. How does a man become king of a people who doubted he was one of them? What did his buildings cost, and who paid? Did the slaughter of children in Bethlehem ever happen? And where was he buried?

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• 2. Outsider King

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  Herod was born around 72 BCE in Idumea, a region south of Judea. His father, Antipater the Idumaean, was a high-ranking official under the ethnarch Hyrcanus II. His mother, Cypros, was a Nabatean Arab princess from Petra, in present-day Jordan. Antipater's ancestors were Edomites who had been forcibly converted to Judaism, and Herod was raised as a Jew.

  That conversion went back to John Hyrcanus, who conquered Idumaea between 140 and 130 BCE. He told the Idumaeans to obey Jewish law or leave. Most stayed and converted, and many intermarried with Jews and took up their customs.

  Historians disagree about how to describe Herod's ancestry. The geographer Strabo, a contemporary, held that the Idumaeans were of Nabataean origin and made up most of western Judea's population. Some modern scholars follow that view and call Herod Arab on both sides. Others note that the Edomite language was closer to Biblical Hebrew and Moabite than to Arabic. On that reasoning, he was only half Arab. Josephus offered a third version, claiming that Herod descended from Eleazar Maccabeus of the Hasmoneans.

  His religious standing stayed uncertain. Herod publicly called himself a Jew, and some accepted that. Others questioned his commitment, and the decadent lifestyle of the Herodians earned them the antipathy of observant Jews.

  Around 40 ritual baths, called mikvehs, have been found in several of his palaces. Some scholars suggest they were actually stepped Roman cold-water baths, and several historians read them as a blend of both. The scholar Eyal Regev argues that they show Herod valued ritual purity in private and wanted Jewish tradition and Roman luxury together.

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• 3. Crown from Rome

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  Around 47 BCE, Herod became governor of Galilee, a post he owed to his father's good relations with Julius Caesar. Caesar had entrusted Antipater with the public affairs of Judea. Josephus's Greek text gives Herod's age as 15, though the usual reckoning puts him at about 25 or 28. In Galilee he farmed taxes for the Roman Senate and rid the region of bandits. His elder brother Phasael held a similar office in Jerusalem. Herod cultivated Sextus Caesar, the acting governor of Syria, who made him general of Coelesyria and Samaria. Rome backed him, but the Sanhedrin condemned his brutality. Even then he wanted to punish Hyrcanus, who had once summoned him to stand trial for murder. His father and elder brother held him back.

  In 41 BCE, Mark Antony named Herod and Phasael tetrarchs to support Hyrcanus II. The next year, Antigonus, the nephew of Hyrcanus, seized the Judean throne with Parthian help. Herod fled to Rome to plead for his patron's restoration. Rome had a stake in Judea because Pompey the Great had conquered Jerusalem in 63 BCE. To Herod's surprise, the Roman Senate named him King of the Jews instead. Josephus dates this to 40 BCE, while Appian says 39 BCE.

  Winning the kingdom took a war. Late in the campaign, Herod married Mariamne, granddaughter of Hyrcanus II and niece of Antigonus. He hoped to secure his claim and win some Jewish favor. He already had a wife, Doris, and a young son, Antipater, so he banished them both. Acting at the behest of Mark Antony, Herod and Sosius, the governor of Syria, led a large army that captured Jerusalem in 37 or 36 BCE. Herod sent Antigonus to Antony for execution. That ended the Hasmonean dynasty and began the Herodian one. Josephus counts 37 years of rule, 34 of them after the capture of Jerusalem.

  Two dangers followed quickly. The first came from his mother-in-law, Alexandra, a Hasmonean who wanted her family's power back. Cleopatra had just married Antony, and Alexandra asked her to help make Aristobulus III high priest. Cleopatra instead urged Alexandra to bring the young man to meet Antony. Herod had already made the 17-year-old high priest, fearing the Jews would otherwise choose him as king. Now he feared Antony might name him king himself. In 35 BCE, Aristobulus was drowned at a party on Herod's orders.

  The second danger was Rome's own civil conflict. Herod owed his throne to Antony and chose his side. When Octavian beat Antony at Actium in 31 BCE, Herod had to win over the victor. At Rhodes he argued that Judea linked Rome to the wealth of Syria and Egypt, and that he could defend the frontier. Octavian, who would later be called Augustus, was persuaded and confirmed him as King of Judea. Inside his kingdom Herod ruled as he saw fit, though his dealings with other kingdoms were restricted. A devastating earthquake struck Judea in that same year, 31 BCE.

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• 4. Builder King

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  Around 19 BCE, Herod began his most famous project, the reshaping of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. He rebuilt and enlarged the Second Temple. He also expanded the platform beneath it artificially, doubling its size. The Western Wall seen today was part of that platform's retaining wall. Herod aimed to "have a capital city worthy of his dignity and grandeur", and he hoped the work would win Jewish support.

  The rebuilding began in the 18th year of his reign, 20-19 BCE, on what is described as "a more magnificent scale". To comply with religious law, Herod employed 1,000 priests as masons and carpenters. The Temple itself was finished in a year and a half. Work on outbuildings and courts then continued for another 80 years. The expanded complex was inaugurated around 10 BCE. Recent findings suggest the Temple Mount walls and Robinson's Arch may not have been completed until at least 20 years after his death, under Herod Agrippa II. The finished Temple was destroyed in 70 CE, and only the four retaining walls still stand.

  Construction at the harbor city of Caesarea Maritima began in 25 BCE. Builders used the latest hydraulic cement and underwater techniques, and the city was inaugurated in 9 BCE. A theater and an amphitheater went up in Jerusalem by 28 BCE, and a festival marked them. In 27 BCE, to honor the new emperor Augustus, Herod rebuilt Samaria and renamed it Sebaste. He built other pagan cities too, hoping to appeal to the country's large pagan population. He also commissioned the Augusteum, a temple dedicated to Augustus.

  Safety shaped some of his projects. He built fortresses at Masada, Herodium, Alexandrium, Hyrcania and Machaerus, where he and his family could shelter if an insurrection broke out. He also developed water supplies for Jerusalem, built a palace there in 23 BCE, and enclosed the Cave of the Patriarchs and Mamre in Hebron.

  Herod also had a head for revenue. He and Cleopatra held a monopoly on extracting asphalt from the Dead Sea, which was used in shipbuilding. He leased copper mines on Cyprus from the Roman emperor.

  He could be generous in a crisis. A severe drought brought famine in 25 BCE, and Herod imported grain from Egypt, ran an aid program against hunger and disease, and waived a third of taxes due. In 12 BCE he rescued the financially strapped Olympic Games and secured their future. What survives of his building ventures is now a set of popular tourist attractions in the Middle East.

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• 5. Price of Power

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  A bodyguard of 2,000 soldiers stood between Herod and his own subjects. Josephus describes several units of that guard marching at Herod's funeral: the Doryphnoroi, and Thracian, Celtic and Germanic contingents. The Doryphnoroi were probably veteran soldiers and young men from influential Jewish families. Thracians had served in Jewish armies since the Hasmonean dynasty. The Celtic unit, probably Gallic, was made up of Cleopatra's former bodyguards, given to Herod by Augustus after Actium. The Germanic unit was modeled on the emperor's own palace guard, the Germani Corporis Custodes.

  Other security measures were less visible. It has been suggested that Herod used secret police to report the mood of the population. He tried to prohibit protests and had opponents removed by force. Josephus treated him kindly in The Jewish War and gave him the benefit of the doubt on infamous events. In his later Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus stressed the tyrannical authority that many scholars now associate with Herod.

  Money was a constant grievance. To pay for his projects, Herod used a Hasmonean tax system that weighed heavily on the Judean people. His concern for his reputation led to frequent, expensive gifts that steadily emptied the treasury. The building did bring employment, and he cut taxes by a quarter in 14 BCE because of Judean prosperity.

  Religious offenses added to the anger. In Jerusalem he introduced foreign forms of entertainment and set a golden eagle at the Temple entrance, which suggested more concern for Rome than for Jews. The Pharisees were unhappy that he ignored many of their demands about the Temple's construction. The Sadducees, who were tied to priestly duties, resented him for replacing their high priests with outsiders from Babylonia and Alexandria. In 23 BCE he stripped Jesus, son of Fabus, of the high priesthood and gave it to Simon. In 6 BCE he took action against the Pharisees.

  He was not careless of Jewish sensibilities in public. He minted coins without human images for use in Jewish areas. He built temples for other religions only outside the Jewish parts of his kingdom.

  In his final year, young disciples of the Pharisees smashed the golden eagle after their teachers called it an idolatrous symbol. Herod arrested the young men, brought them to court and sentenced them. After his death, violence and riots broke out in many cities, including Jerusalem, as old resentments boiled over. The scale of the disturbances raised hopes of overthrowing Rome, and those hopes returned decades later in the First Jewish-Roman War of 66 CE.

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• 6. Blood at Court

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  In 29 BCE, according to Josephus, Mariamne I learned that Herod planned to murder her and stopped sleeping with him. Herod, consumed by passion and jealousy, charged her with adultery and put her on trial. His sister Salome was the main witness, and Mariamne's own mother, Alexandra, appeared to incriminate her. Historians speculate that Alexandra was next on Herod's list and acted to save herself. Mariamne was executed. Alexandra then declared herself queen, claiming Herod was mentally unfit to rule. Josephus calls that a strategic mistake, and Herod executed Alexandra without a trial.

  In 28 BCE, Herod executed his brother-in-law Kostobar, husband of Salome, for conspiracy. In 27 BCE an assassination attempt on Herod was foiled. The deadliest quarrels, though, came with his sons.

  By 13 BCE, Herod had made Antipater, his firstborn son by Doris, the first heir in his will. In 12 BCE, he suspected Alexander and Aristobulus, his sons by Mariamne, of threatening his life. He took them to Aquileia to be tried, and Augustus reconciled all three. Herod then revised his will so the two rose in the succession, though Antipater stayed the primary heir. In 8 BCE, after he had fallen out of favor with Augustus over the Nabatean war, Herod accused the brothers of high treason. Augustus gave him permission to prosecute. In 7 BCE a Roman court in Beirut found Alexander and Aristobulus guilty, and they were executed. Antipater became the exclusive successor.

  In 5 BCE, Antipater was brought before a court, charged with plotting to murder his father. Herod was seriously ill and named Herod Antipas, his son by Malthace, as his heir. In his final year, Augustus approved the death penalty for Antipater, and Herod had him executed. The will changed again. Herod Archelaus would rule as ethnarch, while Antipas and Philip would be tetrarchs of separate territories, and Salome would receive a small toparchy in the Gaza region. Augustus did not confirm this revision, so no one received the title of king.

  Augustus still granted the sons their territories. He recognized Archelaus as ethnarch of Judea, Samaria and Idumea until 6 CE, then judged him incompetent and removed him. The three regions became the province of Iudaea, ruled by a prefect until 41 CE. Antipas governed Galilee and Peraea until he was deposed and exiled in 39 CE. Philip ruled the lands north and east of the Jordan until his death in 34 CE.

  Herod's household was large. His wives included Doris, Mariamne I, Mariamne II, Malthace and Cleopatra of Jerusalem, whom he married after the other four. Mariamne II was the daughter of the priest Simon Boethus, and Herod married her in 23 BCE. He almost certainly had more children than are recorded, since births of daughters were often not written down.

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• 7. The Bethlehem Story

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  The Gospel of Matthew tells of magi from the East who came to Herod asking where to find "the one having been born king of the Jews". They had seen his star in the east, or at its rising in some translations, and wanted to pay him homage. Herod, alarmed at the prospect of a rival, gathered the chief priests and scribes and asked where the Messiah was to be born. They answered Bethlehem, citing Micah 5:2.

  Herod sent the magi there with instructions to find the child and "report to me, so that I too may go and worship him". A dream warned the magi not to return. Another dream warned Joseph that Herod meant to kill the child, so the family fled to Egypt. When Herod realized he had been outwitted, he ordered the killing of all boys aged two and under in Bethlehem and its vicinity. After Herod's death, Joseph's family settled in Nazareth in Galilee to avoid living under his son Archelaus.

  Most modern biographers of Herod, and a majority of biblical scholars, dismiss the story as a literary device. Josephus and Nicolaus of Damascus, who knew Herod personally, say nothing of it, and no other gospel mentions it. The classical historian Michael Grant states, "The tale is not history but myth or folk-lore." Peter Richardson notes that its absence from the Gospel of Luke and from Josephus works against its accuracy. He suggests the story was inspired by Herod's murder of his own sons. Jodi Magness says many scholars believe the massacre never occurred but was inspired by Herod's reputation.

  Paul Maier takes a different line. Bethlehem was a small town, he argues, so the slaughter of about a half dozen children would not have earned a mention from Josephus.

  Most other New Testament references to a Herod point elsewhere. They concern his son Herod Antipas, in the events leading to the executions of John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth, or his grandson Herod Agrippa.

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• 8. Death and Tomb

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  Herod died in Jericho after an unidentified, excruciatingly painful and putrefying illness that posterity calls "Herod's Evil". Josephus says the pain drove him to try to stab himself, and his cousin stopped him. In some much later depictions the attempt succeeds, as in the 12th-century Eadwine Psalter. Other medieval dramatizations, such as the Ordo Rachelis, follow Josephus.

  Josephus adds a darker story. Herod, fearing no one would mourn him, summoned a large group of distinguished men to Jericho and ordered them killed at his death, so that grief would fill the land. His brother-in-law Alexas and his sister Salome refused to carry out the order.

  The year of his death is still disputed. In 1896, Emil Schürer placed it in 4 BCE, three years earlier than all previous scholarship and tradition, which had said 1 BCE. His main argument was that Herod's sons Archelaus and Philip reported reign lengths implying their reigns began before 1 BCE. Josephus gives Archelaus ten years and says he was deposed in 6 CE.

  Recent scholars have defended the traditional date. Andrew Steinmann and Robert Young point to coins from Antipas and Philip, whose earliest dated issues come from years 4 and 5. That fits sons who began minting after their father died early in 1 BCE but counted their first year from autumn 5 BCE. They also argue from a food shortage Josephus reports during the siege of Jerusalem, which he ties to a Sabbatical year. Other critics of the 4 BCE date say the eclipse on the 13th of March and Passover on the 10th of April leave too little time for the events Josephus records after Herod's death.

  Josephus also says the body was carried two hundred furlongs to Herodium, where Herod had ordered his burial. The archaeologist Ehud Netzer of the Hebrew University searched the vicinity of the pool at Lower Herodium. On the 7th of May 2007, his team announced the discovery of the tomb, halfway up the hill, 12 km south of Jerusalem. It held a broken sarcophagus and no remains of a body.

  Not everyone agreed. David Jacobson wrote that the finds were not conclusive and raised new questions. In October 2013, Joseph Patrich and Benjamin Arubas argued the tomb was too modest to be Herod's. Roi Porat, who took over the excavation after Netzer's death, stood by the identification. A proposal to recreate the tomb in light plastic drew strong criticism from major Israeli archaeologists, and the plan was abandoned.

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