ARCHELAUS, HEROD. - The eldest surviving son of Herod the Great (and of Malthace) and his principal successor (4 B.C. - A.D. 6). Like his two co-heir brothers Philip and Antipas (v.), he assumed the dynastic name Herodes (coins; Cassius Dio 55, 27; never, however, in Flavius Josephus). Designated by his father as heir to the throne, after Herod's death the party opposed to the Herodians attempted a revolt, which was suppressed with the killing of 3,000 Jews (Flavius Josephus, Ant. Iud., XVIII, 9, 1). Since his father's will required Augustus's approval, A. went to Rome. The emperor did not wholly confirm Herod's will. He did not recognize A. as universal successor with the title of king, but only as " ethnarch " (v.) of Judea, Samaria and Idumea; to the two brothers he confirmed the assignment of the other parts of their father's kingdom. The whole territory, thus divided, remained under the surveillance of the Roman governor of Syria.
In relating that St. Joseph, on returning from Egypt, " audiens quod Archelaus regnaret " in Iudaea pro Herode patre suo, timuit illo ire, Mt. 3, 22 seems to indicate the interval of time before A.'s departure for Rome, when he had been designated as Herod's successor but was not yet recognized; moreover it well characterizes A.'s cruel and tyrannical government, hateful to the Jews as much as to the Romans. A. in fact arbitrarily deposed two High Priests, repudiated his wife and married Glaphyra, the widow of his half-brother Alexander. He behaved as an independent sovereign and minted coinage. Fond of building, he rebuilt the palace of Jericho, to the north (11 km.) of which he founded the city of Archelais (today the ruins of Hirbet el-'Augâ et-Tabta).
In his tenth year of ethnarchy (A.D. 6), accused of tyranny by a delegation of Jewish and Samaritan nobles that had gone to Rome, he was summoned to the City, tried and relegated to Vienne in Gaul, where he seems to have died (Strabo, XVI, 2, 45), leaving no children (before A.D. 18). In his territory there followed the direct administration of Rome, exercised by a procurator.
Bibliography3 works
Vincenzo Cavalla