Herod I, called the Great, King of Judea

HEROD I, called the Great, King of Judea. - Son of the Idumean Antipater (v.), palace prefect of Hyrcanus II, and of the Arab Cypros, he was born ca. 73 B.C. and received an excellent education in Jerusalem. In 47 B.C., when Caesar gave Palestine to Hyrcanus II with the title of ethnarch, Antipater was named ἐπίτροπος Ἰουδαῖος, his firstborn Phasael στρατηγός of Judea, and H. of Galilee. Having entered upon his office, H. purged his domains of brigands (in reality partisans of the deceased king Aristobulus II), killing even their leader Eleazar without the judgment of the Sanhedrin; wherefore he was condemned by that assembly, but, saved by Hyrcanus II, he took refuge with Sextus Caesar, legate of Syria, and was also named στρατηγός of Coele-Syria. In 45 he aided the Caesarians near Apamea; after Caesar's death he went over to Cassius, and finally after the battle of Philippi he was accused before Antony together with Phasael, but both won him over with lavish gifts and in 41 were named tetrarchs of their respective territories, while the high priesthood remained with Hyrcanus II. Then H. allied himself by marriage with the Hasmoneans by marrying Mariamne, granddaughter of Hyrcanus II.

In 40, following an invasion of the Parthians, Antigonus was elected king by them. H., Phasael and Hyrcanus were besieged in Jerusalem. H. managed to take refuge in Idumea and, after an adventurous journey, reached Rome at the end of 40; there he was proclaimed king.

At the beginning of 39 he landed at Ptolemais, and having gathered an army of Idumeans and mercenaries, he occupied a great part of Galilee, Samaria and Idumea. Toward the end of the winter of 37 he besieged Jerusalem and with the help of the Romans took it 5 months later. Master of the city, H. put to death 45 notables who were followers of Antigonus, confiscated their property, and elected as high priest a certain Ananelus, whom shortly afterward he replaced with his own brother-in-law, the very young Aristobulus (III). Since, however, Aristobulus had been too enthusiastically acclaimed by the people at the feast of Tabernacles, H. had him suffocated in the bath after a banquet at Jericho (35 B.C.). Summoned by Antony to Laodicea to justify himself, he returned from there acquitted.

After the battle of Actium (2 Sept. 31 B.C.) H. abandoned Antony and, presenting himself to Octavian in Rhodes in the spring of 30, succeeded through great skill in having his kingdom confirmed. He received Octavian royally at Ptolemais and provisioned his army in Egypt. In going to Rhodes to see Octavian he had left his wife Mariamne and his mother-in-law Alexandra in the fortress of Alexandrion, entrusted to the custody of a certain Soemus.

On H.'s return the custodian, suspected of adultery, was killed and Mariamne herself condemned to death. After the sentence was carried out H. nearly went mad with grief. During a serious illness of his he also had Alexandra killed, since she had attempted to seize the fortified places of Jerusalem. In 7 B.C. he had the two sons he had had by Mariamne, Alexander and Aristobulus, strangled in Samaria, where they were prisoners; these, already accused by H. himself before Augustus at Aquileia in 12 B.C. and there acquitted, had afterward been condemned at Berytus in a regular trial, in which they fell victim to the calumnies of Salome, H.'s sister, and of their eldest brother, Antipater, son of another mother. Very soon Antipater himself, guilty of an actual attempted parricide, was tried before Quintilius Varus and condemned. At once H. sent legates to Augustus to obtain approval of this sentence, but shortly afterward, in the autumn of 5 B.C., he fell ill; he then went to the baths of Callirrhoe on the eastern shore of the Dead Sea, and then to Jericho; when the imperial confirmation of Antipater's condemnation arrived, he had him killed. Five days later, shortly before the Passover of 4 B.C., H. also died. He was buried at Herodium, near Bethlehem.

«Elected king by the Senate, H. was not a rex socius in the legal sense of the expression; he was, however, considered "friend and ally" (Antiq. Jud., XVII, 9, 6, § 246) although in everything subject to the will of Rome and of Augustus. Though enjoying full autonomy in his kingdom, he could not mint gold and silver coins (in fact only bronze coins of his remain), he did not enjoy full judicial authority over the members of his own family, he could not designate his successor without the approval of Rome; moreover, toward the end of his reign his subjects had to swear loyalty to Caesar, as was done in all the Roman provinces from 15 B.C. onward. He was not even permitted to undertake wars on his own account; since once H. violated this prohibition, waging a brief war against the Arabs in 9 B.C. with the consent of the legate of Syria Sentius Saturninus, this aroused the indignation of Augustus, who threatened that if until then he had treated him as a friend, from then on he would treat him as a subject (Antiq. Jud., XVI, 9, 3, §§ 286-99). Moreover H. showed the most abject subservience toward the Emperor, adorning himself with flattering epithets (φιλοκαίσαρ, φιλορωμαῖος), imposing on cities he built the names of Καισάρεια, Σεβάστη, Ἀγρίππειον, and himself going at least twice to Rome (18-17 and 12 B.C.). His devotion was repaid by Augustus in 30 with the restoration of the territories occupied by Cleopatra and with the gift of Gadara and Hippos, in 24 with the gift of the parts of the tetrarchy of Zenodorus situated at the foot of Lebanon, of Batanea, of Trachonitis and of Auranitis. The legates of Syria had orders always to act in accordance with his opinion; Augustus himself took upon himself the expenses of a daily sacrifice to be offered in the Temple of Jerusalem for himself and for the Roman people (Philo, Legatio ad Gaium, 23, 156; 36, 291; 40, 312).

H. was a lover of grandiose constructions. He built entire cities, among them Caesarea, with an excellent harbor, a temple to Augustus and the royal Palace, Antipatris, between Caesarea and Jerusalem, in honor of his father, and Phasaelis in the Jordan valley. He rebuilt the Temple of Jerusalem entirely, almost doubling its area to the north and south with extensive substructures; he enlarged the fortress that overlooked the Temple and called it Antonia; in the western part of the city he built the royal Palace. In 27 he renovated Samaria, and in honor of Octavian, who had been proclaimed "Augustus," he called it Σεβάστη, also building a temple in his honor on the mountain above. He adorned foreign cities too with buildings: at Rhodes he built the temple of Apollo at his own expense and contributed to the construction of Nicopolis. It is estimated that his revenues amounted to about 1000 talents a year, equal to ca. 11 million gold lire.

He was practically skeptical in religion, so much so that he began his reign at Rome with a sacrifice to Jupiter, built or restored pagan temples in various places, and plundered the tomb of David in Jerusalem; nevertheless he respected the religious feeling of the people when it was not too burdensome for him. Although he rebuilt the Temple of Jerusalem, he never entered the court of the priests, the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies, because he was not of the priestly class; he forbade his sister Salome to marry the Arab Syllaeus, because the latter was unwilling to accept circumcision. But these formalities did not suffice to win him the affection of the people, who hated him for his licentious life and his cruelties.

Giuseppe Ricciotti