Category:Salome (subject)

Salome (1st century CE) was the daughter of Herodias and Herod II, and the step-daughter of Herod Antipas.

Overview

The character of Salome is mentioned both in the Gospels of Mark and Matthew and in Josephus.

The Gospels of Mark and Matthew (which do not mention her name or any other incidents in her life) suggest her (involuntary) involvement in the death of John the Baptist. They tell us that as a girl she danced before her uncle (and now step-father) Herod Antipas. At the instigation of her mother, she requested and obtained the head of John the Baptist as her reward from the king.

Josephus (who does not mention Salome in his account of the death of John the Baptist), in a genealogical list of the descendants of Herod the Great, talks briefly of her life as the daughter of Herod II and Herodias, the step-daughter of Herod Antipas after her mother's divorce and remarriage, and the wife of Herod Philip, son of Herod the Great, and then, Aristobulos, the brother of Agrippa, from whom she had three sons (see Ant XVIII 136-137).

Research on Salome is limited by the paucity of historical sources and the legendary nature of the Gospel account. From the historical point of view, Salome is little more than a name in the genealogy of the descendants of Herod the Great.

Gabriele Boccaccini, University of Michigan