Category:Herod the Great (subject)

This page is edited by Samuele Rocca, Israel

Herod the Great (1st century BCE) was Governor of Galilee (47-40 BCE) and then King of Israel (37-4 BCE).

Biography

Herod the Great was the second son of the Idumean Antipater and the Nabatean Cypros. In 47 BCE Antipater was made procurator of Judea by Julius Caesar and appointed his sons Phasael and Herod as governors of Jerusalem and Galilee respectively.

In 43 BCE Antipater, who supported Cassius, was poisoned. Herod and Phasael were quick enough to switch allegiance to Mark Anthony and retain power.

In 40 BCE Herod faced an even greater challenge. The Hasmonean Antigonus allied himself with the Parthians and by deception captured both Phasael and the High Priest John Hyrcanus II. Hyrcanus was mutilated to make him unfit for the office; Phasael committed suicide. Herod fled to Rome; the Senate accepted his plea and elected him King of the Jews with the task of restoring the power of Rome in the region against the Parthians. At the same time, Herod married the granddaughter of John Hyrcanus II, Mariamne, to secure the support of the rival portion of the Hasmoneans to his cause against the Hasmonean Antigonus.

Herod achieved full victory; from 37 BCE to his death in 4 BCE he would be the sole and undisputed ruler of Judea.

Herod always remained a loyal ally of the Romans and their leaders. He was a skillful politician who knew very well how and when to get on the bandwagon. When in 31 BCE Octavian Augustus defeated Mark Anthony, Herod once again switched allegiance quickly, and for the rest of his life behaved as a close friend of Octavian, as he had been a close friend of Mark Anthony.

On the contrary, the alliance of Herod with the Hasmoneans did not last long. Herod first killed Mariamne's brother, Aristobulus III, whom he had briefly appointed High Priest. Then Herod killed John Hyrcanus II, after treacherously inviting to return to Jerusalem from his confinement in Parthia. Ultimately, Mariamne, as well as Alexandra Herod's mother in law, also were executed in 29 BCE.

Herod proved to be a very effective ruler. He completed ambitious construction projects in Jerusalem, including a massive rebuilding of the Temple and the Antonia Fortress, as Sebaste and founded the harbor and the city of Caesarea Maritima. New fortresses were erected to defend the kingdom, such as the Herodium and Masada.

The succession to his throne proved to be a very complicated matter. With many wives and children, Herod had many options but was not able to control the intrigues and the competition. In 7 BCE Herod had the two sons of Mariamne, Alexandros and Aristobulus IV, executed. In 4 BCE the same fate came to his oldest son, Antipater II. The fame of Herod as a fearful and suspicious child murder, which the Gospel of Matthew has left to the Christian tradition, was not totally undeserved. At the end, no clear successor emerged and the Romans divided his kingdom in three parts to be given each to one of his surviving children, Herod Archelaus, who inherited Judaea, Samaria, and Idumaea Herod Antipas, who inherited Galilee and Herod Philip, who inherited the Gaulanitis area.