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Herod (Hebrew: הוֹרְדוֹס‎, Hordos, Greek: Ἡρῴδης, Hērōdēs), also known as Herod the Great (born 73 or 74 BCE, died 4 BCE in Jericho^[1]), was a Roman client king of Judea.^[2][3][4] His epithet of "the Great" is widely disputed as he is described as "a madman who murdered his own family and a great many rabbis."^[5][6][7] He is also known for his colossal building projects in Jerusalem and elsewhere, including his expansion of the Second Temple in Jerusalem (sometimes referred to as Herod's Temple) and the construction of the port at Caesarea Maritima. Important details of his biography are gleaned from the works of the 1st century CE Roman-Jewish historian Josephus Flavius.

The Romans made Herod's son Herod Archelaus ethnarch of Judea, Samaria, and Idumea (biblical Edom) from 4 BCE to 6 CE, referred to as the tetrarchy of Judea. Archelaus was judged incompetent by the Roman emperor Augustus who then combined Samaria, Judea proper and Idumea into Iudaea province^[8] under rule of a prefect until 41. Herod's other son Herod Antipas was tetrarch of Galilee from 4 BCE – 39 CE.

Biography[link]

Copper coin of Herod, bearing the legend "ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΗΡΩΔΟΥ" ("Basileōs Hērōdou") on the obverse

Herod was born around 74 BCE in the south (Idumea was the most southern region).^[9][10] He was the second son of Antipater the Idumaean, a high-ranked official under Ethnarch Hyrcanus II, and Cypros, a Nabatean. Herod was a practicing Jew, as the Edomites and many Nabateans had been converted to Judaism by the Hasmoneans.^[11] A loyal supporter of Hyrcanus II, Antipater appointed Herod governor of Galilee at 25, and his elder brother, Phasael, governor of Jerusalem. He enjoyed the backing of Rome but his brutality was condemned by the Sanhedrin.^[12]

In 43 BCE, following the chaos caused by Antipater offering financial support to Caesar's murderers, Antipater was poisoned. Herod, backed by the Roman Army, executed his father's murderer. After the battle of Philippi towards the end of 42 BCE, he convinced Mark Antony and Octavian that his father had been forced to help Caesar's murderers. After Antony marched into Asia, Herod was named tetrarch of Galilee by the Romans.

Two years later Antigonus, Hyrcanus' nephew, took the throne from his uncle with the help of the Parthians. Herod fled to Rome to plead with the Romans to restore him to power. There he was elected "King of the Jews" by the Roman Senate.^[13] Josephus puts this in the year of the consulship of Calvinus and Pollio (40 BCE), but Appian places it in 39 BCE.^[10] Herod went back to Judea to win his kingdom from Antigonus and at the same time he married the teenage niece of Antigonus, Mariamne (known as Mariamne I), in an attempt to secure a claim to the throne and gain some Jewish favor. However, Herod already had a wife, Doris, and a three-year-old son, Antipater, and chose therefore to banish Doris and her child.

Three years later, Herod and the Romans finally captured Jerusalem and executed Antigonus. Herod took the role as sole ruler of Judea and the title of basileus (Gr. Βασιλευς, king) for himself, ushering in the Herodian Dynasty and ending the Hasmonean Dynasty. Josephus reports this as being in the year of the consulship of Agrippa and Gallus (37 BCE), but also says that it was exactly 27 years after Jerusalem fell to Pompey, which would indicate 36 BCE. (Cassius Dio also reports that in 37 "the Romans accomplished nothing worthy of note" in the area.^[14]) According to Josephus, he ruled for 37 years, 34 years of them after capturing Jerusalem.

Model of Herod's Temple

As Herod's family had converted to Judaism, his religious commitment had come into question by some elements of Jewish society.^[15] When John Hyrcanus conquered the region of Idumaea (the Edom of the Hebrew Bible) in 140–130 BCE, he required all Idumaeans to obey Jewish law or to leave; most Idumaeans thus converted to Judaism, which meant that they had to be circumcised.^[16] While King Herod publicly identified himself as a Jew and was considered as such by some,^[17] this religious identification was undermined by the decadent lifestyle of the Herodians, which would have earned them the antipathy of observant Jews.^[18]

Herod later executed several members of his own family, including his wife Mariamne.^{[citation needed]}

Architectural achievements[link]

Herod's most famous and ambitious project was the expansion of the Second Temple in Jerusalem.

In the eighteenth year of his reign (20–19 BCE), Herod rebuilt the Temple on "a more magnificent scale".^[19] Although work on out-buildings and courts continued another eighty years,^[19] the new Temple was finished in a year and a half. To comply with religious law, Herod employed 1,000 priests as masons and carpenters in the rebuilding.^[19] The finished temple, which was destroyed in 70 CE, is sometimes referred to as Herod's Temple. Today, only the four retaining walls remain standing, including the Wailing Wall or Western Wall. These walls created a flat platform (the Temple Mount) upon which the Temple was then constructed.

Some of Herod's other achievements include the development of water supplies for Jerusalem, building fortresses such as Masada and Herodium, and founding new cities such as Caesarea Maritima and the enclosures of Cave of the Patriarchs and Mamre in Hebron. He and Cleopatra owned a monopoly over the extraction of asphalt from the Dead Sea, which was used in ship building. He leased copper mines on Cyprus from the Roman emperor.

Discovery of quarry[link]

On September 25, 2007, Yuval Baruch, archaeologist with the Israeli Antiquities Authority announced his discovery of a quarry compound which provided King Herod with the stones to renovate the Second Temple. Coins, pottery and iron stakes found proved the date of the quarrying to be about 19 BCE. Archaeologist Ehud Netzer confirmed that the large outlines of the stone cuts is evidence that it was a massive public project worked on by hundreds of slaves.^[20]

New Testament references[link]

Herod the Great appears in the Gospel according to Matthew (Ch. 2), which describes an event known as the Massacre of the Innocents. According to this account, after the birth of Jesus, Magi from the East visited Herod to inquire the whereabouts of "the one having been born king of the Jews", because they had seen his star in the east and therefore wanted to pay him homage. Herod, as King of the Jews, was alarmed at the prospect of a usurper. Herod assembled the chief priests and scribes of the people and asked them where the "Anointed One" (the Messiah, Greek: Ο Χριστός (ho christos)) was to be born. They answered, in Bethlehem, citing Micah 5:2. Herod therefore sent the Magi to Bethlehem, instructing them to search for the child and, after they had found him, to "report to me, so that I too may go and worship him". However, after they had found Jesus, the Magi were warned in a dream not to report back to Herod. Similarly, Joseph was warned in a dream that Herod intended to kill Jesus, so he and his family fled to Egypt. When Herod realized he had been outwitted by the Magi, he gave orders to kill all boys of the age of two and under in Bethlehem and its vicinity. Joseph and his family stayed in Egypt until Herod's death, then moved to Nazareth in Galilee in order to avoid living under Herod's son Archelaus.

Regarding the Massacre of the Innocents, although Herod was certainly guilty of many brutal acts, including the killing of his wife and two of his sons, no other known source from the period makes any reference to such a massacre.^[21] Since Bethlehem was a small village, the number of male children under the age of two might not exceed 20. This may be the reason for the lack of other sources for this history,^[22] although Herod's order in Matthew 2:16 includes those children in Bethlehem's vicinity making the massacre larger numerically and geographically. Modern biographers of Herod tend to doubt the event took place.^[23]

Death[link]

Coin of Herod the Great

Since the work of Emil Schürer in 1896^[24] most scholars have agreed that Herod died at the end of March or early April in 4 BCE. ^[25] However, Schürer's consensus has not gone unchallenged in the 20th century, with several scholars endorsing 1 BCE as the year of Herod's death.^[26][27]

Evidence for the 4 BCE date is provided by the fact that Herod's sons, between whom his kingdom was divided, dated their rule from 4 BCE,^[28] and Archilaus apparently also exercised royal authority during Herod's lifetime.^[29] Josephus states that Philip the Tetrarch's death took place after a 37-year reign, in the 20th year of Tiberius (34 CE).^[30]

Josephus tells us that Herod died after a lunar eclipse.^[31] He gives an account of events between this eclipse and his death, and between his death and Passover. A partial eclipse^[32] took place on March 13, 4 BCE^[33], about 29 days before Passover, and this eclipse is usually taken to be the one referred to by Josephus.^[34] There were however three other, total, eclipses around this time, and there are proponents of both 5 BCE^[35]– with two total eclipses,^[36][37] and 1 BCE.^[10]

Bronze coin of Herod the Great, minted at Samaria.

Josephus wrote that Herod's final illness – sometimes named as "Herod's Evil"^[38] – was excruciating.^[39] From Josephus' descriptions, some medical experts propose that Herod had chronic kidney disease complicated by Fournier's gangrene.^[40] Modern scholars agree he suffered throughout his lifetime from depression and paranoia.^[41] More recently, others report that the visible worms and putrefaction described in his final days are likely to have been scabies; the disease might have accounted for both his death and psychiatric symptoms.^[42] Similar symptoms attended the death of his grandson Agrippa I in CE 44.

Josephus also stated that Herod was so concerned that no one would mourn his death, that he commanded a large group of distinguished men to come to Jericho, and he gave order that they should be killed at the time of his death so that the displays of grief that he craved would take place ^[43]. Fortunately for them, Herod's son Archilaus and sister Salome did not carry out this wish ^[44].

After Herod's death, his kingdom was divided among three of his sons by Augustus. Augustus "appointed Archilaus, not indeed to be the king of the whole country, but ethnarch or one half of that which had been subject to Herod, and promised to give him the royal dignity hereafter, if he governed his part virtuously. But as for the other half, he divided it into two parts, and gave it to two other of Herod's sons, to Philip and to Herod Antipas, that Herod Antipas who disputed with Archilaus for the whole kingdom. Now, to him it was that Perea and Galilee paid their tribute, which amounted annually to two hundred talents, while Batanea with Trachonitis, as well as Auranitis, with a certain part of what was called House of Lenodorus, paid the tribute of one hundred talents to Philip; but Idumea, and Judea, and the country of Samaria, paid tribute to Archilaus, but had now a fourth part of that tribute taken off by the order of Caesar, who decreed them that mitigation, because they did not join in this revolt with the rest of the multitude."^[45] Archilaus became ethnarch of the tetrarchy of Judea, Herod Antipas became tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea, and Philip became tetrarch of territories east of the Jordan.

Tomb discovery[link]

Aerial photo of Herodium from the southwest

The location of Herod's tomb is documented by Josephus, who writes, "And the body was carried two hundred furlongs, to Herodium, where he had given order to be buried."^[46] Josephus provides more clues about Herod's tomb which he calls Herod's monuments:

So they threw down all the hedges and walls which the inhabitants had made about their gardens and groves of trees, and cut down all the fruit trees that lay between them and the wall of the city, and filled up all the hollow places and the chasms, and demolished the rocky precipices with iron instruments; and thereby made all the place level from Scopus to Herod's monuments, which adjoined to the pool called the Serpent's Pool.^[47]

Professor Ehud Netzer, an archaeologist from Hebrew University, read the writings of Josephus and focused his search on the vicinity of the pool and its surroundings at the Winter Palace of Herod in the Judean desert. An article of the New York Times states,

Lower Herodium consists of the remains of a large palace, a race track, service quarters, and a monumental building whose function is still a mystery. Perhaps, says Ehud Netzer, who excavated the site, it is Herod's mausoleum. Next to it is a pool, almost twice as large as modern Olympic-size pools.^[48]

It took 35 years for Netzer to identify the exact location, but on May 7, 2007, an Israeli team of archaeologists of the Hebrew University led by Netzer, announced they had discovered the tomb.^{[49][50][51][52]} The site is located at the exact location given by Flavius Josephus, atop of tunnels and water pools, at a flattened desert site, halfway up the hill to Herodium, 12 kilometers (7.5 mi) south of Jerusalem.^[53] The tomb contained a broken sarcophagus but no remains of a body.

The Israel Nature and Parks Authority and the Gush Etzion Regional Council intend to recreate the tomb out of a light plastic material.^[54]

Chronology[link]

30s BCE[link]

• 39–37 BCE– War against Antigonus. After the conquest of Jerusalem and victory over Antigonus, Mark Antony executes Antigonus.
• 36 BCE– Herod makes his 17-year-old brother-in-law, Aristobulus III, high priest, fearing that the Jews would appoint Aristobulus III "King of the Jews" in his place.
• 35 BCE– Aristobulus III is drowned at a party, on Herod's orders.
• 32 BCE– The war against Nabatea begins, with victory one year later.
• 31 BCE– Israel suffers a devastating earthquake. Octavian defeats Mark Antony, so Herod switches allegiance to Octavian, later known as Augustus.
• 30 BCE– Herod is shown great favor by Octavian, who at Rhodes confirms him as King of Judea.

20s BCE[link]

• 29 BCE– Josephus writes that Herod had great passion and also great jealousy concerning his wife, Mariamne I. She learns of Herod's plans to murder her, and stops sleeping with him. Herod puts her on trial on a charge of adultery. His sister, Salome I, was chief witness against her. Mariamne I's mother Alexandra made an appearance and incriminated her own daughter. Historians say her mother was next on Herod's list to be executed and did this only to save her own life. Mariamne was executed, and Alexandra declared herself Queen, stating that Herod was mentally unfit to serve. Josephus wrote that this was Alexandra's strategic mistake; Herod executed her without trial.
• 28 BCE– Herod executed his brother-in-law Kostobar^[55] (husband of Salome, father to Berenice) for conspiracy. Large festival in Jerusalem, as Herod had built a theatre and an amphitheatre.
• 27 BCE– An assassination attempt on Herod was foiled. To honor Augustus, Herod rebuilt Samaria and renamed it Sebaste.
• 25 BCE– Herod imported grain from Egypt and started an aid programme to combat the widespread hunger and disease that followed a massive drought. He also waives a third of the taxes.
• 23 BCE– Herod built a palace in Jerusalem and the fortress Herodion (Herodium) in Judea. He married his third wife, Mariamne II, the daughter of the priest Simon Boethus; immediately Herodes deprived Jesus the son of Phabet, of the high priesthood, and conferred that dignity on Simon.^[56]
• 22 BCE– Herod began construction on Caesarea Maritima and its harbour. The Roman emperor Augustus grants him the regions Trachonitis, Batanaea and Auranitis to the northeast.
• Circa 20 BCE– Expansion started on the Temple Mount; Herod completely rebuilt the Second Temple of Jerusalem (see Herod's Temple).

10s BCE[link]

• Circa 18 BCE– Herod travelled for the second time to Rome.
• 14 BCE– Herod supported the Jews in Anatolia and Cyrene. Owing to the prosperity in Judaea he waived a quarter of the taxes.
• 13 BCE– Herod made his first-born son Antipater (his son by Doris) first heir in his will.
• 12 BCE– Herod suspected both his sons (from his marriage to Mariamne I) Alexander and Aristobulus of threatening his life. He took them to Aquileia to be tried. Augustus reconciled the three. Herod supported the financially strapped Olympic Games and ensured their future. Herod amended his will so that Alexander and Aristobulus rose in the royal succession, but Antipater would be higher in the succession.
• Circa 10 BCE– The newly expanded temple in Jerusalem was inaugurated. War against the Nabateans began.

First decade BCE[link]

Tomb of Herod the Great

• 9 BCE–Caesarea Maritima was inaugurated. Owing to the course of the war against the Nabateans, Herod fell into disgrace with Augustus. Herod again suspected Alexander of plotting to kill him.
• 8 BCE– Herod accused his sons by Mariamne I of high treason. Herod reconciled with Augustus, who also gave him the permission to proceed legally against his sons.
• 7 BCE– The court hearing took place in Berytos (Beirut) before a Roman court. Mariamne I's sons were found guilty and executed. The succession changed so that Antipater was the exclusive successor to the throne. In second place the succession incorporated (Herod) Philip, his son by Mariamne II.
• 6 BCE– Herod proceeded against the Pharisees.
• 5 BCE– Antipater was brought before the court charged with the intended murder of Herod. Herod, by now seriously ill, named his son (Herod) Antipas (from his fourth marriage with Malthace) as his successor.
• 4 BCE– Young disciples smashed the golden eagle over the main entrance of the Temple of Jerusalem after the Pharisee teachers claimed it was an idolatrous Roman symbol. Herod arrested them, brought them to court, and sentenced them. Augustus approved the death penalty for Antipater. Herod then executed his son, and again changed his will: Archelaus (from the marriage with Malthace) would rule as ethnarch over the tetrachy of Judea, while Antipas (by Malthace) and Philip (from the fifth marriage with Cleopatra of Jerusalem) would rule as tetrarchs over Galilee and Peraea (Transjordan), also over Gaulanitis (Golan), Trachonitis (Hebrew: Argob), Batanaea (now Ard-el-Bathanyeh) and Panias. Salome I was also given a small toparchy in the Gaza region. As Augustus did not confirm his will, no one received the title of King; however, the three sons were granted rule of the stated territories.

Marriages and children[link]

It is very probable that Herod had more children, especially with the last wives, and also that he had more daughters, as female births at that time were often not recorded.^[57]

Family trees[link]

Marriages and descendants[link]

Herod the Great + Doris
                |
            Antipater II
             d. 4 BCE?

Herod the Great + Mariamne I, d. 29 BCE?, dt. of Alexandros.
                |
       —————————————————————————————————————————————
      |          |          |                       |
 Aristobulus   Alexander   Salampsio + Phasael II     Cypros
  d. 7 BCE?     d. 7 BCE?                |             m. Antipater(2)
 m. Berenice                       Cypros
      |
     ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
    |                |              |                |               |
Mariamne III      Herod V      Herodias     Herod Agrippa    Aristobulus V
m. her uncle   King of Chalcis      +         King of Judea              |
   Archelaus ?              m. 1. Herod II Boethus Herod Agrippa II
                                her uncle
                                2. Herod Antipas
                                her uncle

Herod the Great + Mariamne II, dt. of Simon the High-Priest.
                |
           Herod II
           Boethus

Herod the Great + Malthace (a Samaritan)
                |
    ————————————————————————————————————————————————
   |                                   |            |
 Herod Antipas                     Archelaus    Olympias
   b. 20 BCE?
   + Phasaelis,
   dt. of Aretas IV, king of Arabia
 "divorced" to marry:
   + Herodias,
   dt. of Aristobulus (son of Herod the Great)

Herod the Great + Cleopatra of Jerusalem
                |
       Philip the Tetrarch
             d. 34 CE

Notes.

• Herod's Family Tree^[58]
• Antipater(2) was the son of Joseph and Salome
• Dates with ? need verifying against modern findings

Ancestors[link]

Antipater the Idumaean + Cypros, Princess from Petra, Jordan in Nabatea.
                       |
    —————————————————————————————————————————————
   |              |            |        |        |
Phasael    Herod the Great  Joseph  Pheroras  Salome I
          (74-4 BCE)

Alexandros + Alexandra
           |
      ———————————————————————————————————
     |                                   |
Aristobulus III            Mariamne, dt.
(d. 35 BCE)                              m. Herod the Great
(last Hasmonean scion;
appointed high priest; drowned)

See also[link]

• Cultural depictions of Herod the Great
• Herod's Palace

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Brandon, S.G.F. (1962). "Herod the Great: Judaea’s Most Able but Most Hated King". History Today 12: 234–242. 
• Grant, Michael (1971). Herod the Great. New York: American Heritage Press. ISBN 0-07-024073-6. 
• Günther, Linda-Marie (hg.). Herodes und Jerusalem (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2009).
• Guenther, Linda-Marie (hg.), Herodes und Rom (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2007).
• Jacobson, David M. and Nikos Kokkinos (еds), Herod and Augustus: Papers held at the IJS Conference, 21st-23rd June 2005 (Leiden, Brill, 2009) (IJS Studies in Judaica, 6).
• Kokkinos, Nikos, The Herodian Dynasty: Origins, Role in Society and Eclipse (Sheffield, Sheffield Academic, 1998).
• Marshak, Adam Kolman (2006). "The Dated Coins of Herod the Great: Towards a New Chronology". Journal for the Study of Judaism 37 (2): 212–240. 
• Netzer, Ehud, The Architecture of Herod, the Great Builder (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006).
• Perowne, Stewart (1956). The Life and Times of Herod the Great. New York: Abingdon Press. 
• Richardson, P., Herod the King of the Jews and Friend of the Romans (Edinburgh, 1999).
• Roller, Duane W. (1998). The Building Program of Herod the Great. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-91935-8. 
• Sandmel, Samuel (1967). Herod: Profile of a Tyrant. Philadelphia: Lippincott. 
• Witztum, Eliezer, King Herod: A Persecuted Persecutor. A Case Study in Psychohistory and Psychobiography (Berlin and New York, Walter de Gruyter, 2006).
• Zeitlin, Solomon (1963). "Herod: A Malevolent Maniac". Jewish Quarterly Review 54: 1–27. 
• Zeitlin, Solomon (1962-1978). The Rise and Fall of the Judean State. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society. 

External links[link]

This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (December 2009)

• Resources > Second Temple and Talmudic Era > Herod and the Herodian Dynasty The Jewish History Resource Center - Project of the Dinur Center for Research in Jewish History, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• Halachic Status of Herod
• Family trees
• Encyclopedia.com
• Outline of Great Books Volume I - King Herod: extracts from the works of Josephus
• Timeline 49 to 1 BCE
• Herod surnamed the Great in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica
• Catholic Encyclopedia: Herod
• King Herod the Great
• Jewish Encyclopedia: Herod I

Tomb

• Tomb Found
• Herod's Tomb -images
• King Herod's Tomb Found Biblical Archaeology Review