Herod the Great

“ Herod. Alas! the pain
We feel, whene’er we dispossess the soul
Of that tormenting tyrant, far exceeds
The rigour of his rule.
Pheroras. With reason quell
That haughty passion; treat it as your slave:
Resume the monarch.
The observation, which Herod makes upon this, is very affecting. The poet has drawn him so tortured with his passion, that he seems almost sufficiently punished, for the barbarity of cutting off the father and brother of Mariamne,
Herod. ”

“ Then shall I Herod live in lede
And all folk me doubt and drede,
And offer to me both gold, riches and meed;
Thereto will they be full fain.
First Miles. My lord king, Herod by name,
Thy words against my will shall be;
To see so many young children die is shame,
Therefore counsel thereto gettest thou none of me.
Second Miles. Well said, fellow, my truth I plight.
Sir King, perceive right well you may,
So great a murder to see of young fruit
Will make a rising in thine own country.
Herod. A rising? Out! out! out!
[There Herod rages again and then saith thus:]
Out! ”

“ Herod the Great became governor of Galilee, and later the Roman senate made him king of Judaea. He besieged Jerusalem, and took it in 37 B.C. "A singular compound of good and bad—mostly bad—was this King Herod." He hired men to drown a supposed rival, as if in sport, at Jericho on the occasion of a feast, and in the beginning of his reign he slaughtered more than half of the members of the Sanhedrin. The aged high priest Hyrcanus was put to death, as was also Mariamne, the wife of this monster, who was ruling when the Messiah was born at Bethlehem. ”

“ The statement that Herod the Great, who was firmly established in his government, and who had full-grown male heirs to succeed him, was afraid that the babe of an obscure Nazareth carpenter would supplant him in his kingdom, is enough to cause a Covenanter to laugh on Sunday. Had Herod issued such a decree his friends, instead of executing it, would have had him confined in a madhouse. ”

“ In a fit of jealousy Herod even caused the execution of his beautiful wife, whom he passionately loved, as he had already destroyed her grandfather, father, brother, and uncle. Supported by Augustus, whom he had managed to conciliate after the death of Antony, Herod reigned with undisputed authority over even an increase of territory. He doubtless reigned with great ability, tyrant and murderer as he was, and detested by the Jews as an Idumaean. He reigned in a state of magnificence unknown to the Asmonean princes. ”

“ King Herod, the Wise Men, and the Massacre of the Innocents
That the children should long to see the pageant in which Herod appeared was no wonder, for he was a very well-known character in the miracle plays. Just as in some fairy tales the wicked giant is well known, and is always expected to be as wicked as possible, so in these plays Herod was always represented as a furious tyrant and a great boaster, who raged and stormed and used such exaggerated language that he seemed more like a madman than a sane human being. ”

“ Herod the Great, who, notwithstanding his vices, his crimes, and his occasional fits of passion amounting to madness, possessed the qualities both of a statesman and a soldier, had not neglected the means at his disposal for the security of his capital. ”

“ For, as a punishment of his wickedness, Herod slew his own sons, who would have succeeded him in his kingdom, and in the same year, shortly after this massacre of the infants and his son Antipater, he himself was eaten of worms, and died just before the Passover. ”

“ But the way that before had taken only thirteen days, through leading of the Star, they found now to take two years, which was ordained, that all men should know what difference is between God's working and man's.
Now, when Herod and the scribes heard that the Kings were gone home again, and came not to him as he had bade them, then, of much envy and malice, he pursued them a great way; and always he found the people bless them, and [Pg 32] praise them, and tell of their nobility. ”

“ This Herodias had eloped from her husband Philip, son of Herod the Great, to marry her step-uncle, Herod Antipas, who forsook for her his lawful wife, the daughter of the king of Arabia. Herod appears in the story of the Gospels as a man with just enough conscience and aspiration after good to keep him always uneasy, but not enough to restrain from evil. ”

“ Herod, the name of a family of Idumæan origin but Jewish creed, who rose into power in Judea shortly prior to the dissolution of the Jewish nationality; the chief members of which were Herod The Great, king of the Jews by favour of the Romans, who made away with all his rivals, caused his own children to be strangled on suspicion of their conspiring against him, and died a painful death ”

“ On his return he took in hand to heal with the Hasmonaeans, and in 25 B.C. the old intriguers, their victims like Mariamne, and all pretenders were dead. From this time onwards Herod was free to govern Palestine, as a client-prince of the Roman Empire should govern his kingdom. In order to put down the brigands who still infested the country and to check the raids of the Arabs on the frontier, he built or rebuilt fortresses, which were of material assistance to the Jews in the great revolt against Rome. ”

“ To forestall events appeared far better policy than a belated repentance when plunged in the turmoil of an insurrection. And so, through Herod’s suspicions, John was sent as a prisoner to Machærus, the fortress already mentioned, and there put to death. The Jews supposed that the destruction of Herod’s army was the penalty expressly inflicted upon him by God to avenge John....
The following extract supplies the name of “the daughter of Herodias” who appears in Mark vi. 22 ff.
Now Herodias their sister married Herod, the son of Herod the Great by Mariamne the daughter of Simon the high priest. ”

“ They, therefore, sent forth certain of their own disciples, with the Herodians; spies, which should feign themselves just and good men, anxious to learn the truth by asking questions; whilst all the time, they hoped He would say something to enable them to "deliver him unto the power and authority of the governor." The Herodians here spoken of, seem to have been a party amongst the Jews, who were very favourable to the Romans; and thought they had the best right to appoint the kings and governors of Judæa. This party took its rise in the time of Herod the Great. ”

“ How Herod won his Kingdom
40 B.C. Herod, forced to flee from Palestine by a great invasion of Parthians, who reinstate Antigonus, son of Aristobulus, as King of Judæa, arrives a suppliant at Rome in mid-winter.
Antony commiserated the reversal of Herod’s fate. The trite reflection arose in his mind that even those in the highest rank are at the mercy of fortune. He was moved partly by the memory of Antipater’s hospitality, [103] partly by Herod’s promise, as on a former occasion when he was made tetrarch, to give him money if he were made king. ”

“ Receives the crown of Judea. And reigns tyrannically. His miserable life. Herod developed great talents, and waited for his time. After the battle of Philippi Herod made acceptable offerings to the conquering party, and received the crown of Judea, which had been recently ravaged by the Parthians, through the intrigues of Antigonas, the surviving son of Aristobulus. By his marriage with Mariamne, of the royal line of the Asmoneans, he cemented the power he had won by the sword and the favor of Rome. He was the last of the independent sovereigns of Palestine. ”

“ Tropologically, Herod is the devil, the world, and the flesh, and the way to him is pleasure and greed. They, therefore, who pass from him to Christ, walk by the other way of the cross and mortification; and thus it behoves them to return to their own country—that is, the heavenly paradise.
Hear the author of the Imp. Com. (Hom. 2) : “He who comes from the devil to God must never walk by the way by which he went to the devil. Thou wentest by the way of fornication; for the future, walk by the way of chastity. ”

“ About sixty years B.C., Herod, misnamed the Great, had partly by bribery prevailed on Antony and Augustus to make him king of the Jews, and Josephus describes his visit to Rome on that appointment. Herod has always been a monster of cruelty. ”

“ The man threw himself down by her side; he lay and beat the ground with his clenched hands. The palm heard them say to each other that they must die. It also understood from their conversation that King Herod had caused all children of two or three years of age to be killed from fear that the great expected King in Judaea had been born. ”

“ But as Phasaelus's and Herod's party came to the other's assistance, and a battle happened between them in the market-place, the young men beat their enemies, and pursued them into the temple, and sent some armed men into the adjoining houses to keep them in, who yet being destitute of such as should support them, were burnt, and the houses with them, by the people who rose up against them. But Herod was revenged on these seditious adversaries of his a little afterward for this injury they had offered him, when he fought with them, and slew a great number of them. ”

“ And now, upon the permission that was given the accusers to speak, they, in the first place, went over Herod's breaches of their law, and said that he was not a king, but the most barbarous of all tyrants, and that they had found him to be such by the sufferings they underwent from him; that when a very great number had been slain by him, those that were left had endured such miseries, that they called those that were dead happy men ”

“ The spirit and policy of Augustus were clearly reflected in Herod's court and kingdom. When his position was firmly established, Herod devoted himself to magnificent building enterprises. In Antioch, Athens, and Rhodes, he reared great public buildings. Jerusalem, his capital, was provided with a theatre and amphitheatre, and other buildings that characterize the Graeco-Roman cities of the period. The two crowning achievements of Herod's reign were the rebuilding of Samaria and Caesarea, as its port on the Mediterranean coast. Both of these cities were renamed in honor of his patron Augustus. ”

“ But Herod was not the highest ruler. Many years before this time, the Romans, who came from the city of Rome in Italy, had won all the lands around the Great Sea, the sea which we call the Mediterranean; and above king Herod of Judea was the great king of Rome, ruling over all the lands, and over the land of Judea among them. So Herod, though king of Judea, obeyed his overlord, the emperor at Rome. At the time when this story begins, the emperor at Rome was named Augustus Cæsar.
At this time, the land where the Jews lived was full of people. ”

“ Again, Christ escaped the massacre of the infants by flying into Egypt; and from thence, by degrees, His name, and kingdom, and glory increased. Yea, the infants slain by Herod out of hatred of the Messiah, by their very death attested that Christ was born.
Tropologically, Herod is the devil, who strives to cut off infants—that is, those who are weak in faith and virtue, also the first inspirations from God, and good thoughts, before they have become strong and increased. ”

“ Wherefore when Herod heard this question, he gathered the Scribes together, and asked them where Christ should be born? For the star was the index of Christ; whence it is subjoined, “For we have seen His star.” This is what is meant—“The King of the Jews, yea, of heaven, has been born; for a star of the heavens has made Him known to us. It has called us: it has invited all to visit Him, to honour and adore Him. For in this new star which has been put forth in heaven, heaven manifests her admiration of so great a King, even the Word incarnate.” ”

“ But when Herod thus unexpectedly heard of it, he was greatly surprised at it, and was the more surprised, because the relation appeared incredible to him. As for the fact relating to these sons of Babas, Herod had formerly taken great pains to bring them to punishment, as being enemies to his government ”

“ Herod’s character and aims.To describe in detail the government of Herod for almost forty years—he died in the year 7504 B.C.—as the accounts of it preserved at great length allow us to do, is not the task of the historian of Rome. There is probably no royal house of any age in which bloody feuds raged in an equal degree between parents and children, between husbands and wives, and between brothers and sisters;181 the emperor Augustus and his governors in Syria turned away with horror from the share in the work of murder which was suggested to them ”

“ He has softened the character of Herod, well knowing that so cruel a tyrant as the story makes him, could not be born upon the English stage. He has altered the character of Sohemus, from an honest confident, to a crafty enterprising statesman, who to raise his master to the throne of Judea, murthered the natural heir. He has introduced in his drama, a character under the name of Salome, the king’s sister, who bore an implacable hatred to Mariamne; and who in league with Sohemus pursues her revenge, at no less a price than that of her brother’s and the queen’s life. ”

“ In the mean time Herod had reached Rome, where he found Antonius at the very summit of power. The Roman received him with much kindness, and introduced him to Octavius, who calling to mind the aid which the great Julius had received from Antipater during his Egyptian war91, was no less ready to befriend him. Herod protested he wished for nothing more than that Aristobulus, the brother of his betrothed Mariamne, should be placed on the throne of Judæa. ”

“ The day in which this dramatic action begins, is upon a grand festival, appointed in honour of Herod’s safe return from Rome, and being still permitted to enjoy his kingdom. The hard condition of sending the prince to Rome, greatly affects the heart of the queen, whom the poet has drawn a most tender mother. This throws a cloud over the ceremony, and furnishes an opportunity for Sohemus and Salome, to set their infernal engines at work; who, in conjunction with Sameas the king’s cup bearer, contrive to poison the king and queen at the feast. ”