Herodias

“ The rich tiaras of the Romans sparkled brilliantly in the sunlight, and their glittering sword-hilts threw out glancing golden rays. The doves, flying from their cotes, circled above the heads of the multitude. It was the hour when Mannæus was accustomed to feed them. But now he crouched beside the tetrarch, who stood near Vitellius. The Galileans, the priests, and the soldiers formed a group behind them; all were silent, waiting with painful anticipation for what might happen.
A deep groan, hollow and startling, rose from the pit.
Herodias heard it from the farther end of the palace. ”

“ When did Herods win a kingdom by cringing in fear? Not thus are kingdoms won, Brother! Old Queen Herodias grows madder every day with dreams of the Hermit John’s head slain in the dungeons there. Sister Drusilla, who has ever been jealous of me being younger and your favorite, swears she will join her husband Felix, whether he is in Rome, or among the barbarians. Know you not if the Romans win here, the secret Zealots and Sicarii Sword Ruffians in the Fort there on the Dead Sea will rise and cut our throats for loyalty to Rome ”

“ At the same moment, the panels of the gold-railed balcony were folded back, and, accompanied by slaves bearing wax tapers, Herodias appeared, her coiffure crowned with an Assyrian mitre, which was held in place by a band passing under the chin. ”

“ Herodias was a grand-daughter of Herod the Great, and married her uncle Herod, the disinherited son of Herod the Great. She subsequently married Antipas, the Herod who is said to have put John to death. Herod’s brother Philip (Tetrarch of Trachonitis and Gaulonitis) was not the son of Marianne, as the first husband of Herodias was, but the son of Cleopatra. Philip’s wife was Salome, the daughter of Herodias. The daughter of Herodias, instead of being a damsel dancing at the court of Herod, as the Synoptics declare, was at this time the wife of an aged ruler of a foreign province. ”

“ But what does Herodias think of her beloved uncle’s amours? Isn’t she jealous?”
“Oh, I’m sure she is ... what woman wouldn’t be? But she knows that in such activities she must share him. Antipas, I understand, is a true Herod.”
“Yes, and I have a strong suspicion that in such activities, as you express it, Herodias is a Herod, too.” He sat forward, serious again. “But what puzzles me, Claudia, is how I happened to be one of Antipas’ guests tonight. It must have been entirely through your arranging, but why on earth are you involved in a social way with any of these Jews?” ”

“ After her divorce from Philip, she had indeed left her daughter in Rome, hoping that, as the wife of the tetrarch, she might bear other children. Until that moment she had never spoken to Antipas of her daughter. He asked himself the reason for this sudden display of tenderness.
During their brief conversation several attendants had come out upon the balcony; one slave brought a quantity of large, soft cushions, and arranged them in a kind of temporary couch upon the floor behind his mistress. Herodias sank upon them, and turning her face away from Antipas, seemed to be weeping silently. ”

“ Thine illustrious father did not, and there was, on that account, grumbling amongst the people.
HEROD
Blessing is cleaner work than slaughter. I will do it. See, ye wise Greeks, that we must serve the gods in order to rule over men! And in the end we serve to no purpose. [He motions them away. To Jabad.] Go and make ready, and I will follow thee. [Exeunt Gabalos, Merokles, and Jabad.]
SCENE V Herod, Herodias [later Salome with Maecha, on the balcony. Herod and Herodias stand together a few moments in silence.] ”

“ They leaped up and down, or danced about the altar (so some) : they hoped, by their dancing, to please their deity, as Herodias did Herod, and so to obtain their request. (2.) Like madmen they cut themselves in pieces with knives and lancets (v. 28) for vexation that they were not answered, or in a sort of prophetic fury, hoping to obtain the favour of their god by offering to him their own blood, when they could not obtain it with the blood of their bullock. God never required his worshippers thus to honour him ”

“ The agreement settled, he set sail for Rome. On his return, after discharging his commission in that city, his wife, who had got wind of the compact with Herodias, bade her husband, who was still unaware that she knew all, send her away to Machærus—on the frontier between the dominions of Aretas and Herod—without revealing her intentions. Herod, accordingly, let her go, not suspecting that the poor woman had any inkling of the plot. ”

“ What chance had a young life in such a sty of filth? When the mother becomes the devil's deputy, what can the daughter grow up to be, but a worse edition of her? This poor girl, so sinning, and so sinned against, followed in Herodias's footsteps, and afterwards married, according to the custom of the Herods, her uncle, Philip the tetrarch. She inherited and was taught evil ”

“ Aretas, king of Arabia, to revenge the affront which Herod had offered to his daughter, declared war against him, and vanquished him in a very obstinate contest. Josephus tells us, that the Jews attributed the defeat of Herod to the death of John the Baptist. In the year of the Christian æra 39, Herodias being jealous of the prosperity of her brother Agrippa, who from a private person had become king of Judea, persuaded her husband, Herod-Antipas, to visit Rome, and desire the same dignity of the emperor Caius. ”

“ The reason for these imperfect convictions is generally found, as Herod shows us, in the unwillingness to get rid of something which has fastened its claws around us, and which we love too well, although we know it is a serpent, to shake off. If Herod had once been man enough to screw himself up, and say to Herodias, 'Now you pack, and go about your business!' everything else would have come right in time. But he could not make up his mind to sacrifice the honeyed poison, and so everything went wrong in time. ”

“ The proconsul wished to depart, but Aulus refused to accompany him.
The exaltation of the people increased. They abandoned themselves to dreams of independence. They recalled the glory of Israel, and a Syrian spoke of all the great conquerors they had vanquished,—Antigone, Crassus, Varus.
"Miserable creatures!" cried the enraged proconsul, who had overheard the Syrian's words.
In the midst of the uproar Antipas remembered the medallion of the emperor that Herodias had given to him ”

“ Herod (Philip) , son of Mariamne II and Herod I, disinherited, 2, 119. wife of, 2, 173. Herod Antipas (Antipas I) , son of Malthace and Herod I, successor to Herod I, 2, 114. ruler of Galilee and Peræa, 2, 119. envious of Archelaus, 2, 120. builds Tiberias, 2, 137–8.319 character of, 2, 138. beheads John the Baptist, 2, 147. pursues Jesus, 2, 160. abandons his wife to marry Herodias, 2, 173. defeated by the Nabathæans, 2, 173. assisted by Vitellius, 2, 173. procures an office for Agrippa I, 2, 175. banished to Lyons, 2, 177. Herod Philip, son of Cleopatra of Jerusalem. See Philip, tetrarch. ”

“ And conveying merchandise of Egypt and of Assyria they arrived at other places and also at Argos; now Argos was at that time in all points the first of the States within that land which is now called Hellas;—the Phenicians arrived then at this land of Argos, and began to dispose of their ship's cargo: and on the fifth or sixth day after they had arrived, when their goods had been almost all sold, there came down to the sea a great company of women, and among them the daughter of the king; and her name, as the Hellenes also agree, was Io the daughter of Inachos. ”

“ For it is manifest, inasmuch as Attica is deserted by its inhabitants, that the sound which we have heard is an unearthly one, and is now upon its way from Eleusis to aid the Athenians and their confederates. If it descends upon the Peloponnese, danger will threaten the king himself and his land army - if it moves towards the ships at Salamis, 'twill go hard but the king's fleet there suffers destruction. Every year the Athenians celebrate this feast to the Mother and the Daughter; and all who wish, whether they be Athenians or any other Greeks, are initiated. ”

“ But as things are at present, it is well that we should now remain in Hellas and look after ourselves and our households; and let each man repair his house, and have a care for sowing his land, after he has completely driven away the Barbarian: and then at the beginning of the spring let us sail down towards the Hellespont and Ionia." Thus he spoke, intending to lay up for himself a store of gratitude with the Persian, in order that if after all any evil should come upon him at the hands of the Athenians, he might have a place of refuge: and this was in fact that which came to pass. ”

“ For many and great are the reasons which hinder us from doing this, even though we should desire it; first and greatest the images and houses of the gods set on fire or reduced to ruin, which we must necessarily avenge to the very utmost rather than make an agreement with him who did these deeds; then secondly there is the bond of Hellenic race, by which we are of one blood and of one speech, the common temples of the gods and the common sacrifices, the manners of life which are the same for all; to these it would not be well that the Athenians should become traitors. ”

“ Athenians, now that the greatest contest is set before us, namely that which has for its issue the freedom or the slavery of Hellas, we have been deserted by our allies, we Lacedemonians and ye Athenians, seeing that they have run away during the night that is past. Now therefore it is determined what we must do upon this, namely that we must defend ourselves and protect one another as best we may. If then the cavalry had set forth to attack you at the first, we and the Tegeans, who with us refuse to betray the cause of Hellas, should have been bound to go to your help ”

“ With thee it rests, O Eurybiades! to save Greece, if thou wilt only hearken unto me, and give the enemy battle here, rather than yield to the advice of those among us, who would have the fleet withdrawn to the Isthmus. Hear now, I beseech thee, and judge between the two courses. At the Isthmus thou wilt fight in an open sea, which is greatly to our disadvantage, since our ships are heavier and fewer in number than the enemy's; and further, thou wilt in any case lose Salamis, Megara, and Egina, even if all the rest goes well with us. The land and sea force of the Persians will advance together ”

“ The Greeks had of their own motion summoned these to their aid, telling them by their messengers that they themselves had come for an advance guard of the rest, that the coming of the remnant of the allies was to be looked for every day, and that the sea was strictly watched by them, being guarded by the Athenians and Aeginetans and all that were enrolled in the fleet; there was nought (they said) for them to fear; for the invader of Hellas was no god, but a mortal man, and there was no mortal, nor ever would be, to whom at birth some admixture of misfortune was not allotted ”

“ Men of Hellas, it is with a self-seeking plea that you have made bold to come hither and invite me to be your ally against the foreigners; yet what of yourselves? When I was at feud with the Carchedonians, and prayed you to stand my comrades against a foreign army, and when I was instant that you should avenge the slaying of Dorieus son of Anaxandrides by the men of Egesta, and when I promised to free those trading ports whence great advantage and profit have accrued to you,—then neither for my sake would you come to aid nor to avenge the slaying of Dorieus ”

“ The history of Herodotus is a great prose epic, suggested doubtless to the author in early life by the fame of those events which were still fresh in the minds of all men—the repulse of the Persian invasion, and the liberation of Greece. The Greeks had thrown off colonies, from time to time, into the islands of the Levant and the west coast of Asia. [1] These Asiatic Greeks had actually been enslaved by Persia; and European Greece, though free from the first, could only wake to the full consciousness of that freedom when the overshadowing dread of the monster Asiatic power had been dissipated. ”

“ Either they would have suffered this fate, or before this, seeing the other Hellenes also taking the side of the Medes, they would have made an agreement with Xerxes; and thus in either case Hellas would have come to be under the rule of the Persians: for as to the good to be got from the walls thrown across the Isthmus, I am unable to discover what it would have been, when the king had command of the sea. As it is however, if a man should say that the Athenians proved to be the saviours of Hellas, he would not fail to hit the truth ”

“ O king of the Syracusans, it was not of a leader that Hellas was in want when it sent us to thee, but of an army. Thou however dost not set before us the hope that thou wilt send an army, except thou have the leadership of Hellas; and thou art striving how thou mayest become commander of the armies of Hellas. So long then as it was thy demand to be leader of the whole army of the Hellenes, it was sufficient for us Athenians to keep silence, knowing that the Lacedemonian would be able to make defence even for us both ”

“ However at that time, the time namely when he said that Pan appeared to him, this Pheidippides having been sent by the generals was in Sparta on the next day after that on which he left the city of the Athenians; and when he had come to the magistrates he said: "Lacedemonians, the Athenians make request of you to come to their help and not to allow a city most anciently established among the Hellenes to fall into slavery by the means of Barbarians; for even now Eretria has been enslaved, and Hellas has become the weaker by a city of renown." ”