to have been favourable to the new dynasty. On the other hand Herod’s marriage with Mariamne brought some of his enemies into his own household. He had scotched the faction of Hasmonaean sympathizers by killing forty-five members of the Sanhedrin and confiscating their possessions. But so long as there were representatives of the family alive, there was always a possible pretender to the throne which he occupied; and the people had not lost their affection for their former deliverers. Mariamne’s mother used her position to further her plots for the overthrow of her son-in-law; and she found an ally in Cleopatra of Egypt, who was unwilling to be spurned by him, even if she was not weary of his patron, Antony.
The events of Herod’s reign indicate the temporary triumphs of his different adversaries. His high-priest, a Babylonian, was deposed in order that Aristobulus III., Mariamne’s brother, might hold the place to which he had some ancestral right. But the enthusiasm with which the people received him at the Feast of Tabernacles convinced Herod of the danger; and the youth was drowned by order of the king at Jericho. Cleopatra had obtained from Antony a grant of territory adjacent to Herod’s domain and even part of it. She required Herod to collect arrears of tribute. So it fell out that, when Octavian and the Senate declared war against Antony and Cleopatra, Herod was preoccupied in obedience to her commands and was thus prevented from fighting against the future emperor of Rome.
After the battle of Actium (31 B.C.) Herod executed Hyrcanus and proceeded to wait upon the victorious Octavian at Rhodes. His position was confirmed and his territories were restored. 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. Within and without Judaea he erected magnificent buildings and founded cities. He established games in honour of the emperor after the ancient Greek model in Caesarea and Jerusalem and revived the splendour of the Olympic games. At Athens and elsewhere he was commemorated as a benefactor; and as Jew and king of the Jews he restored the temple at Jerusalem. The emperor recognized his successful government by putting the districts of Ulatha and Panias under him in 20 B.C.
But Herod found new enemies among the members of his household. His brother Pheroras and sister Salome plotted for their own advantage and against the two sons of Mariamne. The people still cherished a loyalty to the Hasmonaean lineage, although the young princes were also the sons of Herod. The enthusiasm with which they were received fed the suspicion, which their uncle instilled into their father’s mind, and they were strangled at Sebaste. On his deathbed Herod discovered that his eldest son, Antipater, whom Josephus calls a “monster of iniquity,” had been plotting against him. He proceeded to accuse him before the governor of Syria and obtained leave from Augustus to put him to death. The father died five days after his son in 4 B.C. He had done much for the Jews, thanks to the favour he had won and kept in spite of all from the successive heads of the Roman state; he had observed the Law publicly—in fact, as the traditional epigram of Augustus says, “it was better to be Herod’s swine than a son of Herod.”
Josephus, Ant. xv., xvi., xvii. 1-8, B.J. i. 18-33; Schürer, Gesch. d. jüd. Völk., 4th ed., i. pp. 360-418.
Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great by the Samaritan Malthace, and full brother of Archelaus, received as his share of his father’s dominions the provinces of Galilee and Peraea, with the title of tetrarch. Like his father, Antipas had a turn for architecture: he rebuilt and fortified the town of Sepphoris in Galilee; he also fortified Betharamptha in Peraea, and called it Julias after the wife of the emperor. Above all he founded the important town of Tiberias on the west shore of the Sea of Galilee, with institutions of a distinctly Greek character. He reigned 4 B.C.–A.D. 39. In the gospels he is mentioned as Herod. He it was who was called a “fox” by Christ (Luke xiii. 32). He is erroneously spoken of as a king in Mark vi. 14. It was to him that Jesus was sent by Pilate to be tried. But it is in connexion with his wife Herodias that he is best known, and it was through her that his misfortunes arose. He was married first of all to a daughter of Aretas, the Arabian king; but, making the acquaintance of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip (not the tetrarch), during a visit to Rome, he was fascinated by her and arranged to marry her. Meantime his Arabian wife discovered the plan and escaped to her father, who made war on Herod, and completely defeated his army. John the Baptist condemned his marriage with Herodias, and in consequence was put to death in the way described in the gospels and in Josephus. When Herodias’s brother Agrippa was appointed king by Caligula, she was determined to see her husband attain to an equal eminence, and persuaded him, though naturally of a quiet and unambitious temperament, to make the journey to Rome to crave a crown from the emperor. Agrippa, however, managed to influence Caligula against him. Antipas was deprived of his dominions and banished to Lyons, Herodias voluntarily sharing his exile.
Herod Philip, son of Herod the Great by Cleopatra of Jerusalem, received the tetrarchate of Ituraea and other districts to E. and N.E. of the Lake of Galilee, the poorest part of his father’s kingdom. His subjects were mainly Greeks or Syrians, and his coins bear the image of Augustus or Tiberius. He is described as an excellent ruler, who loved peace and was careful to maintain justice, and spent his time in his own territories. He was also a builder of cities, one of which was Caesarea Philippi, and another was Bethsaida, which he called Julias. He died after a reign of thirty-seven years (4 B.C.–A.D. 34); and his dominions were incorporated in the province of Syria. (J. H. A. H.)
HERODAS (Gr. Ἡρῴδας), or Herondas (the name is spelt
differently in the few places where he is mentioned), Greek poet,
the author of short humorous dramatic scenes in verse, written
under the Alexandrian empire in the 3rd century B.C. Apart
from the intrinsic merit of these pieces, they are interesting in the
history of Greek literature as being a new species, illustrating
Alexandrian methods. They are called Μιμίαμβοι, “Mimeiambics.”
Mimes were the Dorian product of South Italy and
Sicily, and the most famous of them—from which Plato is said
to have studied the drawing of character—were the work of
Sophron. These were scenes in popular life, written in the
language of the people, vigorous with racy proverbs such as we
get in other reflections of that region—in Petronius and the
Pentamerone. Two of the best known and the most vital
among the Idylls of Theocritus, the 2nd and the 15th, we know
to have been derived from mimes of Sophron. What Theocritus
is doing there, Herodas, his younger contemporary, is doing
in another manner—casting old material into novel form, upon a
small scale, under strict conditions of technique. The method
is entirely Alexandrian: Sophron had written in a peculiar kind
of rhythmical prose; Theocritus uses the hexameter and Doric,
Herodas the scazon or “lame” iambic (with a dragging spondee
at the end) and the old Ionic dialect with which that curious
metre was associated. That, however, hardly goes beyond the
choice and form of words; the structure of the sentences is
close-knit Attic. But the grumbling metre and quaint language
suit the tone of common life which Herodas aims at realizing;
for, as Theocritus may be called idealist, Herodas is a realist
unflinching. His persons talk in vehement exclamations and
emphatic turns of speech, with proverbs and fixed phrases;
and occasionally, where it is designed as proper to the part, with
the most naked coarseness of expression.
The scene of the second and the fourth is laid at Cos, and the speaking characters in each are never more than three. In Mime I. the old nurse, now the professional go-between or bawd, calls on Metriche, whose husband has been long away in Egypt, and endeavours to excite her interest in a most desirable young man, fallen deeply in love with her at first sight. After hearing all the arguments Metriche declines with dignity, but consoles the old woman with an ample glass of wine, this kind being always
