THE AUGUSTAN EMPIRE (44 B.C.—A.D. 70)

CHAPTER XI

HEROD OF JUDAEA

I. JUDAEA AFTER THE DEATH OF CAESAR

THE victory of Octavian over Antony and Cleopatra placed the client-kingdoms in Asia Minor and Syria, no less than Egypt, within his grasp. But it was no part of his policy to make far-reaching changes in these regions, and as has been seen he even maintained many of Antony’s arrangements. Among the kings who were confirmed in their power there was one who by his personality stood out among the rest, and of whom the ancient sources permit a connected account. This was Herod, whose kingdom of Judaea was to have more significance for history than its political importance warranted. In this chapter the history of the Jews will be resumed from the death of Caesar and carried on beyond the reign of Herod to the moment at which Judaea was transformed into a Roman province.

Only a few weeks before his murder Caesar had reaffirmed his trust in the High Priest Hyrcanus II and his Idumaean minister Antipater by allowing them to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and by granting, presumably in connection with the heavy expenses the rebuilding would entail, a remission in the amount of tribute due. In spite of this, scarcely had Cassius won possession of Syria, before the Jewish government afforded him help, and to the general reasons for their attitude one in particular should perhaps be added—the influence of Antipater’s son, Herod. Young though he was, he early had political experience; he had to relinquish his governorship of Galilee, but Sextus Caesar, then legate of Syria, had compensated him with an important administrative post in Coele-Syria. But he could not regain influence in Palestine, and so naturally seized on the chances that the changed position after Caesar’s murder offered him; once he had persuaded his father—and of course Hyrcanus—to support the Republicans, he got Cassius to give him the task of collecting that portion of the 700 talents extraordinary tribute imposed on Palestine which was due from Galilee, and so set foot again in the land from which he had been driven three years before. Here his energy in collecting the tribute was so much appreciated by Cassius that he not only retained his post in Coele-Syria, but was also apparently entrusted with the general collection of funds for the war in the whole province; more still, as a mark of his restored position he was given the ‘Wardenship of the Armouries’ in Judaea, that is, probably, the general supervision of all fortresses and stores of arms, the safety of which was essential to the Republicans.

The newly-won importance of Herod not only overshadowed his elder brother Phasael, the governor of Jerusalem, but disturbed the balance till now existing between Hyrcanus II and Antipater, which rested upon the willing co-operation of the two which Caesar had intended; henceforward Herod could use his authority as a Roman official and, better still, the firm belief of the Romans that he was indispensable for their rule in Palestine, to advance his family. Among the discontented parties that troubled Judaea there now arose yet another: those who favoured Hyrcanus and did not wish to see his power decrease to the advantage of the Idumaean house. There ensued a constant crossing and sometimes actual fusion between three different revolutionary currents: one of these movements, a straight refusal to pay the extraordinary tribute levied by Cassius, was only checked by the wholesale enslavement of Gophna, Emmaus and lesser cities; a second combined anti-Roman feeling with support for Antigonus, the son of the dispossessed Aristobulus; the third, headed by one Malchus, a friend and probably high official of Hyrcanus, was aimed exclusively against Antipater and his house. Malchus succeeded in getting Antipater assassinated, and Hyrcanus’ complete failure to proceed against him gave some grounds for the suspicion that he had favoured the plot. But Herod, who must have been supported by his own armed bands, played a more active part: with Cassius’ approval he succeeded in his turn in getting rid of Malchus and destroying his party.

Hyrcanus’ only course, short of surrender to Herod, was to join with him, for Herod’s forces were his only protection against the steadily increasing partisans of Antigonus, who now, in 42, backed by the Syrian dynasts, Ptolemaeus of Chalcis and Marion of Tyre, were left free in the confusion that prevailed in Syria before Philippi to do what they would; indeed, Marion had already seized some parts of Galilee. Party struggles, which broke up any firm feeling of loyalty to Hyrcanus, merely served to help Herod, and the results were soon visible. He routed Antigonus, and though he could not recover from Marion the lost Galilean lands, Hyrcanus—willingly or not—had to reward Herod with a crown and promise him the hand of one of his grand-daughters: this was Mariamme, the child of his daughter Alexandra and of Alexander, the son of Hyrcanus’ brother Aristobulus; Herod dismissed, though he did not divorce, his first wife Doris, an Idumaean, who had borne him a son named Antipater. The political value of this alliance, which bound Herod to a descendant of two rival branches of the Hasmonaeans, is obvious; since Hyrcanus had no sons it practically gave Herod a title to the succession, though it ran counter to the aspirations of the great majority of the Jews, who hated him as a foreigner and philo-Roman.

The death of Cassius at Philippi did not entail the overthrow of his protégé, though the Jews hoped for it and twice sent embassies to Antony to accuse Herod, and implicitly or explicitly Hyrcanus as well. But Hyrcanus and his advisers cleverly parried the charge of supporting the Republicans by representing themselves as their victim, and by begging Antony to free the Jews whom Cassius had enslaved and restore the territory Marion of Tyre had occupied—two petitions that could not fail of success. Moreover, these displays of Jewish discontent merely strengthened in Antony a belief which was strong in Roman circles, that Judaea could not be kept quiet under the rule of pure-blooded Jews, so that he was ready enough to uphold the authority of the house of Antipater and smooth its path in succeeding to Hyrcanus. The coming marriage of Herod with Mariamme proved the feasibility of the solution that was to prevail later—the setting-up of a government that though nominally Jewish was in reality alien and only able to survive by loyalty to Rome. So Antony gave Herod fresh promotion by nominating him tetrarch, but—whether as a punishment for having helped Cassius, or with the idea of creating a permanently balanced power in Palestine—he deprived him of the absolute pre-eminence that marriage with Mariamme offered by bestowing the title of tetrarch on Phasael also. Many of the details of this change are obscure, since we do not know what were the relations of the tetrarchs to the ethnarch and between themselves. It is clear, however, that the appointment of Herod and Phasael as tetrarchs set the seal on the rise of the Antipatrid dynasty.

But the Parthian invasion swept away both the decisions and the projects of Antony in Palestine. Scarcely had the Jews had time to evince their disgust at the new order by a riotous demonstration, which was put down with bloodshed, before the Parthians were called in by Antigonus in 40 b.c. Possibly, thanks to memories of the Persian Empire and the existing relations with the Babylonian Jews, the Parthians already enjoyed the sympathy of all who looked for support in freeing themselves from Rome; certainly their invasion, which not only gave Antigonus supreme power and the High Priesthood, but prevented Hyrcanus ever recovering it and drove Phasael to suicide, seemed so providential that, among the various Messianic legends that sprang up after a.d. 70 one prophesied that it was the Parthians who would make straight the way for the Messiah by conquering Palestine a second time.

But Herod had no thought of joining Parthia, and Phasael’s death restored him the primacy he had recently lost. The Idumaean fortress of Masada still remained to him: he reorganized its defences, and left there not only his relatives (and also his betrothed Mariamme and her mother Alexandra), but a nucleus of devoted followers and the treasures of his family. Having thus secured a base for the recovery of his power he at last succeeded in reaching Rome. Here his cause was too closely bound up with the restoration of Roman power in Syria for him not to be recog­nized at once as king—king and not ethnarch, either as a proof of goodwill or more probably because, since as an Idumaean he could never become High Priest, he must be given a title equal in prestige to the priestly one. At his coronation Herod, by sacrificing to Juppiter Capitolinus, revealed for the first time how lightly his Jewish religious convictions lay upon him. Samaria, which he had already governed as an official of the legate of Syria, was also added to his kingdom.

He was named king, but his subjects refused to acknowledge the rule of one whom Rome had recognized as their sovereign and Herod had to set about the conquest of Judaea with mercenary bands. In 39, after a few early successes—the occupation of Joppa, and the relief of Masada (which restored him control over most of Idumaea)—Antigonus’ resistance prevented further advance, and Ventidius the legate of Syria, too busy elsewhere or bribed by Antigonus, failed, despite Antony’s orders, to support Herod in strength. Nor did the situation show any substantial change next year until at last Herod gained an interview with Antony before Samosata and persuaded him to detach two legions under Sosius to help him; as in Pompey’s day Judaea needed a regular Roman army to conquer it. With these two legions Herod was able, in the autumn of 38, to set about the systematic reoccupation of his kingdom.

An army sent by Antigonus into Samaria to divert Herod from Judaea was routed, and by February 37 he was able to lay siege to Jerusalem. Resistance was desperate since the governing classes, usually favourable to Rome, faced with the danger of a non-Jewish king, devoted all their skill and determination to prolonging the defence; the protests of two famous Pharisees, Shemaya and Abtalyon, who saw that resistance was vain, went unheeded. But the siege was also prolonged by Herod himself, for he suddenly decided to marry Mariamme at Samaria; naturally it is hard to decide whether the celebration of the marriage in such circumstances was due to reasons of sentiment or of politics. So it took five months of siege before Jerusalem surrendered to Herod and the Roman legions, in July 37. Though Antigonus’ partisans were massacred, and Antigonus himself was put to death by Antony, Herod managed to save the city from general sack and to get the legions back to Syria without any further disorders. He was now, in fact as well as name, king of the Jews.

II. HEROD ON THE THRONE

To the hard task of being the king of the Jews Herod brought notable personal gifts. Undaunted, subtle, energetic, time­-serving and politic without servility, he was both a soldier and a diplomatist, shrewd in his judgment of the weight of Roman power as of the probable limits in Rome’s use of it. Yet, at his best, he fell short of greatness and, at his worst, he was little more than a creature of cruelty. Indeed, through all the acts of his reign it is hard to distinguish, as we have seen in the marriage with Mariamme, the part played by passion, often savage passion, and the part played by calculation. Passionate and calculating, he could sometimes make calculation serve his passions, at other times could ruin his calculations by passion. At bottom his desires were simple enough—power, glory, pomp and pleasure; they became complex because in satisfying them he had to reckon with two different worlds, Gentile and Jewish; he had to be a match for both and yet in neither of them did he ever feel at ease. He was no true Jew, he was not bound in firm and intimate loyalty to the Law; indeed he longed incessantly to break through its encumbrances and associate freely with that other world, to be sought out and admired for assimilating the culture, above all the opulence and elegance, of the Gentile. Yet though we cannot deny him a certain intellectual curiosity, this longing obviously arose from no deep understanding of the spiritual values of Graeco-Roman civilization; it was simply ambition, the restless ambition that strives to attain greatness by entering into a different tradition. With it all he retained not only the suspicion and cruelty of an Oriental prince, but also a desire to uphold his own prestige among the Jews (whether of Palestine or of the Diaspora) by being looked on as their protector. So while he laboured to raise Judaea to the rank of one of the greatest client-kingdoms of Rome, by secularizing it as far as possible and giving it a definitely Hellenistic structure, on another side his policy bore a strong Jewish imprint. It was Herod’s fate to be a great man déraciné who lavished his boundless energies on the contradictory tasks of hellenizing the Jewish State and of enhancing the political prestige of Judaism. His true forerunners were the sons of Tobiah, who like him were Judaized rather than Jewish. Though he apparently succeeded better than they, because he had what they lacked in their struggles with Syria and Egypt, the solid support of Rome, his political failure was not far different. He could not transform the Jews, still less turn his kingdom into a stable element in the Roman system of client-states. The Tobiads made the first, Herod the last, attempt to bring Judaea within the circle of Hellenistic (and ultimately Roman) civilization; soon after began the tragedy which led to the total overthrow of the Jewish State.

Herod’s first care, once on the throne, was to crush the aristocracy. They had opposed him during and after his trial in 47, and confirmed their enmity during the siege. His revenge was to kill forty-five of the most influential members of the Sanhedrin, so that its quota of 71 could now be filled up with more docile elements; this massacre, accompanied by confiscation of property, dealt the aristocratic opposition a blow from which it never recovered during his reign, and further murders and confiscations were to follow. The question of the High Priesthood was more difficult, because it involved his relations with the surviving Hasmonaeans, and so with Antony and Cleopatra. Though he liked to be regarded as of priestly family Herod could not be High Priest and never tried to be. Simply for this reason he set about destroying that theocratic form of government which by now seemed to Jewish eyes the only lawful one. He needed a High Priest insignificant and yet belonging to the Zadokite family, reputed to be descendants of Aaron, who had held the office before the Hasmonaeans; this would give an appearance of legitimacy to the change. Herod found his man in Ananel (Hananeel), a priest of the Babylonian Diaspora. But from his Hasmonaean relatives opposition at once broke out. His mother-in-law, Alexandra, wanted the nomination for her sixteen-year-old son, Aristobulus, but apart from the unprecedented youthfulness of the candidate it involved grave dangers. For the Hasmonaeans, who had had at first to bow to his will, were now trying to recover their lost position; Herod, who had sought their alliance, did not feel himself strong enough to break with them, and had in fact recently obtained the return of Hyrcanus from his Parthian prison just because his presence would imply acceptance of the new order. And there was another serious reason. Alexandra had contrived to interest Cleopatra in Aristobulus. But Cleopatra did not disguise her wish to extend the boundaries of Egypt to what they had been in Philadelphus’ time, and almost at the very moment of the discussions over the Priesthood, in 36, she had persuaded Antony to take the territory of Jericho from Herod for her, and wanted more. Herod had been compelled to rent the territory that had once been his and also to guarantee the rent of the lands that Cleopatra had taken from Malchus of Nabataea.

In these circumstances to oppose a scheme supported by Cleopatra would have been dangerous indeed, and so Aristobulus was given Ananel’s place (c. 35 b.c.). But after a year the position became intolerable for Herod: during that year Alexandra showed she would not forgo her intrigues with Cleopatra—who saw an opportunity for fresh gains in Judaea—and with her help concocted a scheme for the ‘flight’ of Aristobulus; this, with a short stay in exile, was obviously intended to smooth the way for his return as a candidate for the throne in Israel. But it failed and Herod, ruthless, had the young Aristobulus drowned. Summoned by Antony to Laodicea to clear himself he emerged unharmed, for he had arranged the murder skilfully and had chosen a moment when Antony badly needed an undisturbed Judaea behind him. Thus the problem of the High Priesthood was solved; it was to be neither hereditary nor for life, and Herod could henceforward freely bestow or take away the highest priestly dignity; usually he reserved it for the members of those aristocratic families who supported him, the most favoured being the house of Boethus, with which Herod later entered into a marriage alliance. To mark his mastery he now took into his keeping the garments which the High Priest wore at solemn functions and which were reputed to have magical powers, and only lent them out on these occasions, a practice which was to give rise to serious disturbances when the Romans took Herod’s place.

With the murder of Aristobulus the alliance with the Hasmonaeans was broken; the struggle between the two parties was to rage, sometimes openly sometimes underground, during his whole reign, involving in it all the opposition of the old Jewish tradition to the usurper, an opposition which in the end wrecked any hope of a lasting dynasty of Herod’s family. At the beginning of 30 the aged Hyrcanus fell a victim, suspect, according to the official version, of conspiring with the king of Nabataea. In 29 Herod killed Mariamme, who had borne him five sons; it was the issue of a mysterious tragedy, in which the king’s violent jealousy was turned to profit by his mother and his sister Salome against the hated Hasmonaean. In 28, Alexandra, who had tried to persuade Herod’s officers, during an illness of his, to surrender to her the fortress of Jerusalem, was killed with a band of her followers. And this was only the beginning of the struggle.

Yet though it ultimately destroyed Herod’s kingdom, at first this struggle did not openly weaken it, because the populace remained for long apathetic. The only attempt at a popular rising occurred when, during Herod’s interview at Laodicea, the rumour spread that Antony had condemned him to death, and this attempt was quickly put down. His defensive precautions doubtless helped to give him a firm hold on the people; his mercenaries and his fortresses were posted all over the country, and two works certainly go back to the first years of his reign, the rebuilding of the fortress Hyrcania and the reconstruction of the citadel of the Temple (the so-called Baris), to which he gave the name Antonia. Yet perhaps the profound need for peace in Judaea, rent as it had been for nearly ten years by civil war—the same need that was being felt throughout the whole Roman Empire—contributed even more effectually to the rapid restoration of order in the country. Thanks to this Herod could face with calm the complexities of the final phase of the Civil Wars, and Cleopatra’s interference in his relations with Antony actually profited him, for otherwise he must have helped Antony against Octavian and been involved in common ruin. Indeed in 32 he was on the point of joining Antony, when at Cleopatra’s instance he was dispatched against Malchus, who was proving slack in his payment of rent. The struggle was kept up during part of 31 without decisive result, for Athenion, the Egyptian commander in Coele-Syria, set himself to hinder any victory which might disturb the balance between the two combatants. In the end Herod had the better of it and seized the occasion, while Egypt’s attention was elsewhere, to impose a kind of protectorate on the Arabs. So the battle of Actium found him far from Antony’s side, and it was easy for him to change with fortune and assist the legate of Syria in intercepting the gladiators, whom Antony had engaged to celebrate his expected victory, on their way from Cyzicus to Egypt. This done, he could meet Octavian in the spring of 30, and Octavian, like Antony before him, had no reason for not confirming him. Indeed, either in reaction to Cleopatra’s policy or because he thought it useful, for the defence of the boundaries of the Empire, to strengthen the realm of Herod above all with non-Jewish elements, after the death of Cleopatra he restored him Jericho and presented him with practically all the territory that had been taken from Judaea by Pompey and had not yet been given back.

III. THE ATTEMPTED TRANSFORMATION

As the years went on Augustus’ favour for Herod showed no diminution. In 23 b.c. he transferred the districts of Trachonitis, Batanaea and Auranitis from the tetrarchy of Zenodorus to Judaea, and on Zenodorus’ death, in 20 b.c., he added the rest of the tetrarchy, comprising the districts of Ulatha and Panias to the north-east of Galilee. The appointment of Herod’s brother, Pheroras, as tetrarch of Peraea in this year implied no lessening of Herod’s prestige, for Pheroras was throughout subordinate, both de jure and de facto; as we shall see, it must be viewed in connection with the domestic circum­stances of Herod, and in any event was by his express nomination. The reasons for Augustus’ favour need not be sought so much in any political contingencies, which might suggest alterations in the client-kingdoms, as in the sympathy with which he followed Herod’s effort to bring Judaea out of its isolation and turn it into a client-kingdom on which Rome could count as much or even more than the others. Herod’s aim was to reduce the Jewish State to the normal type, to hellenize it and by so doing strengthen it for the defence of the frontiers of the Empire. The progress of this hellenization can be seen in every aspect of the State’s life, and all traces of the theocracy were systematically swept away.

Herod’s coinage no longer bore legends in Hebrew; it is entirely Greek. His court assumed a Hellenistic character through all its grades, from the Chancellor or Finance Minister Ptolemaeus down to the numerous minor officials, and the customary Hellenistic court-titles, kinsmen, comrades, friends, were all introduced. On the model of the Hellenistic kingdoms, too, was the new private Council of the king, the Synedrion, which took over all the political and judicial functions of the old Sanhedrin, over which the High Priest had presided, and whose competence was now strictly limited to jurisdiction on religious questions. The royal favourites received grants of lands as fiefs according to the usual Hellenistic practice. Many of the highest posts were held by non­Jews of Greek training. Literary men were specially favoured, for they would introduce foreign modes of thought; the most famous was Nicolaus of Damascus, the adviser and historian of the king, but we hear of a rhetorician, Irenaeus, and Andromachus and Gemellus, to whom was entrusted the education of the king’s sons, must have been rhetoricians too. So the king’s sons received a Greek training, and furthermore, two of them, Alexander and Aristobulus, sons of the Hasmonaean Mariamme, were sent to Rome in 23 b.c. to complete their education, though they apparently roused great scandal by living in the house of a Gentile, Asinius Pollio. Fifteen years later three sons, of different wives, Archelaus, Antipas and Philip, were also sent to Rome, but scandal was avoided this time since they probably lived in a Jewish household. Herod himself displayed a fondness for Greek culture: he would discuss rhetorical or philosophic points with Nicolaus, declaring that he felt himself nearer to Greeks than to Jews, and he chose Greek as the language for his Memoirs. At Jerusalem, and in other cities, there arose theatres, amphi­theatres and hippodromes, designed for spectacles unknown to and loathed by the Jews, and Greeks were always sure of a wel­come at the Court, where some, like the Spartan notable Eurycles, were for long guests of honour.

So too the structure of Herod’s army was Hellenistic and composed of mercenaries; the Palestinian Jews were totally shut out, as disloyal, though there were plenty of Jews from the Diaspora, especially the Babylonian, and this must be connected with the popularity that Herod enjoyed in the Diaspora. But the majority of the soldiers were Idumaeans, Celts, Thracians, Germans and citizens of various Greek cities, grouped in special units, and it is typical that Augustus should have given Cleopatra’s Celtic bodyguard to Herod. Possibly, too, there were Roman instructors, but we cannot trace their influence. What with civil and military posts a swarm of foreigners must have invaded Judaea, as is shown by the agitation that broke out on Herod’s death against ‘the Greeks.’

For the defence of the frontiers there were military colonies: we hear of one at Esbon (Heshbon) in Peraea, another at Gaba in Galilee and two others, unnamed but important, in Batanaea and Trachonitis. The system of colonies was completed by a chain of fortresses, some in the interior of the country, some on the borders. Masada was rebuilt, as were Machaerus and Alexandreum (this last near Jericho); Herodium was founded near Jerusalem and another stronghold of the same name on the Nabataean frontier. Jericho received a new citadel-wall, called (after Herod’s mother) Cyprus, Jerusalem a whole series of fortifications in addition to the Tower of Antonia, while many of the palaces that Herod built all over Palestine had the character of fortresses. The transformation of the country was completed by the foundation of Hellenistic cities. Samaria was rebuilt in 27 with the name Sebaste; Stratonis Turris was renamed Caesarea and changed, by works that occupied twelve years from their in­ception in 22, into a great seaport, which could deal far better than the small port of Joppa with the trade of Palestine. The rapid growth of this city, with its harbour larger than the Piraeus—in a.d. 6 it became the seat of the imperial procurators—shows how well Herod chose the site. Anthedon was rebuilt with the name Agrippeum or Agrippias, and two other cities were founded in Judaea proper, Antipatris and Phasaelis. The inhabitants of these new foundations were drawn, for the most part, from non-Jews. This is certain for Caesarea and for Sebaste; they were to some extent military colonies, and furnished to the royal army a corps of troops called after the cities from which they came. Yet however favourable Herod might be to Hellenistic cities, he must have limited their autonomy considerably, for Gaza was placed under the governor of Idumaea and other cities were probably treated in a like way.

At the same time Herod spent huge sums outside his kingdom, to gain fame in the great centres of Greece and the Greek East and probably also to prove in a striking way that the Jews had broken with their traditional isolation and meant to take part in the life of the outer world: Sparta, Athens, Rhodes (where Herod rebuilt a temple of Apollo Pythius), Chios, Pergamum, Laodicea, Tripolis, Byblus, Berytus, Tyre, Sidon, Ptolemais, Ascalon, Damascus and Antioch (where the king repaved the main street and provided it with a colonnade), all experienced his royal munificence. He consented to be agonothetes at Olympia, where he established a fund for the upkeep of the games, and he made personal appeals to Agrippa on behalf of Chios and Ilium.

In all this activity his fidelity to Rome was implicit: it became open and expressed where his works were in the nature of homage to the imperial house, as at Caesarea and Sebaste, in the portus Augusti at Caesarea, or in the contribution he made towards the building of Nicopolis, which Augustus had founded in commemoration of Actium. But there were more important aspects still of his loyalty, and they found a Hellenistic manifestation. About 17 b.c. Herod had made his subjects take an oath of allegiance to himself: some ten years later the name of the Emperor was given the first place in this oath. Next, the imperial cult was established in all the non-Jewish lands of the kingdom, visible at its most splendid in the magnificent temple of Augustus at Sebaste, while for Jewish use Herod revived the practice—customary during the Persian and Seleucid overlordship—of daily sacrifice in the Temple for the sovereign; in this case it was for the Roman emperor. In Jerusalem, too, quadriennial games in honour of Augustus were instituted. More than this, Herod entitled himself officially ‘Friend of the Emperor’ and ‘Friend of the Romans’, and was always ready to go where he could be useful: thus in 25 b.c. he sent 500 of his soldiers to take part in the Arabian expedition of Aelius Gallus, and in 14 the little fleet, which he had had built, sailed into the Black Sea to help Agrippa who was threatening war on the Bosporan kingdom. On his side Augustus displayed his sympathy for the new Jewish policy by taking on himself the expenses of the sacrifices in his honour in the Temple and by making other gifts to it, while his pleasure at the foundation of Caesarea took the form of a donation of over 500 talents from himself and from his family, at the inauguration in 10 b.c. His feelings were shared by his great helper Agrippa, who in 15 b.c. gave, in the name of the Roman government, an impressive demonstration of friendship by visiting Jerusalem, where he offered a hecatomb in the Temple and made a donation to the populace. In his turn Herod paid a state visit to Augustus in Rome about 18—17 b.c.

Such a policy must have been extremely expensive to finance, the more so that we have no good grounds for believing that Herod’s kingdom had not to pay tribute to Rome. The obligation is proved for the territories added to Judaea in the time of Antony; it is hard to believe that, had conditions changed during the remainder of Herod’s rule, the sources would not have mentioned it. Yet, apart from those families who suffered confiscation, we cannot say definitely that the expenses of the kingdom pressed very hardly on his subjects. We may pass over the fact that Herod twice (in 20 and 14 b.c.) remitted part of the taxes and that in 25, during a severe famine, he undertook the provisioning of the country, for these statements are capable of contrary interpretations. But the total of the yearly taxes paid to Herod, about 1000 Jewish talents, seems to have been two hundred talents lower than that which Agrippa I imposed on his smaller and poorer kingdom. On the other hand the public works undertaken all over the kingdom must have given employment to many, and this by itself, apart from the watchful police-system of Herod, explains why we hear nothing, as we do before and after his reign, of bands of brigands in conflict with the land-owners; this benefit would alone have been enough to justify an increase in taxation. Indeed the only economic unrest in this period was in a Greek city, Gadara (c. 20 b.c.), and its complaints were brusquely rejected by Augustus. Nor is it fair to suppose that Herod helped himself by manipulating the currency; on the contrary he improved it by reducing the amount of lead, which had risen to 27 per cent, during the brief reign of Antigonus, to 12’8 per cent.

The truth is that Herod had other sources of income than the taxes of his subjects; first and foremost large hereditary estates, increased by confiscations, and secondly revenues from his commercial and industrial ventures. About these we have only stray notices, but they must have been on a large scale, as for instance his contract for half the revenues of the copper-mines in Cyprus, for which he paid Augustus 300 talents in 12 b.c. In his speculations Herod was simply developing his father’s estate, for Antipater was above all a financier and contractor. The reports on Herod’s will, in which he left huge legacies (among them 1500 talents to Augustus and the imperial family), show how great his economic resources were.

Generally, apart from a small group of nobles ruined politically and financially, the Jews had no reason for discontent from the economic standpoint. And in one way no ruler contributed so much as Herod to the prestige of the Jewish religion, for the reason given above that his ambition was too strong to forgo popularity with the Jews. Thus, as he remained a Jew in religion, though claiming to be more Greek than Jew, the prestige of the Jews’ religion was always an element in his own. In spite of gathering so many foreigners to his court, he could yet demand that the Nabataean vizier, Syllaeus, who had asked for the hand of his sister Salome, should be converted to Judaism, thus rendering the marriage impossible; and though he built foreign temples, in 20 B.C. he began the rebuilding of the Great Temple at Jerusalem. A proof of the magnificence of this rebuilding—which was proverbial—is its long duration; some ten years passed before it could even be inaugurated, and it was not properly finished till a.d. 64, on the very eve of the war with Rome. But Herod also intervened on behalf of the Jews of the Diaspora whenever their religious liberties or political rights were in danger: in 14 b.c. he caused Nicolaus to plead, with success, for the rights of the Jews in Asia Minor before Agrippa at Ephesus, and at the same time— though not with the same success—for those of the Jews of Cyrene; the echoes that Agrippa’s visit to Jerusalem aroused among all the Jews can easily be imagined. Indeed, in the Diaspora, where men could better appreciate the advantages of Herod’s prestige in the Gentile world and where they cared less about scrupulous observance of the law, Herod enjoyed great popularity which lasted long after his death, and it is worth noting that one of the Jewish communities in Rome was called after him.

But in Palestine things fell out differently. Herod’s work of superficial hellenization, designed simply to impose a different political structure, lacked the co-operation of the Jews and naturally did not alter their convictions in the least. That Herod was often eager to proclaim himself a Jew only rendered his offences graver when he broke the Law. Two instances only of such violations need be cited. As a penalty for theft Herod laid down a new law permitting the sale of the guilty party as a slave to a Gentile; the Mosaic Law did not permit a Jew to be enslaved for more than six years and only in his own country. He allowed his statue to be set up in a Gentile temple in Batanaea. In short, hellenization, presented openly as diametrically opposed to Judaism, would have met with unsurmountable obstacles. As it was, owing to the incomplete detachment of Herod from Judaism, alternating with efforts at conciliation, such as the rebuilding of the Temple, which only helped to inflame national religious feeling more warmly, hellenization seemed a series of outrages against the Law by a disloyal convert and provoked the national conscience to a reaction so violent as to overwhelm the effect of all the political reforms.

IV. THE LAST YEARS OF THE REIGN: DOMESTIC AND RELIGIOUS QUARRELS

Religious hostility lay dormant so long as family strife did, and this, after the murders of 30—28 b.c., could not flare up again until a new generation of the Hasmonaean house, represented by Mariamme’s sons Alexander and Aristobulus, reached manhood. By sending these two sons to the imperial court at Rome in 23 Herod had shown that he thought of them as successors, provided, of course, that Augustus, in whose right the choice lay, agreed. But from now onwards the domestic situation became complicated, and was to become even more so, owing to Herod’s numerous marriages—ten in all—and the resultant rivalries between the several sets of sons. It will be enough to mention here that by a second Mariamme, daughter or sister of the High Priest Simon (Boethus’ son), the king had a son Herod; by a Samaritan, Malthace, besides a daughter, two sons Archelaus and Antipas; by a Jewess of Jerusalem, Cleopatra, a son Philip. That by 20 b.c. he was already aware of the difficulties intrinsic in the situation is shown by the nomination of his brother Pheroras to the tetrarchy of Peraea, a measure that must be interpreted in the sense that while he felt it necessary to secure the loyal support of his brother, he also believed a division of the kingdom between the members of his family unavoidable; though possibly this division was to be limited, according to an utopian idea to which he clung obstinately, by the elevation of one, as the true king, above all the rest.

About 17 b.c. the two heirs designate returned from Rome: Alexander was married to Glaphyra, the daughter of the Cappadocian king Archelaus, Aristobulus to Berenice, the daughter of Herod’s sister Salome. These two obviously political alliances revealed Herod’s intentions clearly, as also his desire that the sons of the Hasmonaean should be bound more closely to his father’s family. But his attempt at peace-making failed: the old feud was now rekindled by both Salome and Pheroras, to whom the imperious temperament of the two young men possibly lent a handle. Herod certainly gave ear to their attacks, for he recalled to the court his wife Doris and her son Antipater, who represented the pure Idumaean tradition among his children. His designs for Antipater are by no means clear, but as he soon sent him to Rome in the suite of Agrippa (13 B.C.), he presumably meant him to have a share—perhaps the chief share—in the succession. The hatred between Antipater and the two sons of Mariamme naturally knew no bounds; even from Rome Antipater tried to achieve the overthrow of his brothers. Eventually he and his messengers convinced Herod that the two were plotting against Herod’s life. The king’s violent and suspicious temper suddenly broke loose again, as fifteen years before, and all the worse because he loved so well the sons by whom he believed himself betrayed. Indeed the most pitiable side of Herod’s cruelty is just this, that it blazed out so furiously against real or suspected treachery in those to whom he was most attached. He decided to charge both his sons before Augustus, and they were tried at Aquileia in 12 b.c. The Emperor, with his usual good sense, tried to reconcile Herod and his sons, and for the time being succeeded. It was agreed that all three claimants should be kings after Herod’s death and all wear the insignia of royalty, but that Antipater should exercise a primacy (though not, to modern eyes, a very clearly defined primacy) over the other two. But the solution was only temporary, and intrigues soon began again, complicated by all the customary jealousies and gossip of the harem. For instance it is said that a coolness developed between Herod and Pheroras because the king wished to marry one of his daughters to him, while Pheroras refused to part from one of his mistresses. It is certain, however, that Pheroras and Alexander drew towards each other and were accused of conspiring together, and that it was only the timely intervention of Archelaus of Cappadocia, Alexander’s father-in-law, that saved them.

But meanwhile all these quarrels had sickened Augustus. And just about this time a fresh incident occurred to sharpen his annoyance and prove that he was beginning to view Herod with a different eye. Syllaeus, the vizier of the Nabataean king Obodas and determinedly hostile to Herod, not only helped some rebels in the Trachonitis but also tried to relieve his country from paying a debt contracted with Herod, or rather to withdraw it from the economic and political influence that Herod had been exerting over it since Cleopatra’s time. Herod demanded the handing-over of the rebels from Trachonitis, whom he was sheltering, and the payment of the debt (12 b.c.). The dispute dragged on till Herod lost patience and in 9 b.c. got leave from the legate of Syria to invade Nabataea. The expedition was purely punitive, with no territorial gain in view, but it sufficed to waken the suspicions of Augustus, who was misled by Syllaeus; he intimated to Herod that their friendship was at an end; henceforth he would treat him no longer as an ally but as a subject. It needed all the eloquence of Nicolaus and the support of Aretas IV—who had just succeeded Obodas and bore no kindly thoughts towards the minister of his predecessor—to turn Augustus to gentler counsels: perhaps too it needed the establishment of the oath of fealty to the Emperor, the introduction of which about this time, c. 8/7 B.C., should probably be regarded as one of the means devised by Herod to recapture the Emperor’s goodwill. But though relations improved the old sympathy did not return; indeed it could not, for now the family feuds sheered downwards to such tragedy as to draw from Augustus the bitter jest that he would sooner be Herod’s pig than Herod’s son.

Fresh charges were brought against Alexander and Aristobulus about 7 b.c., the agent apparently being the Spartan Eurycles. Probably, in contrast to the previous occasion, the accusation was well founded, for Augustus gave leave for it to proceed, merely ordaining that the trial should take place outside Herod’s territory at Berytus, before a court of which Roman officials must form part; the court sat, and condemned the two brothers to death. Disaffection at once appeared in the army, an indication that extensive propaganda for a coup d’état had been used on the soldiers, and though it was ruthlessly repressed it is likely that the fear provoked by the movement drove Herod to carry out the sentence on his two sons without delay.

This disaffection was one of the first signs of a new unrest creeping over the country. Apart from the unimportant rebellion in Trachonitis, the last outbreak that could have disturbed Herod was that of the governor of Idumaea, Costobarus, about 27 b.c. and even that was of small consequence. But now the various members of his family, looking for supporters for their designs, offered a chance of expression to hidden discontent and even created it where it had not been before. The army was restive: more serious was a revolt among the Pharisees. They had already refused to take the oath to the king in 17 b.c. and though that was definite political opposition—for unlike the Essenes they had no objection on principle to oaths—owing to their large numbers Herod had had to leave them unpunished.

Now, on the introduction of the new oath, which included the Emperor’s name, the Pharisees to the number of 6000 again refused to swear. Herod could not again leave them unpunished and he imposed a fine. But Pheroras’ wife sided with them and paid the fine for them. Though Herod recognized the gravity of the issue and killed several of the chief men he dared not proceed against his brother’s wife. Old age and approaching death seemed to emphasize his aversion from the strict letter of the Law, and he lost the comparative self-control that he had so far shown. He transgressed the Mosaic prohibition of images by putting the figure of an eagle over the gate of the Temple. Whatever was the precise religious motive that underlay his action—if indeed it was anything more than a last provocative gesture against the orthodox whom he loathed—we must probably add a deep difference in matters religious to the already numerous reasons for these domestic quarrels; while Pharisaism was gaining some members of his family, Herod was drawing farther and farther away from it.

Pharisaism certainly reappeared in the next stage of the conflict. Though we have only a confused account of the enmity that arose between Herod and Antipater, once the latter had got rid of his rivals, two points emerge clearly: the first that Pheroras, in growing aversion from his brother, was working with Antipater to oust Herod, the second, that through his wife he was coming under the influence of Pharisaic circles. More we do not know, but the upshot was startling. Antipater, who had been sent for the second time to Rome in 5 b.c. to win the approval of Augustus for his nomination as sole heir to the throne, lost his influence in a moment and was summoned back to stand his trial, while only Pheroras’ death a few months before saved him from a like fate. Even here, it is worth noting, the extraordinary court set up, of which the legate of Syria was a member, accepted the proofs of the accusation adduced by Nicolaus and sentenced Antipater to death; nor did Augustus, in spite of the growing disgust in his heart and his loss of confidence in the kingdom of Judaea, think of refusing permission to carry out the sentence.

Antipater was executed only a few days before his father, seventy years of age and for long ailing, himself went down to the grave (end of March—early April, 4 b.c.). It may be that, thanks to Herod’s perverse cruelty, the son’s condemnation hastened the father’s death. Certainly he never showed himself a more determined hater than in those last days when he turned his frenzied energies against all whom he suspected of anticipating the joy of hearing of his death. A group of Pharisees, who had been instigated by two scribes to pull down the sacrilegious eagle on the Temple, were punished with inhuman ferocity; many were con­demned to death, some actually burnt alive. On the very eve of his death he had the notables of his kingdom shut up in the hippodrome at Jericho, presumably holding them as hostages to secure an undisturbed succession to the throne for his sons; this seems more probable, at any rate, than Josephus’ assertion that he meant to kill them and so smother the outbursts of joy his death would otherwise have caused. Such a measure might perhaps have hindered a rebellion; but it was cancelled by Salome, who deemed it more politic to set the hostages free as soon as Herod was dead. So these men were allowed to spread through the country, exasperated by the outrage done to them and helping, quite as much as the memory of the recent massacre of the Pharisees, to foment fresh discontents.

V. JUDAEA BECOMES A ROMAN PROVINCE

Once again dynastic quarrels came to the rescue of the Jewish nation. Herod had nominated Archelaus as his successor, though he had assigned to Antipas the tetrarchy of Galilee and Peraea, and to Philip that of Gaulanitis, Trachonitis, Batanaea and Panias, while to his sister Salome he had bequeathed Jamnia, Azotus and Phasaelis. But in a will drawn up a little before he had left the throne to Antipas. The reasons for the change are unknown. Naturally Antipas began working at Rome to gain Augustus’ recognition of the will that favoured him, and so Archelaus in his turn got Nicolaus to champion his rights, and meanwhile organized a campaign to win Jewish favour by offering an amnesty and lower taxes. But the people felt its strength, grew bolder and demanded more, above all the dismissal of ‘the Greeks’ from their posts; the crowds that assembled at Jerusalem for the Passover of 4 b.c. were riotous and repressed with difficulty. A little later a Jewish embassy arrived at Rome, asking for the abolition of the monarchy and the reinstatement of the theocracy under a Roman protectorate. But its desires were no more welcome than the appeals of Archelaus, for Augustus’ one anxiety now was to break up the kingdom of Herod—which he regarded as useless—and yet give the appearance of upholding his will. For this reason he granted the rank of autonomous States to the tetrarchies created by Herod for Antipas and Philip, and reduced the kingdom of Archelaus (Judaea, Idumaea and Samaria) to an ethnarchy; also, by taking away the cities of Gaza, Gadara and Hippos and an­nexing them to the province of Syria, he satisfied to some extent the wish of the Greek cities not to be under a Jewish State. But the territories which had been bequeathed to Salome were incorporated in the ethnarchy of Archelaus, because they were regarded (perhaps in accord with Herod’s intentions) as her private property and not as her dominion.

Meanwhile the failure of the Jewish embassy at Rome provoked new and serious outbreaks in Judaea, and the procurator Sabinus, who had been placed there by Augustus to safeguard the interests of Rome and of the sons of Herod, merely aggravated them by his shuffling policy. Armed bands sprang up on every side and petty captains took the title of king. Varus, the legate of Syria, was forced to dispatch two legions to harry Palestine with fire and sword. At last the three sons of Herod were able to return to their territories: the need to defend themselves against their subjects did something to lessen their rivalries, but a sign of the conflicting claims of Archelaus and Antipas is perhaps to be seen in their simultaneous adoption of the name Herod; by raising it to a dynastic name each presumably meant to show that he regarded himself as the true heir and successor of Herod. The tetrarchies of Philip and Antipas remained intact (save for a brief interval between a.d. 34 and 37 in the former tetrarchy) until Agrippa I absorbed them in a.d. 41 in the larger Jewish kingdom that Claudius gave him, and then took on a new life in altered form under Agrippa II; but the principality of Archelaus, comprising the majority of the Jewish population, had no chance of survival. The enmity of the people was rendered more bitter by the hardships that followed the stoppage of the great public works begun by Herod, and for long the presence of a Roman legion was needed in Jerusalem. Archelaus married his cousin Glaphyra, who had been the wife of his brother Alexander and had then passed by a second marriage to Juba of Mauretania; but since Glaphyra had already had children by Alexander, the marriage was illegal according to Jewish law and only increased his unpopularity. Nor does the other evidence suggest any striking sagacity, for his only recorded achievements were the foundation of a village (kome) called after him and some fresh palm-plantations at Jericho. Least satisfactory of all must have been his relations with Rome. Augustus had long ago lost any illusions as to the possibility of making Judaea a really strong client-kingdom. Consequently he readily gave a hearing in a.d. 6 to two embassies; one was Jewish, the other Samaritan, but they came with an unanimity that must have been unique to demand again the abolition of the monarchy. Archelaus was banished to Vienna in Gallia Narbonensis, and Judaea was transformed into a province under an imperial procurator, commanding a body of troops and with judicial powers (jus gladii).

The Jews had been unable to find any other way to escape the hated dynasty than by demanding direct administration by Rome: some years later, when this direct rule began to seem to them even less bearable than kingship, there were many ready to group together in a party, which aimed at the restoration of the monarchy of the Herods; they were the Herodiani of the Gospel texts.

CHAPTER XII

THE NORTHERN FRONTIERS UNDER AUGUSTUS