HEROD The Great, Sylvester Hassell During the great civil war in Rome the fate of Judea, like that of nearly all other nations, hung in trembling suspense. After the death of Pompey the prudent Antipater rendered Caesar essential service in his campaign in Egypt in favor of Cleopatra, and was rewarded with the full rites of Roman citizenship for himself, and (B.C. 47) the appointment of procurator or governor over the whole of Judea; also the full re-establishment of Hyrcanus in the high priesthood. Antipater, still further presuming on the favor of Rome, proceeded to appoint his elder son Phasael to the government of Jerusalem, and the younger Herod to that of Galilee, B.C. 47.
Herod began to develop his natural decision and severity of character. He arrested robbers and destroyed them without trial, and set at naught the authorities in Jerusalem. When brought before the Sanhedrim he appeared in arms, and by affrighting them escaped punishment. Only one man, Sameas, dared even to rebuke him; and, strange to say, when he afterward slew the other members of the Sanhedrim, he spared this man Sameas. He afterward obtained by a bribe the military command of Coele-Syria, and advanced against Jerusalem; but, by the intervention of his father, withdrew his forces.
Upon the death of Caesar, Capias assumed the administration of Syria, B.C. 43. Judea was heavily oppressed every way, and the taxes were so exorbitant that the whole population of some towns were sold as slaves to raise tribute.
Herod was ever dexterous and bold. After the great battle at Philippi, Herod made his approaches to the rising sun, and obtained the favor of Mark Anthony. Antipater had been poisoned by Malichus to prevent the rising and then powerful Idumenean influence in Judea.
“An unexpected enemy arose, to trouble again the peace of Judea. At this juncture the Parthians under Pacorus, the king’s son, entered Syria and Asia Minor, and overran the whole region. A part of their army, under Marzapharnes, took possession of Coele-Syria. Antigonus, the last remaining branch of the Asmonean race, determined to risk his fortune in the desperate hazard of Parthian protection; he offered 1,000 talents and 500 Jewish women—a strange compact—as the price of his restoration to the Jewish kingdom. Antigonus himself raised a considerable native power and entered Judea, followed by Pacorus, the cup-bearer of the king, who had the same name with the king’s son. Antigonus fought his way to Jerusalem, and, by means of his party, entered the city. Jerusalem was torn asunder by the contending factions; and the multitudes who came up at the feast of Pentecost, adopting different parties, added to the fierce hostility and mutual slaughter. The Antigonians held the temple, the Hyrcanians the palace, and, daily contests taking place the streets ran with blood. Antigonus at length invidiously proposed to submit their mutual differences to the arbitration of Pacorus, the Parthian general. Phasael weakly consented; and Pacorus, admitted within the town, prevailed on the infatuated Phasael to undertake a journey with Hyrcanus, and submit the cause to Barzapharnes, the commander in chief. He set forth on this ill-fated expedition, and was at first received with courtesy; the plan of the Parthians being to abstain from violence till they had seized Herod, who, having vainly remonstrated with his brother on his imprudence, remained in the city. But the crafty Herod, receiving warning from his brother, whose suspicions had been too late awakened, fled with the female part of the family toward Masada. The journey was extremely dangerous, and at one time Herod, in despair, had almost attempted his own life. At Masada, a strong fortress on the west shore of the Dead Sea, he received succor brought by his brother Joseph from Idumea; him he left in command at Masada, and retired himself into Arabia, from thence to Egypt, and at length to Rome. In the meantime Hyrcanus and Phasael had been made prisoners; the former, Antigonus not wishing to put him to death, was incapacitated forever from the office of High Priest by the mutilation of his ears. Phasael anticipated the executioner by beating his brains out against the wall of his prison.”—Milner.”
The Parthians plundered the city of Jerusalem and ravaged the country, notwithstanding their alliance with Antigonus. Herod, in the meantime, gained favor at Rome beyond his expectations, and Augustus and Antony united in conferring the crown upon him, 40 years B.C. He returned at once to Palestine, raised a force, rescued his brother and bride, who were shut up in the fortress of Masada, and reduced to great extremities by the besieging army of Antigonus, and, overrunning Galilee, at length sat down before Jerusalem.
Silo, a Roman general who was acting with Herod, proved treacherous and retired from before Jerusalem, and Herod was compelled to do the same.
Herod fixed his headquarters at Samaria, and contented himself with destroying robbers, B.C. 39. The next year, with Roman auxiliaries, he made another attack on Jerusalem, and was defeated. He retired to make his complaints to Antony at Samosata, and, while absent, his brother risked a battle, against Herod’s advice, with the forces of Antigonus, and was killed. Herod on his return avenged the death of his brother Joseph by the total discomfiture of Pappus, the general of Antigonus.
In the spring of the next year, B.C. 37, he formed the regular siege of Jerusalem; during the siege he returned to Samaria to consummate his marriage with Mariamne, the beautiful granddaughter both of Aristobulus and Hyrcanus. By this marriage he formed an intimate connection with the line of the Asmonean princes, and he hastened to secure his throne by the conquest of the capital. Jerusalem held out for above half a year, but was finally taken by the Roman army under Sosius. Great cruelties were inflicted on the people, and much injury done to the town by the exasperated Roman soldiery, even against the expostulations of Herod himself, who did not wish to be left king over a desert. Antigonus was sent to Antony at Antioch and slain. Herod was fairly installed, by the authority of Rome, king of Judea, B.C. 37. This was that Herod the Great who swayed the sceptre over Jerusalem and Palestine till after the birth of our Savior.
He did more by far for the outward improvement of the cities, towns and fortresses of Palestine than any other king or ruler since the captivity. He thoroughly repaired and greatly enlarged and adorned the temple of Zerubbabel at Jerusalem. He was upheld by the great power of Rome, and, while adding to his own fortune, he added to the wealth and ornament of his country.
But he was one of the most jealous and vindictive of men in all his private relations, and cruel to the last degree toward all whom he suspected of designs on his crown or disobedience to his authority. He had ten wives and fourteen children. The particulars of his reign might be traced, year by year, down to the period of his death, but they are so revolting, so cruel, and bloodthirsty, that the reader might as well be spared the shocking perusal. Suffice it to say that in addition to the vast number of murders committed by him during a long, unbroken reign of over forty years, may be mentioned that of his beautiful and noble wife Mariamne, her grandfather, father, brother, uncle, and two of her sons, most noble youths, who were his own children, who were educated at Rome, and unsurpassed in promise by any in the land.
All these were accused of treasonable designs toward him, without any foundation in truth. He himself arraigned before Caesar his two sons for trial, and took the lead in person to manage with all imaginable and unnatural hatred.
No wonder then that such a monster in human shape should play off his hypocrisy with the wise men of the East, and, so soon as the birth of a “King of the Jews” was announced to
him send forth and slay all the children in Bethlehem from two years old and under, in order to include that one who, he supposed, would aspire to his throne.
Neither need we wonder that a king so steeped in human blood, and so fully convinced that the execrations of an outraged people were resting on him, should, in order to make the people mourn, instead of rejoicing at his death, order some of the principal men in every family in the land shut up in prison, so that an executioner should be ready at the announcement of his own death to slay them also.
The innocents were slain in the last year of his life, it is supposed. And the last public act of his life was to order the execution of his son Antipater, who was in prison, and who, it was said, had attempted to bribe the keeper to let him out. He was slain just five days before his father’s death. Herod for a long time was awfully afflicted both in body and mind; he was haunted with dreadful forebodings and distressing dreams, and yet nothing appeared to soften his stony heart or cause him to relent or repent for one hour. His conscience was seared, and failed to admonish or have any government over his mind. He lived to be seventy years of age, having been king of Jerusalem thirty-seven years, and died a few years before the Passover B.C. 4, at Jericho, after suffering the most horrible agonies, mental and physical. Josephus states that he had fever, and an intolerable itching over all his body, and intestinal inflammation, and dropsy, and worms, and putrefaction. God thus gave the inhuman monster a foretaste of the awful and eternal retribution awaiting him beyond the grave.” (Hassell’s History ppg 167-170)