Herod the GreatThe Herod of popular tradition is the tyrannical King of Judaea who ordered the Massacre of the Innocents and died a terrible death in 4 BC as the judgment of God. But this biography paints a much more complex picture of this contemporary of Mark Antony, Cleopatra, and the Emperor Augustus. Herod devoted his life to the task of keeping the Jews prosperous and racially intact. To judge by the two disastrous Jewish rebellions that occurred within a hundred and fifty years of his death -- those the Jews called the First and Second Roman Wars -- he was not, in the long run, completely successful. For forty years Herod walked the most precarious of political tightropes. For he had to be enough of a Jew to retain control of his Jewish subjects, and enough of a pro-Roman to preserve the confidence of Rome, within whose territory his kingdom fell. For more than a quarter of a century he was one of the chief bulwarks of Augustus' empire in the east. He made Judaea a large and prosperous country. He founded cities and built public works on a scale never seen before: of these, recently excavated Masada is a spectacular example. And he did all this in spite of a continuous undercurrent of protest and underground resistance. The numerous illustrations presents portraits and coins, buildings and articles of everyday use, landscapes and fortresses, and subsequent generations' interpretations of the more famous events, actual and mythical, of Herod's career. |
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Alexander Jannaeus Alexandra ancient Antigonus Antipater Antipater's Antony Antony's Arab Arabia Archelaus Aretas Aristobulus Aristobulus IV Ascalon Asia Minor Augustus Babylonian became brother Caesar Caesarea capital century BC Chapter Cleopatra client coins command Costobarus court Dead Sea declared eastern Egypt emperor enemies ethnarch executed father favour felt fortress frontier Galilee Gate Gaza governor Greek Hasmonaean Hebrew Hellenised Herod Herod's death Herodian Herodium high priest high priesthood Hillel Hyrcanus Hyrcanus II Idumaean imperial Israel Jericho Jerusalem Jesus Jewish Jews Jordan Josephus Judaea Judaism king king's kingdom later Malichus Marcus Agrippa Mariamme Masada Massacre Messianic Mishnah monarch Moreover Nabataean Nicolaus of Damascus occasion Octavian palace Parthian Peraea perhaps Pharisees Phasael Pheroras Pompey possessed pro-Roman probably province Ptolemy Qumran reign Roman Rome royal Sadducees Samaria Samaritan Samaritis Sebaste seemed Seleucid sister Salome Solomon sons Syllaeus Syria Talmud Temple territory towers tradition wife