“KING HEROD, THE GREAT
(37–4 B.C.E)

Perhaps the most vile human being ever to serve as a Jewish king, he inaugurated his regime by murdering forty-five members of the Jewish high court, the Sanhedrin.

Herod did not fall, however, into that category of people who are cruel only to outsiders, and nice to their own family. He murdered his first wife, the Hasmonean princess Mariamne, and their two sons. Later, he executed Antipater, a son from a different marriage, impelling the Roman emperor Augustus to observe: “It is better to be Herod’s pig than his son.” For good measure, he also murdered his mother-in-law, brother-in-law, and the High Priest. Hardly surprising that when a false rumor spread the good “news” that he had died, a popular uprising erupted against his regime.

In characteristically brutal fashion, Herod had forty-two of its leaders burned to death. When he wasn’t murdering people, Herod was a singularly productive king. He beautified and massively expanded the Second Temple, a project that occupied ten thousand laborers and a thousand priests for nine years. The Royal Portico (at the southern end of the Temple’s platform) alone had 162 columns, the tallest a hundred feet high. Given that we don’t know of a single strain of religiosity in Herod’s soul, he apparently hoped this project would win him some affection among his subjects. Herod also rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, created the new port city of Caesarea, which became the Roman capital of Palestine, and constructed fortresses, theaters, stadiums, and harbors throughout Palestine.

Ironically, it was this lackey of Rome who rebuilt Masada, which a century later served as the final outpost of the Jewish revolt against Rome. When Herod died in 4 B.C.E., the emperor Augustus divided his kingdom among three of Herod’s surviving sons.
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