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The Crown Rome Gave Herod Before He Had a Kingdom

Antigonus bit the ears off his own uncle so the old priest could never serve again. Herod's brother broke his skull in a cell rather than be a hostage.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. The Governor Who Killed Without a Court
  2. The Sanhedrin Trembles Before a Man in Purple
  3. The Parthians Crown a Rival
  4. Flight Through the Judean Dark
  5. A King Made in Rome
  6. Three Years to the Walls of Jerusalem
The Crown Rome Gave Herod Before He Had a Kingdom Click for full size

The Governor Who Killed Without a Court

Herod was twenty-five when his father Antipater set him over Galilee, and the first thing he did with the power was hunt a man. A raider named Hezekiah had been burning the Syrian border villages for years. Herod ran him down, took him, and put him and a crowd of his followers to death without asking anyone. The Syrians sang his name in the border towns. In Jerusalem, the mothers of the dead men walked to the Temple every morning and wept until the priests could not ignore them.

The killing was lawful for Rome and a scandal for the Jews. Only the Sanhedrin, the high court of seventy, could put a man to death, and Herod had skipped the court as if it were furniture. So the court summoned him.

The Sanhedrin Trembles Before a Man in Purple

He came to answer for the executions dressed in purple, with armed men at his back. The judges looked at the soldiers and looked at the floor. One old Pharisee, Sameas, stood up. "You have let a man come before you who should stand here in mourning," he told them, "and one day he will kill every one of you." They heard him and did nothing. Word arrived from Sextus Caesar, the Roman governor of Syria, that Herod was to walk free, and the court that could sentence a Jew to death could not find its voice against a favorite of Rome.

Herod had learned the only truth that mattered in his century. Power in Judea no longer rose from the Temple or the court. It came down from Rome, and Rome loved a useful man. When the Roman world tore itself apart after Caesar's murder, he paid Cassius the tribute Cassius demanded, then turned to Mark Antony the moment Antony held the east. Jewish envoys came to Antony to call Herod a tyrant. Antony made him a tetrarch instead and sent them home.

The Parthians Crown a Rival

In the year the Parthians poured across the Roman east, all of it nearly came apart in a night. Antigonus, the last living son of the old Hasmonean line, opened his arms to Rome's great eastern enemy and offered them Judea in exchange for his family's throne. A true Jewish heir with a foreign army behind him marched into Jerusalem.

The Parthians spoke sweetly of negotiation and seized the men who trusted them. They took Phasael, Herod's brother, and the aged high priest Hyrcanus. Phasael understood the trap and would not be a hostage against his own blood, so he broke his skull against the stone of his cell. Antigonus went to his uncle Hyrcanus and bit the ears from his head with his own teeth, because a high priest had to be a man without blemish, and a man without ears could never serve again.

Flight Through the Judean Dark

They meant to take Herod the same way, with a Parthian servant sent to coax him past the walls. His betrothed, a Hasmonean princess, told him not to go. He listened, and that night he ran. He led his household, his soldiers, and what treasure he could lift south into the desert, fighting Antigonus's men in the dark as he went. On the road his mother's wagon turned over and he thought her dead, and he set the point of his own sword to his body before he saw her stir. He walled his family up in the cliff fortress of Masada with too little water and rode on to the Nabateans to beg for help. Their king shut the door in his face. So Herod did the one thing no fugitive from Judea had done. He sailed for Rome.

A King Made in Rome

He stood in front of the Roman Senate, a man with no royal blood, grandson of Idumean converts, and asked them for a nation. Antony spoke for him. Octavian, who would one day be Augustus, spoke for him. The Senate rose and named him King of the Jews, and he walked out of the Senate house between the two most powerful men alive, the consuls trailing behind to offer sacrifice on the Capitol. The Jews had a king now that not one Jew had chosen. He held the crown. He did not hold a single acre of the kingdom it belonged to.

Three Years to the Walls of Jerusalem

Antigonus and his Parthians still held Jerusalem, and it cost Herod three years of war to take what Rome had signed over in an afternoon. He landed at Ptolemais and Galilee came to him as he marched, but the Roman general Silo, quietly paid by Antigonus, invented reason after reason to stall. Herod's family was still dying of thirst on Masada until a sudden rain filled their cisterns and saved them. He hunted rebels who hid in caves in the sheer rock by lowering soldiers down the cliff faces in baskets to burn them out. His brother Joseph threw away his life in a rash fight near Jericho, and Antigonus had the head struck from the body. The Galileans rose. Herod turned back and broke them.

The last siege came with the Roman general Sosius and eleven legions at his side. Jerusalem held for five months. When the outer wall fell the killing moved street by street and then into the courts of the Temple itself, and the legionaries began to butcher everyone they found. Herod ran among them begging them to stop. "Would you leave me king of a desert," he said, and paid to hold his own soldiers and the Romans back from the survivors' throats. Antigonus gave himself up and was sent to Antony, who had him beheaded at Herod's urging, the first time Rome ever put a captured king to death that way. The Hasmonean house that had ruled the Jews for a hundred and twenty-six years ended under the axe. The kingdom was Herod's, won by no birthright, only by nerve and the favor of Rome.

HerodJosephusRoman JudeaHasmoneansParthiansPowerExile
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The texts behind this telling. Some cards carry a translation of the source; others are our own retelling of it, and each card says which. Every card links out to the original.

Antiquities XIV.12-14Antiquities of the Jews (Josephus)

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.Antiquities of the Jews, trans. William Whiston · Public Domain

Herod was twenty-five years old when his father Antipater handed him the governorship of Galilee. His first act was to hunt down a band of raiders led by a man named Hezekiah who had been terrorizing the Syrian border. Herod captured Hezekiah and executed him along with many of his followers. The Syrians celebrated. The Jewish establishment in Jerusalem was horrified.

The executions were the problem. Under Jewish law, only the Sanhedrin (the supreme rabbinic court) had the authority to impose capital punishment. Herod had bypassed the court entirely. Josephus records in his Antiquities that the mothers of the slain men came to the Temple every day, demanding that Hyrcanus bring Herod to trial. The Sanhedrin summoned him.

Herod arrived not as a defendant but as a conqueror. He came dressed in purple, surrounded by armed soldiers. The judges were terrified. Only one man, a Pharisee named Sameas, had the courage to speak. He told the court that if they let Herod walk free, he would one day punish them all. They ignored the warning. The Roman governor of Syria, Sextus Caesar, sent word that Herod was to be acquitted. The court obeyed.

This episode reveals everything about Herod's character and the political reality of Judea under Roman dominion. He understood that Jewish institutions no longer held real power. What mattered was Roman favor, and Herod had it in abundance.

When the Roman civil wars intensified after Julius Caesar's assassination, Herod navigated the chaos with ruthless pragmatism. He allied with Cassius, raising the enormous tribute demanded of Judea. When Mark Antony emerged as Rome's ruler in the east, Herod pivoted immediately. Jewish delegations came to Antony to accuse Herod of tyranny. Antony refused to hear them. Instead, he appointed both Herod and his brother Phasael as tetrarchs, effectively making them the rulers of Judea while the aged Hyrcanus retained only the hollow title of high priest.

Herod had learned the essential lesson of his era. Legitimacy came from Rome, not from the people. And Rome loved useful men.

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Antiquities XIV.15-16Antiquities of the Jews (Josephus)

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.Antiquities of the Jews, trans. William Whiston · Public Domain

In 40 BCE, the Parthian Empire invaded the Roman East and everything Herod had built nearly collapsed overnight. Antigonus, the last surviving son of Aristobulus, allied with the Parthians to reclaim the Hasmonean throne. It was a devastating combination: a legitimate Jewish claimant backed by Rome's greatest eastern rival.

The Parthians marched into Jerusalem. Josephus tells us in his Antiquities that they deceived both Phasael and the elderly Hyrcanus with promises of negotiation, then seized them both. Phasael, realizing the trap, smashed his own head against the rocks of his prison cell rather than be used as leverage against his brother. Hyrcanus was mutilated. Antigonus personally bit off his uncle's ears so that he could never again serve as high priest, since the law required the high priest to be physically unblemished.

Herod almost fell into the same trap. The Parthians sent a butler to lure him outside the city walls. But Herod's fiancee, the Hasmonean princess he was betrothed to, warned him not to trust them. He listened. That night, he fled Jerusalem with his family, his soldiers, and whatever treasure he could carry.

The escape was harrowing. Herod led a column of refugees south through the Judean desert, fighting off Antigonus's forces along the way. At one point his mother's wagon overturned and Herod was so distraught he nearly killed himself with his own sword. He fortified his family at the mountain fortress of Masada, leaving them besieged and short of water, then continued south to Nabatea seeking help. The Nabatean king refused him.

So Herod did something audacious. He sailed to Rome.

Standing before the Roman Senate, backed by Mark Antony and Octavian (the future Augustus), Herod made his case. The Senate declared him King of Judea. Josephus records that Herod walked out of the Senate house flanked by Antony and Octavian, with the consuls and other magistrates following behind to offer sacrifice at the Capitol. A man with no royal blood, from a family of Idumean converts, had just been crowned king of the Jews by a pagan Senate. Now he just had to conquer his kingdom.

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Antiquities XV.1-3Antiquities of the Jews (Josephus)

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.Antiquities of the Jews, trans. William Whiston · Public Domain

Herod returned from Rome with a crown but no kingdom. Antigonus, backed by the Parthians, controlled Jerusalem. It took Herod three years of brutal campaigning to claim what the Roman Senate had given him.

He landed at Ptolemais (modern Acre) and began gathering forces, marching through Galilee where much of the population rallied to him. Josephus reports in his Antiquities that Herod's army grew daily, but the Roman commanders assigned to help him were unreliable. Silo, one of the Roman generals, had been bribed by Antigonus and kept finding excuses to delay.

Meanwhile, Herod's family was trapped at Masada, besieged and running out of water. Josephus records that only a miraculous rainstorm saved them from being forced to flee to the Nabateans. Herod fought his way south to relieve them, then turned to systematic conquest. He cleared Galilee of resistance, hunted down bandits hiding in caves along sheer cliff faces by lowering soldiers in baskets to smoke them out, and gradually tightened his grip on the country.

Tragedy struck while he was away. His brother Joseph led an ill-advised attack near Jericho and was killed. Antigonus cut off Joseph's head. The Galileans revolted. Herod rushed back, crushed the rebellion, and drove Antigonus's forces into retreat.

The final siege of Jerusalem came in 37 BCE. Herod arrived with the Roman general Sosius and eleven legions. The city held out for five months. When the outer walls fell, the fighting continued street by street, then court by court within the Temple compound itself. Josephus notes that the Romans, once inside, began an indiscriminate slaughter. Herod had to beg them to stop, arguing that if they killed everyone and destroyed everything, he would be king of a desert.

Antigonus surrendered and was sent to Mark Antony, who had him beheaded at Herod's urging. It was the first time Rome had ever executed a king in this manner. With Antigonus dead, the Hasmonean dynasty that had ruled Judea for 126 years came to its end. The kingdom now belonged to Herod, a man Josephus describes as "of no more than a vulgar family," who had won his throne not by birthright but by sheer ruthlessness and Roman favor.

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