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 <i>Antiquities</i> 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.