Download Herod, Part One Herod, Roman Client King of Judea 37

Herod, Part One
Herod, Roman Client King of Judea 37-4 BCE
* Rome granted Herod the right to rule Judea internally and autonomously. He was
permitted to maintain an army, appoint internal administrators for public affairs and
funds, and assume judicial and legislative duties.
* Herod was not allowed to have his own foreign policy, as that was the jurisdiction of
his Roman backers.
Herod’s Rise to Power
* Herod’s as Governor of the Galillee: appointed in 48 BCE by Julius Caesar. Proved his
loyalty to Rome by using force to quell any chance of rebellion. He undertook the
extrajudicial executions of Hezekiah the Galilean and other anti-Rome leaders.
* In the aftermath of Caesar’s assassination in the year 44 BCE, Gaius Cassius
Longinus and Marcus Junius Brutus, two of the more prominent assassins, were at
war with Gaius Julius Caesar Octavian (later known as Augustus) and Marcus
Antonius. Cassius arrived in Judea in order to extort more taxes out of the Jews so
that he could fund his wars, and enlisted Herod’s help.
* In reward, Cassius and Brutus appointed Herod strategos of Syria, and promised to
make him the king of the Jews if they were to eventually win control of rome.
* After Antigounus the Hasmonean reconquered Judea form the hands of his brother
Hyrcanus and the rest of Antipater’s sons, Herod escaped to Rome and convinced
Octavian and Marc Anthony to support his attempt to retake Judea as a Roman
province.
* Herod left Rome and organized a massive mercenary army. He succeeded in
conquering the Galilee, Jaffa, Idumea, and Masada, and Samaria from the hands of
Antigonus with the help of the roman legions. Afterwards, he marched on Jerusalem,
which resulted in a tremendous bloodbath.
Roman Considerations in Appointing Herod as King
* Herod had a reputation of loyalty to Rome through his activities as Galilean governor
and tax collector, and it was thought, that as a puppet ruler, he would remain a
steadfast guard of the empire’s eastern frontier.
* Herod had also proved that he was was strong and committed, and not averse to
using deadly force to maintain control. He was also alone among the Jews as being an
advocate of Roman rule.
* The Romans believed that because Herod was Jewish, he would more readily be
accepted by the Jews, and hopefully serve to unify the people and make them loyal to
Rome.
Herod’s Reign
* Generally divided into three periods
1. Herod’s consolidation of power, 37-25 BCE
2. Herod’s golden years, 25-13 BCE
3. Herod’s last years, 13-4 BCE
* Herod had many adversaries and difficulties before his rule was firmly in his hands.
These included: his Jewish subjects, the Hasmoneans, the nobility, the Sanhedrin, the
priesthood, and Cleopatra VII, Queen of Egypt.
Herod Overcomes Jewish Opposition to his Rule
* The majority of the people despised Herod, whom they identified with the brutal
Roman occupation. Herod was rightfully accused of shedding much blood, including
that of Antigonus, the last Hasmonean king.
* Others did not even consider Herod entirely Jewish, and certainly not fit for the throne,
as he was of Idumean descent.
* As per Roman practice, Herod removed many of the Jews’ rights and public
institutions, and turned the people into taxpaying slaves. The priesthood and
Sanhedrin were no longer relevant in setting national policy.
* Herod ruled with an iron fist. He forbade public gatherings and had a private guard
dedicated to preventing revolt. He set up jails, and imprisoned the political opposition,
and executed many at whim.
* Later, Herod demanded that the Jews regularly swear their allegiance to him. Some
researchers claim that the emperor Augustus imposed oaths of allegiance to Rome,
and Herod ordered his subjects to specify Herod in their oaths.
* Herod married Mariamme, granddaughter of Aristobulus II and one of the last
surviving Hasmoneans and legitimate claimants of the throne, in order to bolster his
own claim to the throne. The sages of the Talmud claim that she killed herself before
having borne him any children, making her dynasty extinct.
Hasmonean Opposition to Herod
* Understandable, as they were being usurped. Many also disapproved of Herod’s
marriage to Mariamme, as he was born a commoner.
* Herod did his most to minimize the remaining Hasmoneans. He assassinated many of
them, and removed them from public positions, such as the high priesthood. For
example, Herod removed Mariamme’s brother Aristobulus from the high priesthood,
but under pressure form Cleopatra and Aristobulus’s mother Alexandra, restored
Aristobulus, only to have him murdered a year later and replaced by Ananelus the
Babylonian.
*
* Herod also had Antigonus II, the Hasmonean king who preceded Herod, executed by
Marc Anthony. Years later, Herod murdered the deposed Hasmonean king Hyrcanus II
out of fear that he would lead a new revolt against Herod.
* Later, out of paranoid fear, Herod murdered his mother in law, Alexandra, the mother
of Mariamme, and his alleged sons with Mariamme, Alexander and Aristobulus.
* Herod tried to cultivate a new ruling class in Judea, one that would occupy the
positions formerly occupied by the Hasmoneans.
Herod and the Aristocracy
* The aristocracy opposed Herod’s seizing power, as it generally supported Antigonus,
the Hasmonean scion. Many also felt that their power and influence would be
minimized by Herod.
* Herod massacre 45 aristocrats and seized their property in an effort to intimidate
possible dissenters. He then sought to replace the aristocrats with families from
outlying regions or the diaspora who would share Herod’s pro-Rome views.
* Herod granted his collaborators large properties and important positions in an effort to
ensure their loyalty.
Herod and the Priesthood
* As the Hasmoneans were both the rulers and the high priests, they enjoyed the
support of the majority of the priesthood in the face of Herod’s usurpation.
* Herod reasoned that the masses valued the priesthood more than the monarchy, and
that was the reason for the Hasmoneans holding on to the priesthood.
* Herod, as a true hellenist, felt that power should be solely in the hands of the political
ruler, but as he could not usurp the priesthood, he thought it best to neutralize it. From
then on, the priesthood returned to being a mere religious authority subject to Herod’s
regime. Josephus writes that it was Herod’s jealousy of his popular brother-in-law
Aristobulus, a contender for the high priesthood, that led him to have Aristobulus
drowned.
* Herod decreed that the high priest would be an appointee of the king, who could be
dismissed at whim. Until then, the high priesthood was a hereditary position, and held
by an incumbent for life.
* Herod would auction off the office of the high priest to the highest bidder, only to resell
the office a year later.
* Herod also seized control of the high priest’s uniforms, without which the high priest
could not serve in the temple, and the temple treasury, both in an effort to maintain
strict control over the sacrificial service.
* Concurrently, Herod cultivated a new priestly aristocracy, one that he could keep
under his thumb. Herod also chose lowly families to provide the high priests in an
effort to degrade the office in the view of the people.
For example, the appointment of Ananelus the Bablyonian was crucial because of his
foreign birth and lack of connection to the Hasmoneans. Herod continued with these
policies when he later appointed high priests from the Fabus and Boethus families
from Egypt, and Herod’s heir, Archelaus, appointed high priests from the family of
Ananus.
* These newly minted aristocratic priestly families allied themselves through marriage
with Herod’s family and friends and prominent Sadducee families.
Herod and the Sanhedrin
* The Sanhedrin viewed Herod as an illegitimate usurper, and Herod viewed the
Sanhedrin as a rival for control. He believed that the king did not have to answer to
any one, even to an elected representative body of the people, and to that end, sought
to eliminate, or at least neutralize, the Sanhedrin.
* The Sanhedrin was only allowed to deal with ritual and civil law, but it no longer had
authority to set policy, lead, or deal with criminals, nor was the Sanhedrin ever
consulted by Herod on matters of policy. Instead, Herod appointed a new council of
his confidantes to a new “Sanhedrin”.
Herod and the Jews.
* Herod considered himself a secular ruler, with no obligatory connection to Jewish
values or religious beliefs. He saw maintaining his control of the people as the primary
goal of his reign, and everyone was at his mercy.
* Therefore, despite his squelching of the rights and privileges of the people and the
nullification of their national institutions, he did embark on other attempts to buy the
favor of the people.
* Herod transferred Jews from the diaspora to Judea and settled them in new jewish
agricultural settlements.
* Other farmers who were displaced during the invasions of Gabinus and Pompey were
given new lands in the north and east of the kingdom.
* During the drought year of 25 BCE, Herod bought large amounts of grain and resold it
to the people for cheap, provided seed for free, and lowered taxes.
* Herod also employed many through his magnificent and ambitious building projects,
including of cities, palaces, fortresses, markets, and most importantly, the renovation
of the temple.
* In order to show sensitivity toward his subjects, Herod was careful not to violate
halacha while in areas populated by Jews. For example, he did not found any pagan
centers of worship in Jerusalem in honor of Augustus, instead choosing to honor the
emperor through other means.
* Herod outwardly kept the kashruth and sabbath laws.
* Herod insisted that his brother-in-law-to-be convert to Judaism before marrying
Herod’s sister.
* Even when he tried his sons Alexander and Aristobulus for treason, he insisted on
judging them by torah law, and he avoided minting coins with graven images.
* Yet Herod still did some things that offended the religious sensibilities of his Jewish
subjects, for example, by: attempting to replace the national culture and royal court
with hellenist alternatives, positioning a roman eagle statue above the gate to the
temple, utlising brutal force to obtain his political goals, trying many capital cases
under Roman law, and selling thieves into captivity abroad, which is forbidden by the
Torah and endangers the captives’ abilities to observe Torah law.
* Herod and Foreign Policy
* Cleopatra VII wanted to bring judea back under the control of the Ptolemaic dynasty of
Egypt. She pressured Marc Anthony to remove Jericho and other territory from
Herod’s control and place them under Egyptian control.
* When civil broke out in Rome between the forces of Marc Anthony and the forces of
Octavian, Cleopatra had Anthony send Herod to war against the Nabateans so that
Herod could not assist anthony and earn himself a later favor from anthony, and so
that Herod and the Nabateans would weaken themselves, making both more
vulnerable to an Egyptian takeover.
* The Nabatean war at first difficult for Herod, but by the second year he had won a
decisive victory, and, because Anthony lost his war with Octavian, Herod did not go
down with the rest of anthony’s cohorts.
* Immediately after Octavian’s victory, Herod hurried to ally himself with the victors.
Herod and the procurator of syria also prevented other allies of Anthony from arriving
in Egypt to help Anthony.
* Herod arrived in Rhodes, and convinced Octavian of his value to the new Roman
ruler. Octavian, realizing Herod’s uniqueness as ruler of the Jews and guardian of the
eastern frontier, granted Herod the right to continue to rule Judea as his puppet.
* Herod allowed Octavian’s troops passage through Judea and provided them with food
on their way to Egypt.
* In reward, Octavian gave Herod control of Jericho and other coastal areas from Jaffa
to Gaza until Egypt, and Geder and Susita in the Transjordan, territories that had been
lost during Pompey’s conquest.