Biography

Herod the Great was born around 73 BC. He was the second son of Antipater the Idumaean, a high-ranked official under Ethnarch Hyrcanus II, and Cypros, a Nabatean.^[3] A loyal supporter of Hyrcanus II, Antipater appointed Herod governor of Galilee at 25, and his older brother, Phasael, governor of Jerusalem. He enjoyed the backing of Rome but his excessive brutality was condemned by the Sanhedrin.

In 43 BC, following the chaos caused by Antipater offering financial support to Caesar's murderers, Antipater was poisoned. Herod, backed by the Roman Army, executed his father's murderer. Afterwards, Antigonus, Hyrcanus' nephew, tried to take the throne from his uncle. Herod defeated him and then married his teenage niece, Mariamne (known as Mariamne I), which helped to secure him a claim to the throne and gain some Jewish favor. However, Herod already had a wife, Doris, and a three-year-old son, Antipater III, and chose to banish Doris and her child.

In 42 BC, he convinced Mark Antony and Octavian that his father had been forced to help Caesar's murderers. Herod was then named tetrarch of Galilee by the Romans. However, many of the Jews were very upset by this since most Jews did not consider Herod to be a true Jew. The Idumaean family, successors to the Edomites of the Hebrew Bible, settled in Idumea, formerly known as Edom, in southern Judea. When the Maccabean John Hyrcanus conquered Idumea in 140–130 BC, he required all Idumaeans to obey Jewish law or to leave; most Idumaeans thus converted to Judaism. While King Herod publicly identified himself as a Jew and was considered as such by some,^[4] this religious identification notwithstanding was undermined by the Hellenistic cultural affinity of the Herodians, which would have earned them the antipathy of observant Jews.^[5]

In 40 BC Antigonus tried to take the throne again with the help of the Parthians, this time succeeding. Herod fled to Rome to plead with the Romans to restore him to power. There he was elected "King of the Jews" by the Roman Senate.^[6] In 37 BC the Romans fully secured Judea and executed Antigonus. Herod took the role as sole ruler of Judea and took the title of basileus (Gr. Βασιλευς) for himself, ushering in the Herodian Dynasty and ending the Hasmonean Dynasty. He ruled for 34 years.