Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/964

Rh 950 MARIAMNE. taunted overbearingly with their inferiority of birth, excited his jealousy by accusing her of im- proper familiarity with Josephus ; and his suspi- cions were further roused when he found that she was aware of the sjivage order he had given on his departure, for he thought that such a secret could never have been betrayed by Josephus had she not admitted him to too close an intimacy. He was on the point of killing her in his fury, but was withheld by his fierce and seliish passion for her, — love we cannot call it, — and vented his revenge oil Josephus, whom he put to death, and on Alex- andra, whom he imprisoned. In B. c. 30, the year after the battle of Actium, Herod, aware of the danger in which he stood in consequence of his attachment to the cause of Antony, took the bold step of going in person to Octavian at Rhodes, and proifering him the same friendship and fidelity which he had shown to his rival. But, before his departure, he resolved to secure the royal succession in his own family, and he therefore put to death the aged Hyrcanus, and, having shut up Alexandra and Mariamne in the fortress of Alexandreium, gave orders to Josephus and Soemus, two of his dependants, to slay them if he did not come back in safety. During Herod's absence, this secret command was revealed by Soemus to Mariamne, who accordingly exhibited towards him, on his re- turn, the most marked aversion, and on one occa- sion went so far as to upbraid him with the murder of her brother and father, or (as perhaps we should rather read) her grandfather. So matters continued for a year, the anger which Herod felt at her con- duct being further increased by the instigations of his mother and sister. At length Salome suborned the royal cup-bearer to state to his master that he had been requested by Mariamne to administer to him in his wine a certain drug, represented by her as a love-potion. The king, in anger and alarm, caused Mariamne's favourite chamberlain to be examined by torture, under which the man declared that the ground of her aversion to Herod was the infonnation she had received from Soemus of his order for her death. Herod thereupon had Soenuis immediately executed and brought Mariamne to trial, entertaining the same suspicion as in the former case of his uncle Josephus of an adulterous connection between them. He appeared in person as her accuser, and the judges, thinking from his vehemence that nothing short of her death would satisfy him, passed sentence of condemnation against her. Herod, however, was still disposed to spare her life, and to punish her by imprison- ment ; but his mother and sister, by urging the great probability of an insurrection of the people in favour of an Asraonean princess, if known to be living in confinement, prevailed on him to order her execution, b. c. 29. (Jos. Jtd. xiv. 12. § 1, 15, § 14, XV. 2, 3, 6, § 5, 7, Bell. JtuL i. 12, § 3, 17, § 8, 22.) His grief and remorse for her death were excessive, and threw him into a violent and dangerous fever. [Herodes, p. 42(J.] According to the ordinary reading in Bell. Jud. i. 22, § 5, we should be led to suppose that Mariamne was put to death on the former suspicion of adultery with Josephus ; but there can be no doubt as to the text in that place having been mutilated. For the tower which Herod built at Jerusalem and called by hername, see Jos. Bell. Jud. ii. 17, § 8, v. 4, § 3. Mariamne's overbearing temper has been noticed above. That she should have deported herself. " MARTANUS. however, otherwise than she did towards such a monster as Herod, was not to be expected, and would have been inconsistent with the magnani- mity for which Josephus commends her. She was distinguished by a peculiar grace and dignity of demeanour, and her beauty was of the most fasci- nating kind. The praise given her by Josephus for chastity was doubtless well merited in general, and entirely so ns far as regards any overt act of sin. But some deduction, at least, must be made from it, if she cou)itenanced her mother's conduct in sending her portrait to Antony. 2. Daughter of Simon, a priest at Jerusalem. Herod the Great was struck with her beauty and married her, B. c. 23, at the same time raising her father to the high-priesthood, whence he deposed Jesus, the son of Phabes, to make room for him. In B. c. 5, Mariamne being accused of being privy to the plot of Antifater and Pheroras against Herod's life, he put her away, deprived Simon of the high-priesthood, and erased from his will the name of Herod Philip, whom she had borne him, and whom he had intended as the successor to his dominions after Antipater. (Jos. Ant. xv. 9, § 3, xvii. 1, § 2, 4, § 2, xviii. 5, § 1, xix. 6', § 2, Bdl. Jud. i. 28, $ 2, 30, (^ 7.) 3. Wife of Archelaus, who was ethnarch of Judaea and son of Herod the Great. Archelaus divorced her, and married Glapliyra, daughter of Archelaus, king of Cappadocia, and widow of his brother Alexander, (Jos. Ant. xvii. 13, § 4.) [Archelaus, Vol. I. p. 2G1, b.j 4. Daughter of Josephus, the nephew of Herod the Great, and Olympias, Herod's daughter. She married Herod, king of Chalcis, by whom she be- came the mother of Aristobulus [No. 6]. (Jos. Ant. xviii. 5. § 4.) 5. Daughter of Aristobulus [No. 4] by Bere- nice, and sister to the infamous Herodias. [See Vol. I. pp. 301, 483.] After the death of Aris- tobulus, Herod repented of his cruelty and strove to atone for it by kindness to the children of his victim. He betrothed Mariamne, so called after her gi-andmother [No. 1], to the son of Antipater, his eldest son by Doris ; but Antipater prevailed on him to alter this arrangement, and obtained Mariamne in marriage for himself, while his son was united to the daughter of Pheroras, Herod's brother, who in the former arrangement had been assigned to the elder son of Alexander, brother of Aristobulus. It is mere conjecture which would identify this Mariamne with No. 3, supposing her to have married Archelaus after the death of his brother Antipater. (Jos. Ant. xvii. 1, $ 2, xviii. 5, § 4, Bell. Jxid. i. 28 ; Noldius, de Vit. et Gest. Herod. § 245.) 6. Second daughter of Herod Agrippa I., by his wife Cypres, was ten years old when her father died, in a. d. 44. She married Archelaus, son of Helcias or Chelcias, to whom she had been be- trothed by Agrippa ; but she afterwards divorced him, and married Demetrius, a Jew of high rank and great wealth, and alabarch at Alexandria. (Ant. xviii. 5, § 4, xix. 9, § 1, XX. 7, §§ 1, 3.) [E. E.J MARIANDY'NUS {MapiavSwSs), a son of Phineus, Titius, or Phrixus, was the ancestral hero of the Mariandynians in Bithynia. (Schol. ad Apollon. ii. 723, 748.) It also occurs as a sur- name of Bormus. (Aeschyl. Pers. 938 ; comp. BORMITS.) [L. S.] MARIA'NUS (Ma/)taws), a poet, was the son