Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/442

 426 ISRAEL was endured by them as a matter of course. The Romans were regarded in quite a different light from that in which the Persians and the Greeks had been viewed, and Herod was only the client of the Romans. Herod s His greatest danger seemed to arise from the still sur- home viving members of the Hasmonsean family, to whom, as is . easily understood, the national hopes clung. In the- course policy! f * ne ear li er years of his reign he removed every one of them from his path, beginning with his youthful brother- in-law Aristobulus (35), after whom came his old patron Hyrcanus IT. (30), then Mariamne his wife (29), and finally his stepmother Alexandra (28), the daughter of Hyrcanus and the widow of Alexander Aristobuli. Subsequently, in 25, he caused Costobarus and the sons of Babas to be executed. While thus occupied with domestic affairs, Herod had constant trouble also in his external relations, and each new phase in his political position immediately made itself felt at home. In the first instance he had much to suffer from Cleopatra, who would willingly have seen Palestine reduced under Egyptian domination once more, and who actually succeeded in inducing Antony to take from Herod several fair and valuable provinces of his realm. Next, his whole position was imperilled by the result of the battle of Actium ; he had once more ranged himself upon the wrong side. But his tact did not fail him in winning Octavianus, as before it had made Antony his friend. In fact he reaped nothing but advantage from the great overturn which took place in Roman affairs ; it rid him of Cleopatra, a dangerous enemy, and gave him in the new imperator a much better master than before. During the following years he had leisure to carry out those splendid works of peace by which it was his aim to ingratiate himself with the emperor. He founded cities and harbours (Antipatris, Caesarea), constructed roads, theatres, and temples, and subsidized far beyond his frontier Close of all works of public utility. He taxed the Jews heavily, his reign but in compensation promoted their material interests with energy and discretion, and built for them, from 20 or 19 B.C. onwards, the temple at Jerusalem. To gain their sympathies he well knew to be impossible. Apart from the Roman legions at his back his authority had its main supports in his fortresses and in his system of espion age. But just as the acme of his splendour had been reached, he himself became the instrument of a terrible vengeance for the crimes by which his previous years had been stained; as executioner of all the Hasmonreans, he was now con strained to be the executioner of his own children also. His suspicious temper had been aroused against his now grown-up sons by Mariamne, whose claim through their mother to the throne were superior to his own ; his brother Pheroras and his sister Saloms made it their special business to fan his jealousy into flame. To show the two somewhat arrogant youths that the succession was not so absolutely secure in their favour as they were supposing, the father summoned to his court Antipater, the exiled son of a former marriage. Antipater, under the mask of friendship, immediately began to carry on infamous in trigues against his half brothers, in which Pheroras and Salome unconsciously played into his hands. For years he persevered alike in favouring and unfavouring circum stances with his part, until at last, by the machinations of a Lacedemonian Enrycles, who had been bribed, Herod was induced to condemn the sons of Mariamne at Berytus, and cause them to be strangled (Samaria, 7-6 B.C.). Not long afterwards a difference between Antipater and Salome led to the exposure of the former. Herod was compelled to drain the cup to the dregs ; he was not spared the know ledge that he had murdered his children without a cause. His remorse threw him into a serious illness, in which his strong constitution wrestled long with death. VThile he lay at Jericho near his end he gave orders for the execution of Antipater also ; and to embitter the joy of the Jews at his removal he caused their elders to be shut up together in the hippodrome at Jericho with the injunction to butcher them as soon as he breathed his last, that so there might be sorrow throughout the land. The latter order, however, was not carried out. His death (4 B,c.) gave the signal for an insurrection of small beginnings which gradually spread until it ultimately infected all the people ; it was repressed by Varus with great cruelty. Meanwhile Herod s connexions were at Rome disputing about the inheritance. The deceased king His wil (who was survived by several children of various marriages) had made a will, which was substantially confirmed by Augustus. By it his son Philip received the northern portion of the territory on the east of the Jordan along with the district of Paneas (Csesarea Philippi) ; his thirty- seven years reign over this region was happy. Another son, Herod Antipas, obtained Galilee and Persea ; he beautified his domains with architectural works (Sepphoris, Tiberias ; Livias, Machsorus), and succeeded by his fox-like policy in ingratiating himself with the emperors, particu larly with Tiberius, for that very cause, however, becoming odious to the Roman provincial officials. The principal heir was Archelaus, to whom Idumsea, Judaea, and Arclie- Samaritis were allotted ; Augustus at first refused him the laus - title of king. Archelaus had experienced the greatest difficulty in carrying through his claims before the emperor in face of the manifold oppositions of his enemies ; the vengeance which he wreaked upon his subjects was so severe that in 6 A.D. a Jewish and Samaritan embassy be sought the emperor for his deposition.. Augustus assented, banishing Archelaus to Vienne, and putting in his place a Roman procurator. Thenceforward Judaea continued under Judo?a procurators, with the exception of a brief interval (41-44 under A.D.) during which Herod Agrippa I. united under his j^toi&quot;&quot; sway all the dominions of his grandfather. 1 15. The termination of the vassal kingship resulted in Advan- manifest advantage to the Sadducees. The high priest ta S and synedrium again acquired political importance ; they were the responsible representatives of the nation in presence of the suzerain power, and conceived themselves to be in some sort lords of land and people (John xi. 48). For the Pharisees the new state of affaits appears to have been less satisfactory. That the Romans were much less oppressive to the Jews than the rulers of the house of Herod was a consideration of less importance to them than the fact that the heathen first unintentionally and then deliberately were guilty of the rudest outrages upon the law, outrages against which those sly half- Jews had well understood how to be on their guard. It was among the lower ranks of the people, however, that hatred to the Romans had its proper seat. On the basis of the views and tendencies which had long prevailed there, a new party was now formed, that of the Zealots, which did not, like Zealots the Pharisees, aim merely at the fulfilment of all righteous ness, i.e., of the law, and leave everything else in the hands of God, but was determined to take an active part in bring- 1 Agrippa was the grandson of Mariamne through Aristobulus. Ca-li- gula, whose friendship he had secured in Rome, bestowed upon him in 37 the dominions of Philip with the title of king, and afterwards the tetrarchy of Antipas, whom he deposed and banished to Lugdunum (39). Claudius added the possessions of Arehelaus. But the kingdom was again taken away from his son Agrippa II. (44), who, however, after the death of his uncle, Herod of C halcis, obtained that principality for which at a later period (52) the tetrarchy of Philip was substituted. His sister Berenice is known as the mistress of Titus ; another sister Brasilia was the wife of the procurator Felix. The descendants of Mariamne through Alexander held for some time an Armenian princi pality.