Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VIII.djvu/705

 HEROD AGRIPPA I. ial. On the appointed day he appeared be- fore the tribunal, gorgeously clad in purple, and surrounded by armed men ; and though his acquittal was pronounced, he departed se- cretly to Syria, and was appointed governor of Coele-Syria in 46. After the death of Csar he favored Brutus and Cassius, and received the command of the army in Syria. He was equally successful in winning the support of Mark Antony, who entertained him at Rome in 40, and obtained from the senate a decree appointing him king of Judea. After the bat- tle of Actium (31) and the death of Antony, he was confirmed in his kingdom by Augustus, whose favor he enjoyed during his reign. He had entered upon his government by besieging Jerusalem, and he hesitated at no crime or cruelty to establish his sovereignty. Hyrcanus, whom he feared as a competitor, was put to death on a charge of treason ; his own wife Mariamne, to whom he was passionately at- tached, was executed (29) ; and her execution was followed by that of her two sons, and of her nearest relatives, and several of his prin- cipal counsellors. Yet his administration was vigorous and splendid, and for 30 years Judea was undisturbed by war, though its forces aid- ed the Romans in Arabia and on the Bosporus. He erected a marble temple at Paneas in honor of Augustus, restored the city of Samaria un- der the name of Sebaste, transformed a small town on the coast into the magnificent city of Csesarea, erected temples and theatres, and an amphitheatre without the walls of Jerusalem, in which the Roman combats with wild beasts and gladiators were exhibited, sought to con- ciliate his subjects by many acts of munificence and liberality, and began to rebuild the temple of Jerusalem. In 18 he visited Rome, and was received with the greatest distinction by Au- gustus. The latter part of his reign was har- assed by conspiracies and intrigues, and in his last illness, while a fearful disease was consu- ming his stomach and intestines, he ordered the execution of his son Antipas. To this ill- ness is also referred the murder of the children in Bethlehem, an event recorded by the evan- gelist (Matt. ii. 16), but passed unnoticed by Josephus. His death occurred in the year which is generally considered by critics the year of the birth of Christ. Josephus is the principal authority for the events of his reign, which, notwithstanding its barbarities, re- stored to Jerusalem much of its earlier mag- nificence. He had ten wives, and partitioned his kingdom between three of his sons, Arche- laus, Philip, and Herod Antipas. t HEROD AGRIPPA I., king of Judea and Chal- cis, son of Aristobulus, and grandson of Herod the Great, born in the year 10 B. 0., died A. D. 44. He was a favorite of his grandfather, who after the death of his father sent him to Rome, where he was educated. Caligula gave him the tetrarchy of Judea with the title of king (37). For services rendered, the emperor Claudius, after the banishment of Herod Anti- 404 VOL. viii. 44 HERODIAN 687 pas, gave him all the provinces of ancient Ju- dea and the kingdom of Chalcis, so that he became of a sudden one of the greatest princes of the East. A part of his history is written in the Acts of the Apostles (xii.). He governed much to the satisfaction of the Jews, and, prob- ably from a desire of pleasing the fanatical party, put to death the apostle James, and shut up Peter in prison. At Ceesarea, while lie was giving games in honor of Claudius, the in- habitants of Tyre and Sidon waited on him, de- siring peace. Arrayed in royal apparel, he sat on his throne and made an oration to them, and they glorified him as a god. He willingly received the impious flattery, but soon died miserably after a reign of seven years HEROD AGRIPPA II., a Jewish prince, son of the preceding, born about A. D. 27, died in 100. When his father died he was residing at the court of the emperor Claudius, who, instead of bestowing on him the dominions to which he was heir, detained him for four years at Rome. In 48 he received the small principality of Chalcis, to which additions were subsequently made. In 60 he went with his sister Berenice to Crosarea to salute Festus on his accession to the government of Judea, and St. Paul, a pris- oner there, stated his case before him. Before the rebellion of the Jews from the Romans, he sought to reconcile them, and during the war he sided with the Romans. After the capture and destruction of Jerusalem he retired with Berenice to Rome. HEROD ANTIPAS, the son of Herod the Great and Malthace, a Samaritan, born in Jerusalem. His father gave the main parts of his kingdom to Archelaus, another son, and assigned to Antipas the tetrarchy of Galilee and Peraea. He first married the daughter of Aretas, king of Arabia Petraea, and afterward Herodias, the wife of his half brother Herod Philip, then liv- ing. This involved him in a war with Are- tas, who invaded his territory, and was also the first step toward the indulgence of the passion which resulted in the imprisonment and beheading of John the Baptist. He built the city of Tiberias, and adorned and fortified many other places in his province. Having gone to Rome to solicit the title of king, he was banished to Gaul (A. D. 39) by Caligula, on suspicion of being concerned in the con- spiracy of Sejanus, and died in Spain. It was before this Herod, who had come to Jerusalem to celebrate the passover, that Pilate sent Je- sus, as a native of his tetrarchy (Luke xxiii.). HERODES ATTICIS. See ATTICUS. IIKK01HAN, a Greek writer on Roman his- tory, supposed to have lived between A. D. 170 and 240. Nothing is known of his life, except that he resided for a long-time in Italy. His work is entitled Tsjfc fierd Mapnov Bacifaias 'laroptuv BifiMa O/CTO, and contains the history of the reigns between A. D. 180 and 238. Hia style is formed on that of Thucydides, and though his chronology and geography are some- times inaccurate, his narrative is generally