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Herod Antipas (Greek: Ἡρῴδης Ἀντίπας, Hērǭdēs Antipas; c. 20 BC – c. 39 AD) was a 1st-century ruler of Galilee and Perea. He bore the title of tetrarch ("ruler of a quarter") and is referred to as both "Herod the Tetrarch"[1] and "King Herod"[2] in the New Testament.[3] He was a son of Herod the Great and a grandson of Antipater the Idumaean. He is widely known today for accounts in the New Testament of his role in events that led to the executions of John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth (Matthew 14, Matthew 14:1–12). His father, Herod the Great, was described in the account as ordering the Massacre of the Innocents, marking the earliest Biblical account of the concerns of the government in Jerusalem regarding Jesus' existence.
| Herod Antipas | |
|---|---|
| Tetrarch of Galilee and Perea | |
 Herod Antipas medallion from Promptuarium Iconum Insigniorum | |
| Reign | 6/5 BC de jure, 1 BC de facto – 39 AD |
| Predecessor | Herod the Great |
| Successor | Agrippa I |
| Born | Before 20 BC |
| Died | After AD 39 Gallia |
| Wives | |
| Dynasty | Herodian Dynasty |
| Father | Herod the Great |
| Mother | Malthace |
Following the death of his father (4 BC in Schürer's 1890 publication,[4] 1 BC in much of the more recent scholarship, such as Jack Finegan,[5] W. E. Filmer,[6] and Andrew Steinmann[7]), Herod Antipas was recognized as tetrarch by Caesar Augustus and subsequently by his brother, the ethnarch Herod Archelaus. Antipas officially ruled Galilee and Perea as a client state of the Roman Empire.[8] He was responsible for building projects at Sepphoris and Betharamphtha, and for the construction of his capital Tiberias on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. Named in honour of his patron, the emperor Tiberius, the city later became a centre of rabbinic learning after the Jewish-Roman wars.
Antipas divorced his first wife Phasa'el, the daughter of King Aretas IV of Nabatea, in favour of Herodias, who had formerly been married to his half-brother Herod II. (Antipas was Herod the Great's son by Malthace, while Herod II was his son by Mariamne II.)[9][10] According to the New Testament Gospels, it was John the Baptist's condemnation of this arrangement that led Antipas to have him arrested; John was subsequently put to death in Machaerus. Besides provoking his conflict with John the Baptist, the tetrarch's divorce added a personal grievance to previous disputes with Aretas over territory on the border of Perea and Nabatea. The result was a war that proved disastrous for Antipas; a Roman counter-offensive was ordered by Tiberius but abandoned upon that emperor's death in 37. In 39 Antipas was accused by his nephew Agrippa I of conspiracy against Emperor Caligula, who sent him into exile in Gaul, according to Josephus. Accompanied there by Herodias, he died at an unknown date.[11]
The Gospel of Luke states that Jesus was first brought before Pontius Pilate for trial, since Pilate was the governor of Roman Judea, which encompassed Jerusalem where Jesus was arrested. Pilate initially handed him over to Antipas, in whose territory Jesus had been most active, but Antipas sent him back to Pilate's court.
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Antipas was a son of Herod the Great, who had become king of Judea, and Malthace, who was from Samaria.[12] His date of birth is unknown but was before 20 BC.[13] Antipas, his full brother Archelaus, and his half-brother Philip were educated in Rome.[14]
Antipas was not Herod's first choice of heir. That honour fell to Aristobulus and Alexander, Herod's sons by the Hasmonean princess Mariamne. It was only after they were executed (c. 7 BC), and Herod's oldest son Antipater was convicted of trying to poison his father (5 BC), that Herod fell back on his youngest son Antipas, revising his will to make him heir.[15] During his final illness, Herod had yet another change of heart about the succession. According to the final version of his will, Antipas' elder brother Archelaus was to become king of Judea, Idumea, and Samaria, while Antipas would rule Galilee and Perea with the lesser title of tetrarch. Philip was to receive Iturea, Trachonitis, Batanea, Gaulanitis, Auranitis, and Paneas also with the title of tetrarch.[16]
Because of Judea's status as a Roman client kingdom, Herod's plans for the succession had to be ratified by Emperor Augustus. The three heirs therefore travelled to Rome to make their claims, Antipas arguing he ought to inherit the whole kingdom and the others maintaining that Herod's final will ought to be honoured. Despite qualified support for Antipas from Herodian family members in Rome—who favoured direct Roman rule of Judea but considered Antipas preferable to his brother—Augustus largely confirmed the division of territory set out by Herod in his final will. Archelaus gained the title of ethnarch rather than king.[17]
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6/5 BC de jure, 1 BC de facto to AD 39
Recent studies of the coins of Herod Antipas provide a more accurate dating of his years of reign than was previously possible. The highest number on those coins of that bear a year-number is 43, indicating that he claimed to have exercised his authority for 43 years. The termination of these 43 years can be determined quite accurately, as follows:
His [Antipas's] wife Herodias was jealous of the honors given to her brother Herod Agrippa, honors above those of her husband Antipas, and so she persuaded Antipas to go to Rome to seek equal honors from Gaius Caesar (Caligula). Agrippa turned Caligula against Antipas, so that Caligula banished him and his wife. This would have to be year 43 of Antipas, because he has coins dating to year 43. The banishment must have been before the fall of AD 39, because Caligula left for Gaul in the fall of that year, not returning until August 31, AD 40. The encounter between Caligula and Antipas could not have occurred after Caligula's return from Gaul (i.e., after August of AD 40), because Antipas was not involved in the trouble over Caligula's statue for the Jerusalem temple that is related by Josephus and Philo (Legatio ad Galium) after his account of the deposition of Antipas.[18]
From this determination it might be thought that the beginning of Antipas's tetrarchy could be determined quite simply by calculating a date 43 years earlier than the end of his reign sometime in AD 39, but before the autumn of that year. But the calculation is complicated by several issues that must be settled before the calculation is done: 1) Was Antipas calculating his 43 years according to the Roman calendar year that began in January, or was he using the Judean calendar? 2) If he was using the Judean calendar, did that calendar reckon the regnal year for kings to start in the lunar month of Nisan in the spring (March/April), or in Tishri in the fall (September/October)? 3) When counting years of reign, did the Judean kings and tetrarchs using inclusive (also called non-accession) numbering, or non-inclusive (accession) reckoning?
The answer to question 1) is fairly simple: Virtually all scholars agree that the Herodians, and Josephus who is the main source for their lives, always used Judean years, not Roman, when dating Judean reigns. When referring to the reigns of Roman emperors, he used the Roman system. The answer to question 2) is quite straightforward: In affairs of government, such as the regnal years of Judean kings or tetrarchs, a Tishri-based year was used. That Judeans in the first century BC and the first century AD used a Tishri-based calendar for governmental affairs, which would include the reigns of Judean kings and tetrarchs, is made explicit by Josephus in Antiquities 1.81/1.3.3:
After relating that Moses instituted Nisan as the first month for festivals and "everything related to divine worship," he [Josephus] continues: . . . "concerning, however, buying (praseis) and selling (onas) and the other financial administration [or tax administration] (dioikasin) he [Moses] preserved the earlier arrangement." The lexicons give the meaning of dioikasis as "administration, management," or "control, government, administration, treasury department." There is no meaning of "ordinary affairs" as rendered by Whiston and later Thackeray. By using the word dioikasis, Josephus clearly meant that the affairs of government (administration) were according to a Tishri-based calendar, and it is unfortunate that Thackeray apparently followed Whiston in rendering this Greek word in English. Josephus was stating that all activities other than those related to divinely mandated religious observances would be reckoned by a fall calendar that started with the first day of Tishri.[19]
It is also unfortunate that Emil Schürer, in his study of the Herodian period, assumed that Josephus and the Judean rulers used a Nisan-based year, contradicting this passage in Josephus.[20] On the same page, Schürer cites the Mishnah, a source much later than Josephus, which says that the regnal year for kings began on Nisan 1, a statement that not only contradicts the citation in Josephus, but also the meticulous works of Thiele and Coucke that showed that Judah always used a Tishri-based year in reckoning the reigns of its kings.[21][22] That Josephus reckoned regnal years for the Herodians is also demonstrated in the research of Filmer,[23] Finegan,[24] and Steinmann.[25] Coucke, throughout his work just cited, introduced a notation that indicated clearly whether the regnal year under consideration was a Judean Tishri-based year or the Nisan-based regnal year used in the northern kingdom. A slight modification of that notation is used here: For a Nisan-based year that began in the (Roman/Julian) year AD 38, the notation will be AD 38n, that is, the year that began on Nisan 1 of AD 38 and ended the last day of Adar in AD 39. For a Tishri-based year, the notation AD 38t, as adopted by Young, Steinmann, and various other authors, will be used: AD 38t refers to the year that began in Tishri of AD 38 and ended the last day of Elul in AD 39.[26][27] The final issue to be settled before the beginning of Antipas reign can be calculated is whether Judean kings and tetrarchs using inclusive (also called non-accession) numbering, or non-inclusive (accession) reckoning. That issue should have been settled long ago, through the work of Filmer. Filmer cited six priestly rulers in the Hasmonean period, whose lengths or reign are given by Josephus (Ant. 13.228 to 14.97/13.7.4 to 14.6.1) as 8 years, 31 years, 1 year, 27 years, 9 years, and 3 and 1/2 year: Total 79 1/2 years. Filmer summarizes: "If each of these reigns had been reckoned by the non-accession year system, the total would have exceeded the actual period by six years, and the fact that it does not do so proves that Josephus used the accession-year method."[28] That the accession-year method continued to be used in Judea after the Hasmonean period (second century BC) has received confirmation from a study of the coins of Herod and his successors. Among Herod's minted coins, only one set has a year number, and that is the year number "3". Numismatists are in general agreement that this refers to the year that Herod became de facto ruler of Judean when his armies, and those of the Roman general Sossius, captured Jerusalem on the Day of Atonement, three years after he had been appointed king of Judea by the Roman Senate in either the Schürer system (fall 40 BC to fall 37 BC) or the dates of more recent scholarship (fall 39 BC to fall 36 BC). (Of these two alternatives, the latter is favored by Josephus's statement (Ant. 14.457/14.16,4) that Jerusalem fell to the combined armies of Herod and Sossius on the Day of Atonement, 27 years to the day after the city fell to Pompeius the Great on the day of Atonement in 63 BC: 63 BC – 27 = 36 BC). Regarding accession vs. non-accession reckoning, Filmer pointed out that if Herod used a non-accession year on his year 3 coin, only two actual years would have passed:
It has been pointed out by B. Kanael that coins always express conditions de jure and not de facto, so that in this case they would be dated from Herod from Herod's legal appointment in Rome, and not from his taking possession of Jerusalem.[29] But the peculiar fact is that of all the coins of Herod's reign, only those of the 3rd year are dated, and furthermore, appear to commemorate some event of great importance. This could only have been the capture of Jerusalem, for in the 3rd year after that event nothing of any consequence is known to have happened. The conclusion is that Herod, in minting these coins, wished to emphasize that he had already been king three years when he captured Jerusalem, and that his regnal years must be reckoned accordingly.[30]
Herod's year 3 coin is therefore not compatible with the non-accession method of counting regnal years that is crucial to the chronological system developed by Schürer, whether one uses Schürer's dates for Herod's appointment as king of Judea by the Roman Senate (40 BC) or the 39 BC of more recent scholarship.
The above discussion has shown that in order to calculate the year in which Herod Antipas considered as the start of his reign, the following data should be used.
- Antipas reckoned that his reign lasted 43 years, as attested by his year-43 coin.
- Antipas, in common with all the Herodians, and as reported by Josephus, considered each regnal year to begin in the fall month of Tishri.
- From correlation with Roman history, notably the career of Gaius Caesar (Caligula), the 43rd year of Antipas ended before the fall season of AD 39. By Tishri reckoning, his final year was thus AD 38t.
- The Herodians used accession reckoning for their reigns, as established by Filmer, and quite definitely corroborated by the Year 3 coin of Herod the Great.
The calculation of the year in which Antipas began his reign is therefore: AD 38t – 43 – 1 (no year zero) = 6t BC. Notice that this is before the death of Herod in either the Schürer system (between Nisan 1 and Nisan 14 of 4 BC), and also in the system of Filmer, who calculated that, although Herod died between the lunar eclipse of January 9/10 of 1 BC and Passover of that year, his sons antedated their reigns back to 4 BC because they claimed their father shared some royal prerogatives and power with them at that time.[31] The more exact math in this matter is given in indicated in the first sentence of this paragraph. It is also of interest that the date of 6t BC to which Antipas antedated his reign is the same Tishri-based year to which Philip the Tetrarch antedated his reign. Explaining why the ethnarchs antedated their reigns to a time before the death of Herod in either the Filmer or the Schürer chronologies, Andrew Steinmann writes,
Given the explicit statements of Josephus about the authority and honor Herod had granted his sons during the last years of his life, we can understand why all three of his successors [Archelaus, Antipas, and Philip] decided to antedate their reigns to the time when they were granted a measure of royal authority while their father was still alive. Although they were not officially recognized by Rome as ethnarch or tetrarchs until after Herod's death, they nevertheless appear to have reckoned their reigns from 6t BC.[32]
After the death of Herod the Great, Augustus confirmed the testament of the dead king by making Antipas tetrarch of Galilee and Perea, a region he ruled for 42 years.[33] The two territories were separated by the region of the Decapolis, with Galilee to the north and Perea to the south. Threats to stability in both areas would have been clear to Antipas when he took office. While he had been making his case to Augustus in Rome, dissidents had attacked the palace of Sepphoris in Galilee, seizing money as well as weapons which they used to terrorize the area.[34] In a counterattack ordered by Quinctilius Varus, Roman governor of Syria, Sepphoris was destroyed by fire and its inhabitants sold as slaves.[35] Perea, meanwhile, bordered on the Kingdom of Nabatea, which had long had uneasy relations with Romans and Jews.[36]
Part of Antipas' solution was to follow in his father's footsteps as a builder. He rebuilt and fortified Sepphoris, while also adding a wall to Betharamphtha in Perea.[37] The latter city was renamed Livias after Augustus' wife Livia, and later Julias after his daughter.[38] However, the tetrarch's most noted construction was his capital on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, Tiberias, so named to honour his patron Tiberius, who had succeeded Augustus as emperor in 14 AD.[39] Residents could bathe nearby at the warm springs of Emmaus, and by the time of the First Jewish-Roman War the city's buildings included a stadium, a royal palace, and a sanctuary for prayer.[40] It gave its name to the sea and later became a centre of rabbinic learning after the Jewish-Roman wars.[41] However, pious Jews at first refused to live in it because it was built atop a graveyard and therefore a source of ritual impurity. Antipas had to colonize it with a mixture of foreigners, forced migrants, poor people, and freed slaves.[42]
At other times Antipas was more sensitive to Jewish tradition. His coins carried no images, which would have violated Jewish prescriptions against idolatry.[43] When Pontius Pilate, governor of Judea from 26 to 36, caused offence by placing votive shields in the Antonia palace at Jerusalem, Antipas and his brothers successfully petitioned for their removal.[44]
John the Baptist and Jesus
Marriage to Herodias
Early in his reign, Antipas had married Phasa'el, the daughter of King Aretas IV of Nabatea. However, on a visit to Rome he stayed with his half-brother Herod II and there he fell in love with his wife, Herodias, granddaughter of Herod the Great and Mariamne I, and the two agreed to marry after Herod Antipas had divorced his wife.[45] Phasa'el learned of the plan and asked permission to travel to the frontier fortress of Machaerus, whence Nabatean forces escorted her to her father. With his daughter safe in his custody, Aretas declared war on Herod.[46] Josephus states that Aretas was joined in this war by "fugitives from the tetrarchy of Phillip",[47] whereas Moses of Chorene states that Aretas was joined by the Edessan army.[48] It is said that the joint Petra-Edessan army prevailed over the forces of Herod Antipas.
It is generally agreed that the war, in which Herod was defeated, occurred in 36, a year before the death of Tiberius. A point of contention today is how long before this date Herod's marriage to Herodias took place. Some surmise that the marriage of Antipas and Herodias took place shortly before the war in about 34, after the death of Philip,[49] but others have pointed to Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews (Book 18, chapter 5, paragraph 4) comment that Herodias "divorced herself from her husband while he was alive" to argue that it took place before Herod II's death, in about 27, thus making it possible for Jesus to have been born in the reign of Herod the Great (as indicated by the Gospel of Matthew) and to have died in his early 30s (as indicated by the Gospel of Luke).[50]
John's ministry and execution
Antipas faced more immediate problems in his own tetrarchy after John the Baptist (in 28/29 according to the Gospel of Luke[51] or 27, if the co-regency of Augustus and Tiberius is included in Luke's reckoning of time, for which there is some evidence) began a ministry of preaching and baptism by the Jordan River, which marked the western edge of Antipas' territory of Perea. The Gospels state that John attacked the tetrarch's marriage as contrary to Jewish law (it was incestuous, as Herodias was also Antipas' niece, but also John criticized the fact that she was his brother's wife (Mark 6:18), lending credence to the belief that Antipas and Herodias married while Herod II was still alive), while Josephus says that John's public influence made Antipas fearful of rebellion.[52]
John was imprisoned in Machaerus and later executed by beheading.[53] According to Matthew and Mark, Herod was reluctant to order John's death. However, during his birthday banquet, he had been so pleased by the dancing of Herodias' daughter (unnamed in the text but named by Josephus as Salome), he had sworn an oath and promised to grant whatever she asked. Her mother then prompted her to ask for John's head on a platter. Compelled not to violate his oath to the girl or the guests, Antipas ordered John beheaded.[54]
Jesus' ministry and trial
Among those baptized by John was Jesus of Nazareth, who began his own ministry in Galilee, causing Antipas, according to Matthew and Mark, to fear that John had been raised from the dead.[55] Luke states that a group of Pharisees warn Jesus to flee because Antipas was plotting his death, whereupon Jesus denounces the tetrarch as a "fox" and declares that he, Jesus, would not fall victim to such a plot to run from heading towards Jerusalem because "it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem".[56]
Luke also credits the tetrarch with a role in Jesus' trial. According to Luke, Pilate, on learning that Jesus was a Galilean and therefore under Herod's jurisdiction, sent him to Antipas, who was also in Jerusalem at the time. Initially, Antipas was pleased to see Jesus, hoping to see him perform a miracle, but when Jesus remained silent in the face of questioning, Antipas mocked him and sent him back to Pilate. Luke states that these events improved relations between Pilate and Herod despite their earlier enmity.[57]
The reason for Antipas' involvement has been debated. Theodor Mommsen argues that the normal legal procedure of the early Roman Empire was for defendants to be tried by the authorities of their home provinces.[58] A. N. Sherwin-White re-examined the relevant legal texts and concluded that trials were generally based on the location of the alleged crimes, but that there was a possibility of referral to a province of origin in special cases.[59] If Pilate was not required to send Jesus to Antipas, he may have been making a show of courtesy to the tetrarch[60] and trying to avoid the need to deal with the Jewish authorities himself.[61] When Jesus was sent back, Pilate could still have represented Antipas' failure to convict as support for his own view (according to Luke) that Jesus was not guilty of a capital offence,[62] thus allowing him to avoid responsibility for Jesus' crucifixion.[63]
With the lack of historical evidence, it has been suggested that Jesus' trial by Antipas is unhistorical.[64] English historian Robin Lane Fox alleges that the story was invented based on Psalm 2, in which "the kings of the earth" are described as opposing the Lord's "anointed", and also served to show that the authorities failed to find grounds for convicting Jesus.[65]
Later reign
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Between 34 and 36[66][67] the conflict with Aretas of Nabatea—caused by Antipas' divorce from Aretas' daughter and the rulers' disagreement over territory—developed into open war. Antipas' army suffered a devastating defeat after fugitives from the former tetrarchy of Philip sided with the Nabateans, and Antipas was forced to appeal to Tiberius for help. The emperor ordered Lucius Vitellius, governor of Syria, to march against Aretas and ensure that he was captured or killed.[68] Vitellius obediently mobilized two legions, sending them on a detour around Judea while he joined Antipas in attending a festival at Jerusalem. While staying there he learned of the death of Tiberius (16 March 37), concluded he lacked the authority to go to war, and recalled his troops.[69]
Josephus implies that Vitellius was unwilling to cooperate with the tetrarch because of a grudge he bore from an earlier incident. According to his account, Antipas provided hospitality at a conference on the Euphrates between Vitellius and King Artabanus III of Parthia, and after Vitellius' diplomatic success anticipated the governor in sending a report to Tiberius.[70] However, other sources place the meeting between Vitellius and Artabanus under Tiberius' successor Caligula,[71] leading some historians to think that Josephus misdated it to the reign of Tiberius or conflated it with an earlier diplomatic meeting involving Antipas and Vitellius.[72]
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Antipas' fall from power was due to Caligula and to his own nephew Agrippa, brother of Herodias. When Agrippa fell into debt during the reign of Tiberius despite his connections with the imperial family, Herodias persuaded Antipas to provide for him, but the two men quarrelled, and Agrippa departed. After Agrippa was heard expressing to his friend Caligula his eagerness for Tiberius to die and leave room for Caligula to succeed him, he was imprisoned. When Caligula became emperor in 37, he released his friend and granted him rule of Philip's former tetrarchy (slightly extended), with the title of king.[73]
Josephus relates that Herodias, jealous at Agrippa's success, persuaded Antipas to ask Caligula for the title of king for himself. However, Agrippa simultaneously presented the emperor with a list of charges against the tetrarch: allegedly, he had conspired against Tiberius with Sejanus (executed in 31) and was plotting against Caligula with King Artabanus. As evidence, Agrippa noted that Antipas had a stockpile of weapons sufficient for 70,000 men. Hearing Antipas' admission to this last charge, Caligula decided to believe the allegations of conspiracy. In the summer of 39, Antipas' money and territory were turned over to Agrippa, while Antipas was exiled.[74] His place of exile is described by Josephus in Antiquities as Lugdunum, a city in Gaul,[75] and as Hispania in The Wars of the Jews.[76] There are two places in France that claim to be the place of exile: Lyon (Lugdunum) and Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges (Lugdunum Convenae), on the Spanish border. Antipas died in exile.[77] The 3rd-century historian Cassius Dio seems to imply that Caligula had him killed, but this is usually treated with skepticism by modern historians.[78]
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Among the followers of Jesus and members of the early Christian movement mentioned in the New Testament are Joanna, the wife of one of Antipas' stewards, and Manaen, a "foster-brother" or "companion" of Antipas (both translations are possible for the Greek σύντροφος). It has been conjectured that these were sources for early Christian knowledge of Antipas and his court.[79] In any case, Antipas featured prominently in the New Testament in connection with the deaths of John the Baptist and Jesus. The pseudepigraphical Gospel of Peter further states that it was Antipas rather than Pilate who ordered the crucifixion of Jesus. In line with the work's anti-Judaic theme, it pointedly remarks that Herod and "the Jews", unlike Pilate, refused to "wash their hands" of responsibility for the death.[80]
Antipas has appeared in a large number of representations of the passion of Jesus—most notably portrayed by Frank Thring in King of Kings (1961), José Ferrer in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), and Christopher Plummer in Jesus of Nazareth (1977). Often, as in the films Jesus Christ Superstar (1973) and The Passion of the Christ (2004), Antipas is portrayed as effeminate (Antipas is played in those films by Joshua Mostel and Luca De Dominicis respectively); the origin of this tradition may have been Antipas' manipulation by his wife Herodias, as well as Christ's description of him as a "fox" in Luke 13:32, using a feminine word in the original Greek.[81] In Salome (1953), he is portrayed by Charles Laughton. He was played by Mitchell Lewis in Salomé (1923). He also features in The Secret Magdalene by Ki Longfellow. In Longfellow's view, he was not effeminate so much as rash, ineffective, and when backed into a corner by his furious ex-father-in-law, willing to do anything to save himself.
In Gustave Flaubert's Hérodias (1877), Herodias uses her long-concealed daughter, Salome, to manipulate Herod sexually for her own political purposes. This conceit (original to Flaubert) inspired Oscar Wilde's play Salome (1891), the first version of the legend to show Salome with a will of her own, opposing her mother and lusting after John the Baptist. Naive and puzzled by her stepfather's lascivious attentions, the young girl arouses Herod in order to avenge herself on the prophet who has refused her advances. Flaubert's novella was turned into an opera by Jules Massenet (Hérodiade, 1881) in which Salome, ignorant of her royal parentage, becomes a disciple of John, who is then executed by the lustful and jealous Herod (a baritone). In Richard Strauss's operatic setting of Wilde's play (1905), Herod (a tenor) is depicted as befuddled by both drink and lust, and in bitter conflict with his wife (as in Flaubert). At the end of the opera (as in Wilde's play), disgusted with Salome's behavior with the head of John, he orders her execution. In Journey to Bethlehem, he is portrayed as the semi-loyal son of Herod and struggles to follow his father's commands.
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| Aretas IV King of Arabia | |||||||||||||||||
| Phasaelis | Herod Antipas | ||||||||||||||||
| Simon Boethus (High Priest) | Alexander I | Alexandra | Antipater the Idumaean | Cypros (Nabatean) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Aristobulus III d. 35 BCE | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Doris | Cleopatra of Jerusalem | Mariamne II | Mariamne I d. 29 BCE | Malthace (Samaritan) | Herod the Great | Salome I | Phasa'el | Pheroras | Joseph | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Alexander II d. 7 BCE | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Berenice (daughter of Salome I) | Aristobulus IV d. 7 BCE | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Herod II | Herodias | Herod Antipas | Mariamne III | Herod Archelaus | Glaphyra | Olympias | Joseph ben Joseph | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Philip the Tetrarch d. 34 CE | Salome | Aristobulus of Chalcis | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Antipater II d. 4 BCE | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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