Herod Made King at Rome

As for Herod, the great miseries he was in did not discourage him; they made him sharp at devising surprising undertakings. He went to Malchus, king of Arabia, to whom he had formerly been very kind, hoping to receive something in return now that he needed it more than ever, and he asked him for money, either as a loan or as a free gift, on account of the many benefits Malchus had received from him. For not knowing what had become of his brother, he was in haste to ransom him out of the hands of his enemies, and was willing to pay three hundred talents as the price of his release. He also took with him the son of Phasaelus, a child only seven years old, for this very reason: that the boy might be a hostage for the repayment of the money. But messengers from Malchus met him and asked him to leave, saying that the Parthians had ordered Malchus not to receive Herod. This was only a pretext he used so that he would not be obliged to repay what he owed him; and the leading men among the Arabs pushed him further into it, so that they might cheat Herod of the sums they had received from Antipater, which he had entrusted to their good faith. Herod answered that he had not intended to be a burden to them by coming there; he wished only to speak with them about certain matters of the greatest importance to him. [a]

So he decided to go away, and very prudently took the road to Egypt. It was then that he lodged in a certain temple, for he had left a great many of his followers there. The next day he came to Rhinocolura, and it was there that he heard what had happened to his brother. Malchus soon repented of what he had done and came running after Herod, but with no success at all, for Herod had already gone a very long way and was hurrying along the road to Pelusium. When the guard ships stationed there kept him from sailing to Alexandria, he went to their captains, and with their help, given out of great reverence and regard for him, he was escorted into the city. There Cleopatra kept him with her; yet she could not persuade him to stay, because he was hurrying to Rome, even though the weather was stormy and he had been told that affairs in Italy were in great turmoil and disorder. [c]

So he set sail from there for Pamphylia. Caught in a violent storm, he barely escaped to Rhodes, with the loss of the ship’s cargo, and there two of his friends, Sappinas and Ptolemy, met him. Finding that city badly damaged in the war against Cassius, he did not fail to do it a kindness, though he was in need himself, but helped to restore it even beyond his means. He also built a trireme there, and sailed from there with his friends for Italy, and came to the port of Brundisium. When he had come from there to Rome, he first told Antony what had happened to him in Judea: how his brother Phasaelus had been seized by the Parthians and put to death by them; how Hyrcanus was being held captive by them; how they had made Antigonus king, who had promised them a sum of money of no less than a thousand talents, along with five hundred women, who were to be of the leading families and of Jewish stock; that he had carried the women off by night; that by enduring a great many hardships he had escaped the hands of his enemies; also that his own relatives were in danger of being besieged and taken; and that he had sailed through a storm and disregarded all its terrible dangers in order to come as quickly as possible to Antony, who was his hope and his only help at this time. [d]

This account moved Antony to pity at the change in Herod’s fortunes. Reasoning with himself that this was a common lot among those placed in such high positions, and that they are exposed to the changes that come from fortune, he was very ready to give him the help he wanted. He did so because he remembered the friendship he had had with Antipater, and because Herod was offering him money to make him king, as he had earlier given him money to make him tetrarch, but chiefly because of his hatred for Antigonus, whom he took to be a troublemaker and an enemy of the Romans. Caesar was all the readier to raise Herod’s rank and to help him in what he wanted, because of the campaigns in Egypt that Antipater, Herod’s father, had fought alongside Caesar’s own father, and the hospitality and the goodwill Antipater had always shown; and also to please Antony, who was very zealous for Herod. So the senate was convened. Messala first, and then Atratinus, presented Herod to it, spoke at length of the benefits they had received from his father, and reminded the senators of the goodwill Herod himself bore the Romans. At the same time they accused Antigonus and declared him an enemy, not only because of his earlier opposition to them, but because he had now disregarded the Romans and taken the government from the Parthians. At this the senate was angered; and Antony informed them further that it was to their advantage in the Parthian war that Herod should be king. All the senators approved, and so they passed a decree accordingly. [f]

And this was the chief proof of Antony’s affection for Herod: not only did he obtain for him a kingdom he did not expect (for Herod had not come intending to ask the kingdom for himself, since he did not suppose the Romans would grant it to him, as they were accustomed to give it to someone of the royal family; he meant to ask it for his wife’s brother Alexander, who was a grandson of Aristobulus on his father’s side and of Hyrcanus on his mother’s), but he obtained it for him so quickly that Herod got what he did not expect and left Italy within seven days in all. This young man Herod afterward took care to have killed, as we will show in its proper place. When the senate was dismissed, Antony and Caesar went out of the senate house with Herod between them, and with the consuls and the other magistrates going before them, to offer sacrifices and to deposit their decree in the Capitol. Antony also gave a feast for Herod on the first day of his reign. And so this man received the kingdom. He obtained it in the 184th Olympiad, when Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus was consul for the second time, with Gaius Asinius Pollio. [h]

All this while Antigonus was besieging those in Masada. They had plenty of all other necessities and lacked only water, so much so that Joseph, Herod’s brother, was planning on this account to run away from the place to the Arabs with two hundred of his own men; for he had heard that Malchus repented of the wrongs he had done Herod. But God prevented his going by sending rain in the night. Their cisterns were filled by it, and he had no need to run away for that reason. Instead they now took good courage, all the more because the sending of such plenty of the water they had lacked seemed a mark of divine providence. So they made a sally and fought hand to hand with Antigonus’s soldiers, some in the open and some from cover, and killed a great number of them. At the same time Ventidius, the Roman general, was sent out of Syria to drive the Parthians out of it, and he marched after them into Judea, on the pretext of helping Joseph; but in reality the whole affair was nothing but a trick to get money from Antigonus. So they pitched camp very near Jerusalem and stripped Antigonus of a great deal of money, and then Ventidius withdrew with the greater part of the army. But so that the bribe he had taken might not be found out, he left Silo there with a certain part of his soldiers. Antigonus cultivated Silo’s friendship as well, so that he would cause him no trouble; and he still hoped the Parthians would come again and defend him. [j]