The Death of Mariamne

When Herod came back into his kingdom, however, he found his household in complete disorder, and his wife Mariamne and her mother Alexandra very unhappy. They supposed, as it was easy to suppose, that they had not been placed in that fortress for their own safety but shut up there as in a prison, and that they had no power over anything, whether other people’s affairs or their own; and this made them very unhappy. Mariamne believed that the king’s love for her was a pretense, put on because it served his interests rather than real, and she regarded it as false. She was grieved too that he would not leave her any hope of outliving him if harm should come to him. She also remembered the orders he had once given to Joseph. So she set herself to win over her keepers, and especially Sohemus, knowing well that everything was in his hands. At first Sohemus was faithful to Herod and neglected none of the things he had been charged with. But when the women had won his affections with kind words and generous presents, he was gradually overcome, and at last he disclosed all the king’s orders to them. His chief reason was that he did not expect Herod to come back with the authority he had had before. He thought, then, that he would escape any danger from Herod, and that he was doing the women a great favor. They were not likely to be passed over when the government was settled; indeed they would be able to reward him richly, since they must either reign themselves or stand very near whoever reigned. He had a further hope as well: that even if Herod had all the success he could wish for and came home again, he could not refuse his wife anything she wanted, for Sohemus knew the king’s passion for his wife was beyond words. These were the motives that led Sohemus to disclose the orders he had been given. Mariamne was bitterly displeased to hear that there was no end to the dangers she faced from Herod. It distressed her greatly. She wished he might win no favors from Caesar, and she thought it an almost unbearable task to go on living with him; and afterward she said so openly, without hiding her resentment. [a]

Now Herod sailed home rejoicing at his unexpected success. He went first of all, as was fitting, to his wife, and told the good news to her and to her alone, putting her before all the others because of his passion for her and the intimacy there had been between them, and he greeted her affectionately. But it so happened that when he told her of his success she was so far from rejoicing that she was sorry for it. Nor could she hide her resentment. Out of a sense of being dishonored, and from the pride of her surpassing nobility, she answered his greeting with a groan, and showed plainly that she was grieved rather than glad at his success. At last Herod was disturbed with her, since she was giving him not only signs of her suspicion but clear proof of her ill will. It troubled him greatly to see that this astonishing hatred of his wife toward him was not hidden but open. He took it very hard, and yet, because of his passion for her, he could not bear it, so that he could not hold to any one frame of mind for long. Sometimes he was angry with her, and sometimes he made peace with her again. By constantly exchanging one feeling for another he remained in great uncertainty, caught between hatred and love. He was often inclined to punish her for her insolence toward him, but being deeply in love with her in his soul, he could not bring himself to be rid of this woman. In short, much as he would have liked to see her punished, he was afraid that before he knew it, by putting her to death, he would bring a heavier punishment on himself at the same time. [c]

When Herod’s sister and mother saw that this was his state of mind toward Mariamne, they thought they now had an excellent opportunity to vent their hatred of her. They roused Herod’s anger by telling him long stories and slanders about her, the kind that would stir up his hatred and his jealousy together. He listened to them willingly enough, but he did not have the courage to do anything to her as though he believed them. Still, he grew more and more ill-disposed toward her, and these bitter feelings were inflamed more and more on both sides, while she did not hide how she felt toward him, and he turned his love for her into anger against her. But just as he was about to carry the matter past all remedy, he heard the news that Caesar had won the war, that Antony and Cleopatra were both dead, and that Caesar had conquered Egypt. So he hurried off to meet Caesar, and left the affairs of his family as they were. As he was setting out, however, Mariamne commended Sohemus to him. She declared that she owed him thanks for the care he had taken of her, and asked the king to give him the governorship of a district; and he received that honor. When Herod reached Egypt he was introduced to Caesar with great freedom, as one who was already his friend, and he received very great favors from him. Caesar made him a present of the four hundred Galatians who had been Cleopatra’s bodyguard, and gave back to him the country that had been taken from him through her influence. He also added to his kingdom Gadara, Hippos and Samaria, and besides these the cities on the coast, Gaza, Anthedon, Joppa and Strato’s Tower. [d]

With these new acquisitions he grew more magnificent, and he escorted Caesar as far as Antioch. But on his return, the more his prosperity was increased by the foreign territories that had been added to him, the greater were the troubles that came upon him in his own household, chiefly over his wife, the very matter in which he had once seemed most fortunate of all. For his love for Mariamne was in no way inferior to that of the lovers who are famous in history for it, and rightly so. As for her, she was in other respects a chaste woman and faithful to him. Yet there was something of a woman’s temper in her, and something harsh by nature, and she treated her husband imperiously enough, because she saw he was so infatuated with her as to be her slave. Nor did she stop to consider, as the times required, that she lived under a monarchy and was in another’s power, and so she would behave insolently toward him. He usually passed this off as a joke, and bore it with restraint and good temper. She would also openly mock his mother and his sister for their low birth and speak unkindly of them, so that even before this there had been a quarrel and an unforgiving hatred among the women. Now it had come to greater slanders than before, and these suspicions grew and lasted a whole year after Herod returned from Caesar. What had long been building up finally burst out on the following occasion. One day about noon the king had lain down on his bed to rest, and he called for Mariamne, out of the great affection he always had for her. She came in, but would not lie down beside him; and when he very much wanted her company, she showed her contempt for him, and added by way of reproach that he had had her father and her brother killed. He took this insult very hard and was ready to use violence against her in a rage. When the king’s sister Salome saw that he was more disturbed than usual, she sent in to him his cupbearer, who had been prepared long before for such a purpose. She told him to say to the king that Mariamne had persuaded him to help her prepare a love potion for him. If the king seemed greatly concerned and asked what this was, he was to say that it was a drug, which she had, and that he had only been asked to give it to him. But if he did not seem much concerned about the potion, the man was to let the matter drop, and if he did so, no harm would come to him from it. When she had given him these instructions, she sent him in at that moment to make this speech. So he went in with a composed manner, to win belief for what he would say, and yet somewhat hurriedly, and said that Mariamne had given him presents and persuaded him to give the king a love potion. When this moved the king and he asked what the love potion was, he said that it was a drug she had given him, whose effects he did not know, and that this was why he had decided to give the information, as the safest course he could take both for himself and for the king. When Herod heard what he said, being already in a bad temper, his anger grew more violent. He ordered that Mariamne’s most faithful eunuch be put to torture about this drug, knowing well that nothing, small or great, could be done without him. When the man was in the utmost agony he could say nothing about the thing he was being tortured over; but this much he did know, that Mariamne’s hatred of the king had been caused by something Sohemus had said to her. As he was saying this, Herod cried out aloud that Sohemus, who at all other times had been most faithful to him and to his government, would never have betrayed the orders he had given him unless he had been on closer terms than usual with Mariamne. So he gave orders that Sohemus be seized and killed at once. But he allowed his wife to stand trial. He gathered together those who were most faithful to him, and brought an elaborate accusation against her over these love potions and drugs, a charge that had been laid on her by slander alone. He did not, however, keep his temper in what he said, and was in too great a passion to judge this matter well. So when the court at last saw that he was determined, they passed sentence of death on her. Once the sentence had been passed, a milder course was proposed by Herod himself and by some others of the court: that she should not be put to death so hastily, but be confined in one of the fortresses of the kingdom. But Salome and her party worked hard to have the woman put to death. They prevailed on the king to do it, urging it as a precaution, in case the people should riot if she were allowed to live. And so Mariamne was led away to execution. [g]

When Alexandra saw how things were going, and that she had little hope of escaping the same treatment from Herod herself, she changed her conduct to the very opposite of what her former boldness would have led one to expect, and did so in a most unseemly way. Wanting to show that she knew nothing at all of the crimes charged against Mariamne, she leaped out of her place and abused her daughter in the hearing of all the people. She cried out that she had been a wicked woman and ungrateful to her husband, and that her punishment had justly come upon her for such insolent behavior, since she had not made a proper return to the man who had been the benefactor of them all. She kept up this hypocritical act for some time, and even dared to seize her daughter by the hair. This unseemly and false behavior was, as one would expect, strongly condemned by the rest of the onlookers, and above all by the poor woman who was to suffer. At first Mariamne said not a word to her and was not disturbed by her ill temper; she only looked at her. Yet out of the greatness of her soul she did show her distress at her mother’s offense, and especially at her exposing herself in so undignified a way. As for herself, she went to her death with an unshaken firmness of mind and without changing the color of her face, and so showed the onlookers plainly the nobility of her descent, even in the last moments of her life. [j]

So died Mariamne, a woman of excellent character, both for self-control and for greatness of soul. But she was not considerate, and had too much love of strife in her nature. In beauty of body and in the dignity of her bearing in company she surpassed the women of her time more than words can tell; and from this came most of the reasons why she did not prove as pleasing to the king, nor live as happily with him, as she might otherwise have done. Because the king treated her with every indulgence out of his passion for her, and she did not expect that he could do anything harsh to her, she allowed herself an unbounded freedom of speech. Moreover, what grieved her most was what he had done to her relatives, and she dared to speak of all they had suffered at his hands. At last she greatly provoked both the king’s mother and his sister, until they became her enemies; and even he himself did the same, the one man on whom alone she depended for her hope of suffering no harm. [k]

But once she was dead, the king’s passion for her blazed up more wildly than before. We have already described his old passion for her. His love for her was not of a calm kind, nor such as we usually find in other husbands. From its beginning it had been a kind of frenzy, and the free intimacy of their life together had not kept it from growing ever greater. But now his love for Mariamne seemed to seize him in so peculiar a way as to look like divine vengeance on him for taking her life. He would often call for her, and often weep for her in a most unseemly way. He thought of every means he could use to turn his mind from thinking of her, and arranged feasts and gatherings for that purpose, but nothing was enough. So he laid aside the business of government, and was so overcome by his passion that he would order his servants to call Mariamne, as if she were still alive and could still hear them. While he was in this state, a plague broke out and carried off most of the common people, and many of his best and most valued friends, and made everyone suspect that it had been brought on them by the anger of God for the injustice done to Mariamne. This affected the king still more, until at length he forced himself to go off into desert places, and there, on the pretext of going hunting, he tormented himself bitterly. Yet he had not borne his grief there many days before he fell into a most dangerous illness himself. He had an inflammation, and a pain in the back of his head, together with madness. The remedies that were used did him no good at all, but proved harmful to his condition, and so at length brought him to despair. All the physicians who attended him, partly because the medicines they brought for his recovery could not overcome the disease at all, and partly because his diet could be nothing but what his disease inclined him to, told him to eat whatever he liked. So they left the small hope they had of his recovery to that diet, and committed him to fortune. And so his illness went on while he was at Samaria, which is now called Sebaste.

Now Alexandra was living at Jerusalem at this time, and when she learned of Herod’s condition she tried to get possession of the fortified places about the city. There were two of them, one belonging to the city itself and the other to the temple. Whoever could get them into his hands had the whole nation in his power, for without command of them it was impossible to offer the sacrifices. And for any Jew it is plainly unthinkable to leave off those sacrifices; they are readier to lose their lives than to give up the worship of God they have been accustomed to pay. So Alexandra talked with those who had the keeping of these strongholds, and told them that it was proper for them to hand these over to her and to Herod’s sons, in case someone else should seize the government on his death; and that if he recovered, no one could keep them more safely for him than those of his own family. These words were not at all well received by them. They had been faithful to Herod in the past, and they resolved to be so more than ever, both because they hated Alexandra and because they thought it a kind of impiety to despair of Herod’s recovery while he was still alive; for they were his old friends, and one of them, named Achiabus, was his first cousin. So they sent messengers to inform him of Alexandra’s design. He delayed no longer, but gave orders to have her killed. Yet it was still only with difficulty, and after he had endured great pain, that he got free of his illness. He was still severely afflicted in both mind and body, and very irritable, and readier than ever on every occasion to punish whoever fell into his hands. He also killed the closest of his friends, Costobarus, Lysimachus, and Antipater, who was called Gadias, and Dositheus too. It came about in the following way. [m]

Costobarus was an Idumean by birth, and one of the leading men among them. His ancestors had been priests of Koze, whom the Idumeans hold to be a god. Hyrcanus had changed their way of life to the customs and laws of the Jews; and when Herod took the kingdom he made Costobarus governor of Idumea and Gaza and gave him his sister Salome as his wife, after he had put to death Joseph, who had been her husband before, as we have already related. When Costobarus had risen so high, it pleased him and was more than he had hoped for. He grew more and more puffed up by his good fortune, and before long he went beyond all bounds. He did not think it fitting for himself to obey what Herod, as their ruler, commanded, nor for the Idumeans, because they had taken up the customs of the Jews, to be subject to them. So he sent to Cleopatra and told her that Idumea had always belonged to her forefathers, and that for this reason it was only right that she should ask Antony for that country, since he was ready to transfer his loyalty to her. He did this, not because he would be better pleased to be under Cleopatra’s government, but because he thought that once Herod’s power was reduced it would not be hard for him to win the whole government of the Idumeans for himself, and something more besides. For he raised his hopes still higher, having no small claims both from his birth and from the wealth he had gained by his constant pursuit of shameful gain; and so it was no small thing that he was aiming at. So Cleopatra asked Antony for this country, but failed to get it. An account of this was brought to Herod, who was ready to kill Costobarus for it. Yet at the pleading of his sister and his mother he forgave him and granted him a full pardon, though afterward he still held him under suspicion for this attempt. [o]

Some time later, when Salome happened to quarrel with Costobarus, she sent him a bill of divorce and dissolved her marriage to him, though this was not in keeping with the Jewish laws. For among us it is lawful for a husband to do this; but a wife, if she leaves her husband, cannot on her own authority marry another unless her former husband has divorced her. Salome, however, chose to follow not the law of her country but the law of her own power, and so renounced her marriage. She told her brother Herod that she had left her husband out of goodwill toward him, because she had discovered that Costobarus, with Antipater, Lysimachus and Dositheus, was stirring up a revolt against him. As proof of this she pointed to the case of the sons of Sabbas: Costobarus had kept them alive in hiding for a span of twelve years. And this proved to be true. When Herod heard this so unexpectedly, he was greatly astonished, and all the more because the report seemed incredible to him. As for these sons of Sabbas, Herod had once taken great pains to bring them to punishment as enemies of his government, but because of the length of time that had passed they had now slipped his mind. The cause of his ill will and hatred toward them was this. While Antigonus was king, Herod besieged the city of Jerusalem with his army, and the distress and misery of the besieged were so pressing that most of them called on Herod to enter the city and were already placing their hopes in him. Now the sons of Sabbas were men of high rank with power among the common people. They were faithful to Antigonus, and they were always spreading slanders against Herod and urging the people to keep the government for the royal family that held it by inheritance. So these men followed this policy, thinking it to their own advantage as well. But when the city was taken and Herod had the government in his hands, Costobarus was appointed to stop men from leaving by the gates and to guard the city, so that the citizens who were guilty and belonged to the party opposed to the king could not get out. Costobarus knew that the sons of Sabbas were held in respect and honor by all the people, and he supposed that saving them might be of great advantage to him in later changes of government. So he set them apart and hid them on his own estates. When the matter was suspected, he assured Herod on oath that he really knew nothing about it, and so overcame the suspicion that lay on him. Even afterward, when the king had publicly offered a reward for information and had tried every kind of method to search the matter out, he would not confess it. He was convinced that, having denied it at first, he would not escape punishment if the men were found, and so he was forced to keep them hidden, not only out of goodwill toward them but out of necessary concern for his own safety too. But when the king learned the truth from his sister’s information, he sent men to the places where he had been told they were hidden, and ordered that both they and those accused of being guilty with them be killed. So now there was no one at all left of the kindred of Hyrcanus. The kingdom was entirely in Herod’s own power, and there was no one remaining of such rank as could check what he did against the Jewish laws. [r]