The Death of Alexander and Aristobulus

So Caesar, now reconciled to Herod, wrote to him as follows. He was grieved for him on account of his sons. If they had committed any impious and insolent crimes against him, Herod ought to punish them as parricides, and Caesar gave him the power to do so; but if they had only planned to flee, he wanted him to admonish them and not go to extremes with them. He also advised him to call a council together and to appoint for it some place near Berytus, a city belonging to the Romans; to take the governors of Syria, and Archelaus king of Cappadocia, and as many others as he thought distinguished for their friendship with him and the rank they held; and to decide with their approval what should be done. These were Caesar’s instructions. When the letter was brought to Herod, he was at once very glad that Caesar was reconciled to him, and very glad too that he had been given complete authority over his sons. And it came about strangely that, whereas before, in his adversity, though he had indeed shown himself harsh, he had not been rash or hasty in seeking his sons’ destruction, now, in his prosperity, he seized on this change for the better and the freedom he now had, and his hatred gloried in its power. So he sent for as many as he thought fit to this council, except Archelaus. Either he hated him and so would not invite him, or he thought he would stand in the way of his plans. [a]

When the governors and the others from the cities had come to Berytus, Herod kept his sons in a village belonging to Sidon called Platana, near the city, so that he might produce them if they were called for; for he did not think fit to bring them before the council. When a hundred and fifty assessors were present, Herod came alone and accused his sons. He did not do it as if it were a sorrowful accusation, made only out of necessity and because of the misfortunes he was under, but in a way most unbecoming for a father accusing his sons. He was very violent and agitated when he came to the proof of the crime they were charged with, and gave the greatest signs of passion and savagery. He would not let the assessors examine the proofs for themselves, but pleaded the case to them like an advocate, which was most unbecoming in a father against his sons. He read out himself what they had written. It contained no confession of any plots or schemes against him, only of how they had planned to flee, along with certain reproaches against him on account of the ill will he bore them. When he came to these reproaches he cried out loudest of all and exaggerated what they said, as if they had confessed the plot against him, and he swore that he would rather lose his life than hear such insulting words. At last he said that he had sufficient authority, both by nature and by Caesar’s grant. He also cited a law of his country, which ordered this: if parents laid their hands on the head of one who was accused, the bystanders were obliged to throw stones at him and so kill him. Though he was ready to do this in his own country and kingdom, he was nonetheless waiting for their decision. Yet they had come there not so much as judges, to condemn sons for such open plots against him, by which he had nearly perished at their hands, but as men who had the occasion to share his indignation, and to declare how unworthy a thing it would be for anyone, even the most distant, to pass over such treachery. [d]

When the king had said this, and the young men had not been brought in to make any defense for themselves, the assessors saw that there was no room for consideration or reconciliation, and so they confirmed his authority. First Saturninus, a man who had been consul and was of great dignity, gave his opinion, but with great moderation and distress. He said that he condemned Herod’s sons, but did not think they should be put to death. He had sons of his own, and to put one’s son to death is a greater misfortune than any other that could befall a man through his sons. After him Saturninus’s sons, for he had three sons who accompanied him as his legates, gave the same opinion as their father. Volumnius, on the contrary, voted to inflict death on those who had been so impiously undutiful to their father, and most of the rest said the same, so that the outcome seemed to be that the young men were condemned to die. Immediately after this Herod left and took his sons to Tyre, where Nicolaus met him on his voyage from Rome. After telling him what had happened at Berytus, Herod asked him what he thought about his sons, and what his friends at Rome thought of the matter. His answer was: “What they planned against you was impious, and you ought to keep them in prison. If you think anything more is necessary, you may indeed punish them, but in such a way that you do not appear to indulge your anger rather than govern yourself by judgment. But if you lean to the milder side, you may set them free, so that your misfortunes are not made incurable. And this is the opinion of most of your friends at Rome as well.” At this Herod fell silent and deep in thought, and told Nicolaus to sail on with him. [g]

When they came to Caesarea, everybody there was talking about Herod’s sons. The kingdom was in suspense, and the people waited anxiously to see what would become of them. A terrible fear seized everyone that the long-standing disorders of the family would come to a sad end, and they were greatly troubled at the young men’s sufferings. Yet it was not safe to say anything rash about the matter, or even to listen to someone else saying it; men’s pity had to be shut up inside them, which made the excess of their grief very painful, but very silent. Yet there was an old soldier of Herod’s named Tero, who had a son of the same age as Alexander and his friend, and he was outspoken enough to say openly what others thought in silence about the matter. He was driven to cry out often among the crowd, and he said in the most unguarded way that truth had perished and justice had been taken away from men, while lies and ill will prevailed and cast such a fog over public affairs that the offenders could not see the greatest evils that can befall men. Because he was so bold, it seemed that he had not kept himself out of danger by speaking so freely. But the reasonableness of what he said moved men to regard him as having acted very bravely, and at the right time too, and so everyone was glad to hear him say what each of them would have said himself. Although they first looked to their own safety by keeping silent themselves, they welcomed the great freedom he took; for the calamity they expected drove everyone to talk about it. [h]

This man pushed his way into the king’s presence with the greatest freedom and asked to speak with him alone. The king allowed it, and Tero said this: “Since I cannot bear up, O king, under so great a concern as I am under, I have preferred this bold liberty I now take, which may be to your advantage if you are willing to profit by it, to my own safety. Where has your understanding gone, leaving your soul empty? Where has that extraordinary shrewdness of yours gone, by which you have accomplished so many glorious deeds? Why this isolation, this desertion by your friends and relatives? I can only conclude that they are neither your friends nor your relatives, when they overlook such horrible wickedness in your once happy kingdom. Do you not see what is being done? Will you kill these two young men, born to you by your queen, who are accomplished in every virtue to the highest degree, and leave yourself destitute in your old age, exposed to one son who has very badly managed the hopes you have given him, and to relatives whose death you have so often resolved on yourself? Do you not notice that the very silence of the crowd at once sees the crime and abhors the deed? The whole army and the officers pity the poor unhappy youths, and hate those who are the actors in this business.” The king heard these words, and for some time with good temper. But what need is there to say it? When Tero plainly touched on the king’s passion and his distrust of his own family, it shook him. But Tero went further, and little by little used an unbounded soldier’s freedom of speech, for he was not disciplined enough to suit himself to the occasion. So Herod was greatly disturbed. He seemed to himself to be reproached by this speech rather than to be hearing something for his advantage; and when he learned from it that the soldiers abhorred what he was about to do and the officers were indignant at it, he ordered all those whom Tero had named, and Tero himself, to be bound and kept in prison. [i]

When this was over, a certain Trypho, the king’s barber, took the opportunity and came and told the king that Tero had often tried to persuade him, when he shaved him with a razor, to cut his throat, for in this way he would be among the chief of Alexander’s friends and receive great rewards from him. When he had said this, the king ordered Tero, his son, and the barber to be tortured, and it was done. While Tero held out, his son, seeing his father already in a terrible state and with no hope of release, and foreseeing his own fate from his father’s dreadful sufferings, said that if the king would free him and his father from these torments in return for what he would say, he would tell the truth. When the king had given his word to do so, he said that it had been agreed that Tero should lay violent hands on the king, since it was easy for him to approach the king when he was alone; and that if, once he had done the deed, he should suffer death for it, as was not unlikely, it would be a noble act done for Alexander’s sake. This is what Tero’s son said, and so he freed his father from the torture he was in. But it is uncertain whether he had been forced in this way to speak the truth, or whether it was a contrivance of his to procure his own and his father’s release from their miseries.

As for Herod, if he had had any hesitation before about killing his sons, there was now no room left in his soul for it. He had banished whatever might give him the least prompting to reason better about the matter, and he now hurried to bring his purpose to its conclusion. He brought out three hundred of the officers who were under accusation, together with Tero and his son and the barber who had accused them, before an assembly, and brought an accusation against them all; and the crowd stoned them with whatever came to hand, and so killed them. Alexander and Aristobulus were taken to Sebaste by their father’s command and there strangled. Their bodies were carried by night to Alexandrium, where their mother’s father and most of their ancestors had been laid to rest. [j]

Perhaps it may not seem unreasonable to some that so deep-rooted a hatred could grow so great as to go further and overcome nature. But it deserves consideration whether the blame should be laid on the young men, for giving their father such occasion for anger, leading him to do what he did, and, by keeping on so long in the same course, putting things past remedy and bringing him to treat them so mercilessly; or whether it should be laid on the father, for being so hard-hearted and so greedy for power and for other things that served his glory that he would take no one as a partner with him, so that whatever he wished done might remain unshaken; or indeed whether fortune has more power than all prudent reasoning. From this we are persuaded that human actions are determined beforehand by her through an inevitable necessity, and we call her Fate, because there is nothing that is not done by her. But I think it will be enough to set against this notion that other one, which attributes something to ourselves and makes men accountable for the different conduct of their lives; and that notion is no other than the philosophical teaching of our ancient law. Of the two other causes of this sad event, then, anyone may lay the blame on the young men. They acted out of youthful vanity and the pride of their royal birth, in that they would listen to the slanders raised against their father. They were certainly not fair judges of the actions of his life, but malicious in suspecting and unrestrained in speaking, and on both counts easily caught by those who watched them and reported them to win favor. Yet their father cannot be thought to deserve any excuse for the horrible impiety he committed against them. Without any certain evidence of their treacherous designs against him, and without any proof that they had made preparations for such an attempt, he dared to kill his own sons, who were very handsome in body, greatly loved by others, and lacking in nothing in their conduct, whether in hunting, in the exercises of war, or in speaking on any subject that came up; for they were skilled in all these, and especially Alexander, who was the elder. It would certainly have been enough, even if he had condemned them, to keep them alive in chains, or to let them live in exile far from his dominions, while he was surrounded by the Roman forces, which were a strong security to him and whose help would keep him from suffering anything from a sudden attack or open force. But to kill them suddenly, to gratify a passion that ruled him, was proof of an intolerable impiety. And he committed so great a crime in his old age. Nor will his delays, and the length of time over which the thing was done, plead in his defense at all. When a man is suddenly thrown into confusion and turmoil of mind and then commits a wicked act, it is a heavy crime, yet it is something that often happens. But to do it after deliberation, after repeated attempts and as many postponements, to undertake it at last and carry it through, was the act of a murderous mind, and one not easily turned from evil. He showed this same temper in what he did afterward, when he did not spare even those who seemed the best loved of the friends he had left. In their case, though the justice of the punishment made those who perished the less pitied, the man’s cruelty was the same, in that he did not refrain from killing them too. But we will have occasion to speak of those persons more fully later on. [k]