The Banishment and Death of Pheroras

When Herod had punished the Pharisees who had been convicted of these crimes, he called an assembly of his friends and accused Pheroras’s wife. He blamed the insults to the virgins on that woman’s impudence and made a charge of the dishonor she had done him. She had deliberately stirred up a quarrel between him and his brother, and by her ill temper had brought them into a state of war, by both her words and her actions; the fine he had imposed had been evaded because she paid it; and nothing that had lately been done had been done without her. “For this reason, Pheroras, you would do well to put this wife of yours away of his own accord and by his own decision, and not at my entreaty or as following my opinion, since she will go on being the cause of war between you and me. And now, Pheroras, if you value your kinship with me, put this wife of yours away; for in this way you will remain a brother to me and continue in your love for me.” Then Pheroras said, though he was hard pressed by these words, that just as he would not do so unjust a thing as to renounce his brotherly relation to him, so he would not give up his affection for his wife; he would rather die than live deprived of a wife so dear to him. At this Herod let his anger against Pheroras on these counts drop, although it cost him a very uneasy punishment of his own. However, he forbade Antipater and his mother to have any dealings with Pheroras, and told them to take care to avoid the women’s gatherings. They promised to do so, but still got together whenever occasion served, and Pheroras and Antipater had their own drinking parties. The report went around, too, that Antipater was committing adultery with Pheroras’s wife, and that they were brought together by Antipater’s mother. [a]

But Antipater now suspected his father, and was afraid that the effects of his hatred toward him might grow. So he wrote to his friends at Rome and told them to send word to Herod that he should send Antipater to Caesar at once. When this was done, Herod sent Antipater there with very fine presents, and also his will, in which Antipater was named his successor; and if Antipater should die first, his son Herod, born to him by the high priest’s daughter, was to succeed. Sylleus the Arabian also went to Rome along with Antipater, though he had done nothing of all that Caesar had ordered him. Before Caesar, Antipater accused him of the same things of which Nicolaus had accused him before. Sylleus was also accused by Aretas of having killed many of the chief men of the Arabians at Petra without his consent, in particular Soemus, a man who deserved to be honored by everyone, and of having killed Fabatus, a servant of Caesar. [d]

These were the charges against Sylleus, and they arose in the following way. There was a certain Corinthus, one of the king’s bodyguards, a man Herod greatly trusted. Sylleus had persuaded this man, with the offer of a great sum of money, to kill Herod, and he had promised to do it. When Fabatus learned of this, for Sylleus himself had told him, he informed the king. The king seized Corinthus, put him to torture, and so got the whole conspiracy out of him. He also seized two other Arabians whom Corinthus had exposed, one the head of a tribe and the other a friend of Sylleus. The king put both to torture, and they confessed that they had come to encourage Corinthus not to fail to do what he had undertaken, and to help him with their own hands in the murder if need required. So Saturninus, when Herod had laid the whole matter before him, sent them to Rome.

At this time Herod ordered Pheroras, since he was so obstinate in his affection for his wife, to withdraw to his own tetrarchy. He did so very willingly, and swore many oaths that he would not come back until he heard that Herod was dead. And indeed, when the king fell sick and Pheroras was asked to come to him before he died, so that Herod might entrust him with some instructions, he had such regard for his oath that he would not come. Herod, however, did not imitate the resolve Pheroras had declared in such circumstances. When Pheroras later began to be ill, Herod came to him, and that without being sent for; and when he died, Herod took charge of his funeral, had his body brought to Jerusalem and buried there, and appointed a solemn mourning for him. This became the beginning of Antipater’s misfortunes, although he had already sailed for Rome, for God was now about to punish him for the murder of his brothers. I will set out the history of this matter very distinctly, so that it may serve as a warning to mankind to take care to conduct their whole lives by the rules of virtue. [g]