The Golden Eagle Torn Down

Herod’s envoys hurried to Rome, instructed beforehand what answers to give to the questions put to them, and they took the letters with them. But Herod now fell ill, and made his will, and left his kingdom to his youngest son, out of the hatred for Archelaus and Philip that Antipater’s slanders had stirred up in him. He also left a thousand talents to Caesar, and five hundred to Julia, Caesar’s wife, and to Caesar’s children and friends and freedmen. He divided his money, his revenues and his lands among his sons and their sons. He also made his sister Salome very rich, because she had remained faithful to him in all his fortunes and had never been so rash as to do him any harm. And since he despaired of recovering, for he was about seventy years old, he grew savage and gave way to the bitterest anger on every occasion. The cause of it was that he thought himself despised, and that the nation was pleased at his misfortunes. Besides this, he was enraged at an uprising that some men of the common people stirred up against him, which came about as follows. [a]

There were two men, Judas son of Saripheus and Matthias son of Margalothus, the most eloquent men among the Jews and the most celebrated interpreters of the Jewish laws, and much loved by the people because they taught the young; for all who were eager for virtue attended their lectures every day. When these men found that the king’s illness was incurable, they urged the young men to pull down all the works the king had put up contrary to the law of their fathers, and so win the rewards the law would give them for such acts of piety. For it was truly because of Herod’s rashness in making things the law had forbidden, they said, that his other misfortunes had come upon him, and this illness too, so unusual among mankind, with which he was now afflicted. For Herod had had things made that were contrary to the law, and Judas and Matthias accused him of them: the king had set up over the great gate of the temple a large golden eagle of great value, and had dedicated it to the temple. Now the law forbids those who mean to live by it to set up images or representations of any living creature. So these wise men persuaded their pupils to pull down the golden eagle. Even if they should run into danger that might bring them to their deaths, they argued, the virtue of the action now set before them would prove far more to their advantage than the pleasures of life; for they would die for the keeping and observing of the law of their fathers; they would win everlasting fame and praise; they would be praised by the present generation and leave to those who came after an example of life that would never be forgotten. Since that common calamity, death, cannot be avoided by living so as to escape such dangers, it was right for those in love with virtuous conduct to wait for their fated hour in such conduct as would carry them out of the world with praise and honor. It would greatly lighten death to come to it by doing brave deeds that put them in danger of it, and at the same time to leave behind them a reputation for their children and all their relatives, men or women, that would be of great advantage to them afterward. [c]

With speeches like these the men stirred up the young men to this action. And when a report reached them that the king was dead, this was added to the wise men’s persuasions. So at midday they climbed up to the place, pulled down the eagle, and cut it to pieces with axes, while a great crowd of people was in the temple. Then the king’s officer, hearing of the undertaking and supposing it was something more serious than it proved to be, came up with a large force of soldiers, enough to check the crowd of those who were pulling down what had been dedicated to God. He fell on them unexpectedly, while they were busy with this bold attempt in foolish presumption rather than careful foresight, as crowds usually are, and while they were in disorder and heedless of their own interest. He caught no fewer than forty of the young men, who had the courage to stay when the rest ran away, together with the authors of the attempt, Judas and Matthias, who thought it disgraceful to retreat at his approach, and he led them to the king. When they came before the king, and he asked them whether they had dared to pull down what he had dedicated to God, they said, “Yes. What was planned, we planned, and what has been done, we did, and with such courage as befits men. For we have come to the defense of God’s honor, and we have listened to the wisdom of the law. And no one should be surprised if we think the laws which Moses was given and taught by God, and which he wrote and left behind him, more worthy to be kept than your commands. So we will undergo death and every kind of punishment you can inflict on us, and gladly, since we know in our own hearts that we will die not for any unrighteous deed but for our love of religion.” They all said this, and their courage matched their words, and matched the readiness with which they had set about the undertaking. [d]

The king had them bound and summoned the leading men of the Jews to Jericho. When they had come, he had them assemble in the theater; and because he could not stand, he lay on a couch and recounted the many labors he had long endured on their account: his building of the temple, and what a vast expense it had been to him, when the Hasmoneans in the hundred and twenty-five years of their rule had not been able to accomplish any work so great for the honor of God; and how he had also adorned it with very valuable gifts, for which he hoped he had left himself a memorial and won himself a name after his death. Then he cried out that these men had not refrained from insulting him even in his lifetime, but in broad daylight and in the sight of the crowd had abused him so far as to fall on what he had dedicated and, by way of insult, pull it down to the ground. On the face of it, they had done it to insult him; but anyone who considered the matter truly would find that they were guilty of sacrilege against God.

But the leading men, because of Herod’s savage temper, and fearing that in his cruelty he would punish them, said that what had been done was done without their approval, and that it seemed to them the doers might well be punished for it. Herod dealt more mildly with the rest, but he removed Matthias from the high priesthood as partly to blame for this action, and made Joazar, his own wife’s brother, high priest in his place. Now it happened during the high priesthood of this Matthias that another man was made high priest for a single day, the very day the Jews keep as a fast. This was the occasion: on the night before the day when the fast was to be kept, Matthias the high priest seemed in a dream to have had intercourse with a woman; and because he could not serve on that account, Joseph son of Ellemus, his relative, served in that sacred office in his place. But Herod removed this Matthias from the high priesthood, and burned alive the other Matthias, who had raised the uprising, together with some of his companions. And that very night there was an eclipse of the moon. [f]

Herod’s illness now grew much worse, and severely, and this by God’s judgment on him for his sins. A fire burned slowly within him, which showed less to the touch outwardly than it increased his pains inwardly. It brought on him a violent craving to eat, which he could not keep from satisfying with one kind of food or another. His bowels were ulcerated, and the worst of his pain was in his colon. A watery, clear fluid had gathered about his feet, and a like matter afflicted him in the lower part of his belly. Worse still, his genitals rotted and bred worms. His breathing was strained, so that he had to sit upright to breathe, and it was very loathsome because of the stench of his breath and how quickly it came. He also had convulsions in every part of his body, which grew to an unbearable strength. Those who were inspired, and whose wisdom it was to foretell such things, said that God was inflicting this punishment on the king for his great impiety. Yet he still hoped to recover, though his sufferings seemed greater than anyone could bear. He sent for physicians and did not refuse to follow what they prescribed to help him. He went across the Jordan River and bathed in the warm springs at Callirrhoe, which, besides their other general virtues, were also fit to drink; this water runs down into the lake called Asphaltitis. Once, when the physicians thought fit to have him bathed in a tub full of oil, it was supposed that he was dying; but at the wailing cries of his servants he revived. Then, having no hope left at all of recovering, he ordered that every soldier be paid fifty drachmas, and he gave a great deal to their commanders and to his friends. He came back to Jericho, where he grew so bitter-tempered that it drove him to do everything like a madman; and though he was near his death, he devised the following wicked plan. He ordered that all the leading men of the whole Jewish nation, wherever they lived, be summoned to him. A great number came, since the whole nation was summoned and everyone heard of the summons, and death was the penalty for anyone who ignored the letters calling them. And now the king was in a wild rage against them all, the innocent as well as those who had given grounds for accusation. When they had come, he ordered them all shut up in the hippodrome, and sent for his sister Salome and her husband Alexas, and spoke to them this way: “I will die shortly, so great are my pains. Death can be borne, and it comes to all men; but what troubles me most is this, that I will die unlamented, without the mourning men usually expect at a king’s death.” For he was well aware of the temper of the Jews, he said, and knew that his death would be greatly wished for and very welcome to them, since even during his lifetime they had been ready to revolt from him and to abuse the gifts he had dedicated to God. It was therefore their task to resolve to give him some relief in his great sorrow on this occasion. If they did not refuse him their consent in what he wanted, he would have a great mourning at his funeral, such as no king before him had ever had; for then the whole nation would mourn from the heart, whereas otherwise it would be done only in sport and mockery. He wanted them, therefore, as soon as they saw he had breathed his last, to post soldiers around the hippodrome while the men inside did not know he was dead; and not to announce his death to the people until this was done, but to give orders that those held there be shot down with javelins. This slaughter of them all would give him a double cause for joy: that as he was dying they would assure him that his will would be carried out in what he charged them to do, and that he would have the honor of a memorable mourning at his funeral. So he lamented his condition with tears in his eyes, and implored them by the kindness they owed him as kin, and by the faith they owed to God, and begged them not to rob him of this honorable mourning at his funeral. And they promised him not to disobey his commands. [m]

Anyone can see the temper of this man’s mind, even someone who has been content to think that what he did before against his relatives he did out of love of life, from these latest commands of his, which had nothing human about them. For as he was departing this life he took care that the whole nation should be put into mourning, and indeed robbed of their dearest kin, when he gave orders that one out of every family should be killed, though they had done nothing wrong or anything against him, nor were they accused of any other crime; whereas it is usual for those who have any regard for virtue to lay aside their hatred at such a time, even toward those they rightly held to be their enemies. [t]