Herod’s Death and Funeral

Herod now changed his will as his mind changed. He appointed Antipas, to whom he had earlier left the kingdom, to be tetrarch of Galilee and Perea, and granted the kingdom to Archelaus. He gave Gaulanitis, Trachonitis, Batanea and Paneas to Philip, his son and Archelaus’s own brother, under the name of a tetrarchy. He left Jamnia, Ashdod and Phasaelis to his sister Salome, with five hundred thousand pieces of coined silver. He also provided for all the rest of his kin, giving them sums of money and yearly revenues, and so left them all wealthy. He left Caesar ten million in coined money, besides vessels of gold and silver and very costly garments; and to Julia, Caesar’s wife, and certain others, five million. When he had done this he died, on the fifth day after he had had Antipater killed. He had reigned thirty-four years since he had had Antigonus put to death, and thirty-seven since the Romans had declared him king. He was a man savage toward all alike, a slave to his anger, and above any regard for what was right. Yet he was favored by fortune as much as any man ever was: from a private man he became a king, and though he was surrounded by countless dangers, he came clear of them all and lived to a very old age. But as for the affairs of his household and his children, although in his own opinion he was very fortunate there too, because he was able to overcome his enemies, in my opinion he was very unfortunate in them. [a]

Before the king’s death was made known, Salome and Alexas dismissed those who were shut up in the hippodrome, telling them that the king ordered them to go away to their own lands and look after their own affairs; and this was the greatest kindness they did the nation. Then the king’s death was made public, and Salome and Alexas gathered the soldiers together in the amphitheater at Jericho. The first thing they did was to read Herod’s letter to the soldiers, thanking them for their loyalty and goodwill toward him and urging them to show the same loyalty and goodwill to his son Archelaus, whom he had appointed their king. After this Ptolemy, who had been entrusted with the king’s seal, read the king’s will, which was to take effect only as it should stand once Caesar had examined it. At once the soldiers acclaimed Archelaus as king, and they came up company by company with their commanders, and promised him their goodwill and readiness to serve, and prayed God to help him. [f]

After this they prepared for his funeral, Archelaus taking care that the procession to his father’s tomb should be very splendid. So he brought out all his finery to adorn the funeral procession. The body was carried on a golden bier set with precious stones of great variety, and the bier was covered with purple, as was the body itself. He had a diadem on his head and above it a crown of gold, and a scepter in his right hand. Around the bier were his sons and his many relatives, and after them came the soldiers, arranged by their countries and their names, in this order: first went his bodyguard, then the Thracian troops, after them the Germans, and next the Galatian troops, all in their battle gear. Behind these marched the whole army, just as they used to go out to war, drawn up in ranks by their officers and centurions; and these were followed by five hundred of his servants carrying spices. So they went about a mile toward Herodium, for there by his own command he was to be buried. And so Herod ended his life. [g]

Archelaus showed him such respect as to continue his mourning until the seventh day, for that many days are appointed for it by the law of our fathers. When he had given a feast for the people and ended his mourning, he went up to the temple. Wherever he went he was greeted with cheers and praise, each person vying with the rest to be heard cheering loudest. He went up on a high platform made for him and took his seat on a throne of gold, and spoke kindly to the people. He told them how glad he was to receive their cheers and the signs of goodwill they showed him, and thanked them for not holding against him the wrongs his father had done them. He promised that he would try not to fall short in rewarding their eagerness to serve him as it deserved. But for the present, he said, he would refrain from the title of king, and would have the honor of that rank only if Caesar confirmed and settled the will his father had made. That was why, when the army at Jericho would have put the diadem on him, he had not accepted an honor usually so much desired, since it was not yet clear that the one chiefly concerned in bestowing it would give it to him. Yet once the government came to him, he would not fall short in rewarding their kindness to him, and it would be his effort in all that concerned them to prove better in every respect than his father. At this the people, as crowds usually do, supposed that the first days of those who take up such power show what they intend; and the more gently and courteously Archelaus spoke to them, the more highly they praised him, and the more they pressed him to grant what they wanted. Some clamored for him to ease their yearly payments; others asked him to release those whom Herod had put in prison, who were many and had been imprisoned at various times; and others demanded that he do away with the taxes that had been harshly laid on what was publicly bought and sold. Archelaus refused them nothing, since he made a show of doing everything so as to win the people’s goodwill, regarding that goodwill as a great step toward keeping the government. Then he went and offered sacrifice to God, and afterward went off to feast with his friends. [i]