Caesar Divides Herod’s Kingdom

So when Varus had settled these affairs and stationed the former legion at Jerusalem, he went back to Antioch. Archelaus, however, met with fresh sources of trouble at Rome, for the following reasons. An embassy of the Jews had come to Rome, Varus having given the nation leave to send it, to petition for the freedom to live by their own laws. The ambassadors sent by the authority of the nation numbered fifty, and more than eight thousand of the Jews already at Rome joined them. Caesar then assembled his friends and the leading men among the Romans in the temple of Apollo, which he had built at vast expense. The ambassadors came there, and with them a multitude of the Jews who were already in the city; Archelaus and his friends came too. As for Archelaus’s various kinsmen, they would not side with him, because they hated him; and yet they thought it too shameful to side with the ambassadors against him, supposing that it would disgrace them in Caesar’s eyes to act in this way against a man of their own family. Philip had also come there from Syria at the urging of Varus, chiefly to support his brother Archelaus, for Varus was a great friend of his. But he came also so that, if there should be any change in the form of government (which Varus suspected there would be), and if any division should be made because so many wanted the freedom to live by their own laws, he would not be left out but would have his share. [a]

When the Jewish ambassadors were given leave to speak, those who hoped to have the monarchy abolished turned to accusing Herod of his crimes. They declared that he had been a king in name, but had taken up the most incurable evils of every tyranny, combined them in himself, and used them for the destruction of the Jews; and that, besides, he had not kept from making many innovations among them according to his own whims. Great numbers had perished in the ruin he brought on them, more indeed than any other history records; and those who survived were far more wretched than those who had suffered under him, not only for the pain that what they saw and dwelt on gave them, but also for what they suffered in their property. He had never stopped adorning the cities near them that were inhabited by foreigners, while the cities under his own rule were ruined and utterly destroyed; so that, whereas the kingdom was extraordinarily prosperous when he took it, he had filled the nation with the deepest poverty. When on unjust pretexts he had killed any of the nobility, he took their estates; and when he let any of them live, he sentenced them to lose what they owned. Besides the yearly taxes he laid on every one of them, they had to make lavish gifts to himself, to his household and friends, and to those of his slaves who were granted the privilege of collecting his taxes, because there was no way to buy freedom from unjust violence without paying either gold or silver for it. They would say nothing, they said, of the violation of their virgins and the shaming of their wives, things done in drunken insolence and in an inhuman way; for it was no less a comfort to those who had suffered them to have such things kept hidden than it would have been not to have suffered them at all. Herod had treated them in a way that a wild beast would not have treated them, had it been given power to rule over people. And although their nation had passed through many upheavals and changes of government, their history gave no account of any disaster they had ever suffered that could be compared with what Herod had brought on their nation. It was for this reason, they said, that they had thought it right and been glad to hail Archelaus as king, supposing that whoever was set over their kingdom would prove milder to them than Herod had been. They had joined him in mourning for his father in order to please him, and were ready to oblige him in other ways too, if they could find any moderation in him. But he seemed afraid that he would not be thought Herod’s own son; and so, without any delay, he had at once let the nation see what he meant, and this before his rule was well established, since the power to dispose of it belonged to Caesar, who could give it to him or not as he pleased. He had given his subjects a sample of his future virtue, and of the moderation and good government with which he would rule them, by his very first act toward them, his own citizens, and toward God himself, when he slaughtered three thousand of his own countrymen at the temple. How then, they asked, would he not now turn what he called a just hatred against them, when on top of all his other savagery he charged them with having opposed and contradicted his rule? The main thing they asked was this: that they might be freed from kingship and every form of government like it, and be added to Syria and placed under the authority of the governors sent there. For it would then be made plain whether they really were a rebellious people, always eager for revolt, or whether they would live in an orderly way if they had governors of any moderation set over them. [c] When the Jews had said this, Nicolaus defended the kings against these accusations. As for Herod, he said, since he had never been accused in this way in all his lifetime, it was not right that those who might have accused him of lesser crimes than these, and could have had him punished while he lived, should bring a charge against him now that he was dead. He also blamed Archelaus’s actions on the Jews’ wrongs against him. They had aimed at ruling contrary to the laws and had gone about killing those who would have stopped them from acting unjustly; and when he punished them for what they had done, they complained against him. So he accused them of attempts at revolution and of the pleasure they took in rebellion, because they had never learned to submit to justice and the laws, but always wanted to be masters in everything. This was the substance of what Nicolaus said. [g]

When Caesar had heard these pleadings, he dismissed the assembly. But a few days later he appointed Archelaus, not king of the whole country, but ethnarch of half of what had been subject to Herod, and promised to give him the title of king later, if he governed his part well. The other half he divided into two parts and gave to two other sons of Herod, Philip and Antipas, the Antipas who had disputed the whole kingdom with Archelaus. To him Perea and Galilee paid their tribute, which came to two hundred talents a year; while Batanea, with Trachonitis, as well as Auranitis, with a certain part of what was called the house of Zenodorus, paid a tribute of one hundred talents to Philip. Idumea, Judea and the country of Samaria paid tribute to Archelaus. The Samaritans had a quarter of their tribute taken off by Caesar’s order, who granted them that relief because they had not joined the rest of the multitude in this revolt. Certain cities also paid tribute to Archelaus: Strato’s Tower and Sebaste, with Joppa and Jerusalem. As for Gaza, Gadara and Hippos, they were Greek cities, which Caesar separated from his rule and added to the province of Syria. The tribute that came to Archelaus every year from his own territories amounted to six hundred talents. [h] So much came to Herod’s sons from their father’s inheritance. As for Salome, besides what her brother left her by his will, namely Jamnia, Ashdod and Phasaelis, and five hundred thousand pieces of coined silver, Caesar made her a present of a royal residence at Ashkelon. In all, her revenues came to sixty talents a year, and her dwelling was within Archelaus’s territory. The rest of the king’s relatives also received what his will allotted them. Besides this, Caesar made a present to each of Herod’s two unmarried daughters, beyond what their father had left them, of two hundred and fifty thousand pieces of silver, and married them to the sons of Pheroras. He also gave to the king’s sons everything that had been left to himself, which came to one thousand five hundred talents, except for a few vessels which he kept for himself. These were welcome to him, not so much for their great value as because they were keepsakes of the king. [l]