Herod Governs Galilee

About this time Antigonus, the son of Aristobulus, came to Caesar and, strangely enough, became the cause of Antipater’s further advancement. He ought to have lamented that his father seemed to have been poisoned because of his quarrels with Pompey, and to have complained of Scipio’s cruelty toward his brother, mixing no spiteful feeling into his appeal for pity. Instead he came forward and accused Hyrcanus and Antipater as well. They had, he said, most lawlessly driven him and his brother and sisters out of their native land altogether; they had committed many outrages against the nation out of sheer insolence; and the help they had sent into Egypt was not given out of goodwill toward Caesar, but out of fear arising from their old quarrels, and to wipe out the memory of their friendship with Pompey. [a] In reply Antipater threw off his clothes and showed his many wounds. As for his loyalty to Caesar, he said, he needed no words; his body cried it aloud though he himself kept silent. But he was amazed at Antigonus’s audacity. Here was the son of an enemy of Rome and of a fugitive from Rome, who had inherited from his father a love of revolution and sedition, and he had undertaken to accuse others before the Roman commander and was trying to gain some advantage for himself, when he ought to be content that he was still alive. Even now, he said, Antigonus was reaching for power not so much because he was in need, but so that once he had it he could stir the Jews to sedition and use what he received against those who gave it. When Caesar heard this, he declared Hyrcanus the more worthy of the high priesthood and gave Antipater his choice of office. Antipater left the measure of the honor to the one who honored him, and was appointed procurator of all Judea. He was also granted leave to rebuild the walls of his homeland that had been thrown down. Caesar sent orders for these honors to be engraved in the Capitol, as a token of his own justice and of the man’s merit. [b]

Antipater escorted Caesar out of Syria and returned to Judea. First he rebuilt the wall that Pompey had overthrown in his homeland. Then he went through the countryside quelling the disturbances, threatening and advising each group at once. If they supported Hyrcanus, he told them, they would live in prosperity and quiet, enjoying their own possessions and the common peace. But if they listened to the empty hopes of men who wanted revolution for their own profit, they would find him a master instead of a guardian, and Hyrcanus a tyrant instead of a king, and the Romans and Caesar enemies instead of rulers and friends; for the Romans would never allow the man they themselves had set up to be removed from power. While he said this, he also took the ordering of the country into his own hands, because he saw that Hyrcanus was sluggish and too weak for kingship. He appointed Phasael, his eldest son, governor of Jerusalem and the surrounding district, and sent the next son, Herod, with equal authority into Galilee, though he was quite young. [c]

Herod, energetic by nature, at once found material for his ambition. He discovered that Hezekiah, a robber chief, was overrunning the districts bordering on Syria with a very large band. He caught him and put him to death, along with many of the robbers. The Syrians were especially grateful for this, and in the villages and the cities they sang Herod’s praises as the man who had restored their peace and their property. Through this he also became known to Sextus Caesar, a kinsman of the great Caesar and governor of Syria. Phasael, in turn, competing in honorable rivalry with his brother’s fame, made the people of Jerusalem better disposed toward himself. He kept control of the city in his own hands, yet never abused his power in an unseemly way. As a result the nation paid Antipater the court due to a king, and everyone honored him as lord of all. Yet he did not alter in any way his own goodwill and loyalty toward Hyrcanus. [f]

But it is impossible to escape envy in prosperity. Hyrcanus was already privately stung by the young men’s fame, though he kept quiet about it. What grieved him most were Herod’s successes, and the messengers who came running one after another to report each fresh triumph. Many malicious people at court also provoked him, those whose plans were blocked by the prudence of the young men or of Antipater. They said that he had handed the government over to Antipater and his sons and now sat with only the name of king, stripped of all its power. How long, they asked, would he so mistake his own interest as to rear up kings against himself? These men no longer even pretended to be his stewards; they were openly masters and had pushed him aside. Herod had killed all these men in violation of the law of the Jews, without any order from Hyrcanus by word or by letter. If he was not a king but still a private citizen, he must come to trial and answer for it to Hyrcanus and to the laws of his country, which do not allow anyone to be put to death without a trial. [g] Little by little these words inflamed Hyrcanus, until at last his anger broke out and he summoned Herod to stand trial. Herod went up, on his father’s advice and because his position gave him confidence, after first securing Galilee with garrisons. He came with a strong body of troops, so that he would neither seem to be bringing a splendid force to overthrow Hyrcanus nor fall defenseless into the hands of envy. Sextus Caesar, however, fearing for the young man, lest he be cut off among his enemies and come to harm, sent men to Hyrcanus with express orders to acquit Herod of the charge of murder. Hyrcanus was inclined to do so anyway, for he loved Herod, and he acquitted him. [h]

But Herod, supposing that he had escaped against the king’s will, withdrew to Sextus at Damascus, prepared not to obey if he were summoned again. Once more the wicked stirred up Hyrcanus, saying that Herod had gone off in anger and was preparing to move against him. The king believed them and did not know what to do, for he saw that his opponent was the stronger. And when Herod was appointed general of Coele-Syria and Samaria by Sextus Caesar, he became formidable not only because of the nation’s goodwill but through his own power. Hyrcanus fell into the utmost terror, expecting him to march on him with an army at any moment. Nor was he wrong in this. Herod, angry at the threat of the trial, gathered an army and led it against Jerusalem to depose Hyrcanus. He would soon have done it, had not his father and brother come out to meet him and broken the force of his onset. They urged him to limit his revenge to threats and a show of force, and to spare the king under whom he had risen to such power. If he was provoked at having been summoned to trial, they said, he ought also to be thankful for his acquittal, and not dwell on the grievance while showing no gratitude for his deliverance. And if we must reckon that God decides the turns of war, injustice weighs more than an army; so he could not be at all confident of victory when he was about to fight his king and intimate companion, who had often been his benefactor and never harsh to him, except that, listening to evil counselors, he had brought on him a mere shadow of wrong. Herod was persuaded by this, supposing that it was enough for his hopes to have displayed his strength to the nation. [i]

Meanwhile there was disorder among the Romans around Apamea, and civil war. Caecilius Bassus, out of goodwill toward Pompey, had treacherously murdered Sextus Caesar and taken over his forces, and Caesar’s other generals had gathered with their armies to avenge the murder. Antipater sent them help through his sons, for the sake both of the murdered man and of the Caesar who still lived, since both were his friends. The war dragged on, and Murcus came from Italy as Sextus’s successor. [j]