Eurycles the Spartan

Not long afterward a man came to Judea who was far more than a match for Archelaus’s stratagems. He not only overturned the reconciliation Archelaus had so skillfully arranged for Alexander, but became the cause of his ruin. He was a Laconian by birth, named Eurycles, and he had wormed his way into the kingdom out of greed for money, since Greece could no longer keep up with his extravagance. He brought Herod splendid gifts as bait for what he was hunting, and at once received them back many times over; yet he counted a plain gift as nothing unless he could buy and sell the kingdom with blood. So he got around the king with flattery, clever talk and lying praise of him. He quickly saw what kind of man Herod was, and by saying and doing everything that would please him he became one of his foremost friends. For the king and all those around him gladly honored the Spartan for his country’s sake. [a]

As soon as this man had learned the rotten places in the house, the quarrels between the brothers and how their father felt toward each of them, he took up lodging first as Antipater’s guest; but he pretended friendship with Alexander, falsely claiming to be an old comrade of Archelaus. For that reason he was quickly welcomed as a man already proven, and he at once got himself introduced to Alexander’s brother Aristobulus as well. Having tried out every one of them, he worked on each in a different way. Above all, though, he became Antipater’s hireling and Alexander’s betrayer. He reproached Antipater for letting the men who were lying in wait for his hopes go unchecked, when he was the eldest son; and he reproached Alexander for allowing the son of a commoner to succeed to the throne, when he himself was born of a queen and married to a king’s daughter, and especially when he had so great a resource as Archelaus. The young man trusted him as a faithful adviser because of the friendship with Archelaus he had made up. So Alexander, holding nothing back, poured out to him his complaints about Antipater, and said it was no surprise if Herod, after killing their mother, should rob them of her kingdom too. At this Eurycles pretended to pity him and to share his grief. He baited Aristobulus into saying the same things. Then, having bound both brothers by their complaints against their father, he went off to Antipater carrying their secrets. He added a lie of his own, that the brothers had laid a plot for him and were all but drawing their swords on him already. He received a great deal of money for this, and praised Antipater to his father too. At last he contracted for the death of Aristobulus and Alexander, and became their accuser before their father. He came to Herod and said that he was giving him his life in return for his kindnesses, and the light of day as repayment for his hospitality. A sword had long been sharpened against him, he said, and Alexander’s right hand long drawn back to strike; but he himself had stood in the way and slowed him down by pretending to help him. Alexander had said that Herod was not content with having reigned over a kingdom that belonged to others, and with having squandered their mother’s kingdom after murdering her, but was also bringing in a bastard successor, and offering their grandfather’s kingdom to that pest Antipater. He himself, Alexander said, would avenge the spirits of Hyrcanus and Mariamne, for it was not fitting for him to take the throne from such a father without bloodshed. Many things provoked him every day, he said, so that no way of speaking was left that was not twisted into an accusation. If the noble birth of others was mentioned, he was insulted for no reason, his father saying, “Alexander here is the only one of noble birth, and he despises his father for his low birth.” When they were hunting, he gave offense if he kept silent, and if he praised anything he was taken to be mocking. Everywhere he found his father pitiless, and fond of Antipater alone; and so he would gladly die if his plot failed. But if he killed his father, he had ways to save himself: first Archelaus, his father-in-law, to whom he could easily escape, and then Caesar, who to this day did not know what kind of man Herod was. He would not stand before Caesar trembling, as before, with his father standing over him, nor would he speak only of the charges against himself. First he would proclaim the calamities of the nation, and how its people were taxed to the very life; then on what luxuries and deeds the money gained by blood had been spent, what sort of men had grown rich at our expense, and at whose cost Herod had courted the cities he favored. He would ask there what had become of his grandfather and his mother, and proclaim all the abominations of the kingdom; and on these grounds he would not be judged a parricide. [d]

When Eurycles had told these marvels against Alexander, he praised Antipater highly, as the only son who loved his father and who for that reason had been a hindrance to the plot until now. The king, who had not yet properly calmed down after the earlier charges, was driven into savage and incurable rage. Antipater seized the moment once more and sent in others to accuse his brothers, saying that they were holding secret talks with Jucundus and Tyrannus, who had once been commanders of the king’s cavalry but had lost their posts for certain offenses. Herod was beside himself at this, and immediately had the men tortured. They confessed nothing of what they were accused of. But a letter was produced, written by Alexander to the commander of the fortress of Alexandrium, asking him to receive him and his brother Aristobulus into the fortress once they had killed their father, and to let them use its weapons and its other resources. Alexander said that this letter was a forgery by Diophantus. This Diophantus was the king’s secretary, a bold man and skillful at imitating anyone’s handwriting; after forging a great many things, he was at last put to death for it. Herod had the commander of the fortress tortured as well, but heard nothing from him of what had been alleged. [e]

Although Herod found the proofs weak, he ordered his sons to be kept under guard, though still unchained. Eurycles, the ruin of his house and the stage-manager of the whole abomination, he called his savior and benefactor, and gave him fifty talents. Eurycles got away before any accurate report could catch up with him, and went to Cappadocia, where he made money out of Archelaus too, having the effrontery to say that he had reconciled Herod to Alexander. From there he crossed over to Greece and used what he had gained by wickedness for more of the same. He was twice accused before Caesar of filling Achaia with faction and stripping its cities bare, and he was sent into exile. So the punishment for what he had done to Alexander and Aristobulus caught up with him. [f]

It is worth setting Euarestus of Cos beside this Spartan. He was one of Alexander’s closest friends, and was staying in the country at the same time as Eurycles. When the king asked him about the things Eurycles had charged, he swore on oath that he had heard nothing of the kind from the young men. But his testimony did the unhappy pair no good at all. Herod was a most ready listener to evil alone, and anyone who would believe what he believed and share his indignation was welcome to him. [i]