The Death of Mariamne’s Sons

Salome, too, sharpened Herod’s cruelty toward his sons. Aristobulus wanted to bind her into their dangers along with them, since she was both his mother-in-law and his aunt. So he sent word to her, urging her to look to her own safety: the king, he said, was preparing to put her to death on the same charge as before, that when she was eager to marry Syllaeus the Arab she had secretly passed the king’s secrets on to him, though he was the king’s enemy. This was the last squall, and it sank the storm-tossed young men. Salome ran to the king and reported the warning. He could bear it no longer. He had both his sons put in chains and kept apart from each other, and sent Volumnius, the commander of his troops, and Olympus, one of his friends, in haste to Caesar, carrying the evidence in writing. They sailed to Rome and delivered the king’s letters. Caesar was very much grieved for the young men, but he did not think he ought to take away the father’s authority over his sons. So he wrote back leaving the decision in Herod’s hands, but saying that he would do well to examine the plot before a joint council of his own relatives and the governors of the province. If his sons were found guilty, he should put them to death; but if they had only planned to run away, he should punish them more moderately. [a]

Herod did as he was told. He went to Berytus, where Caesar had directed, and assembled the court. The governors presided, as Caesar had written to them: Saturninus, and Pedanius and the other legates, and with them Volumnius the procurator. Next came the king’s relatives and friends, Salome and Pheroras among them, and after them the leading men of all Syria, except King Archelaus; Herod distrusted him because he was Alexander’s father-in-law. He did not bring his sons into court, and this was very shrewd of him. He knew that if they were merely seen they would certainly be pitied, and that if they were allowed to speak as well, Alexander would easily answer the charges. So they were kept under guard at Platane, a village belonging to Sidon. [b]

The king rose and harangued his sons as if they were present. He pressed the charge of a plot only weakly, since he was short of proof; but he set before the members of the council the insults, the jeers, the outrages and the thousands of offenses against himself, which he declared were worse than death. Then, when no one contradicted him, he lamented that he was the loser himself even in winning, since his victory over his children was a bitter one, and he asked each of them for his opinion. Saturninus gave his verdict first: he condemned the young men, but not to death, for with three children of his own standing beside him it was not right for him to vote for the destruction of another man’s children. The two legates voted with him, and some others followed them. Volumnius began the grim verdict, and all who came after him condemned the young men to death, some out of flattery and some out of hatred of Herod, but none out of indignation at any crime. Now all Syria and the Jewish nation were in suspense, waiting for the last act of the drama; but no one supposed that Herod would be cruel enough to kill his own children. He dragged his sons off to Tyre, and from there sailed to Caesarea, and there considered how the young men should be put to death.

There was an old soldier of the king’s named Tiro, whose son was a close friend and companion of Alexander’s, and who himself loved the young men dearly. In the excess of his indignation he went out of his mind. At first he went around shouting that justice was trampled underfoot, truth was dead, nature was turned upside down, life was full of lawlessness, and everything else that passion dictates to a man who no longer cares for his life. At last he dared to go to the king himself, and said, “To me you seem the most wretched of men, since you believe the wickedest people against those who should be dearest to you. You have often condemned Pheroras and Salome to death, and yet you believe them against your own children, when they are cutting you off from your true-born heirs and leaving you with Antipater alone, choosing a king for themselves whom they can easily manage. But consider whether his brothers’ death may not make him hated by the soldiers too. There is no one who does not pity the young men, and many of the officers are openly indignant.” As he said this, he named the men who were indignant. The king at once had them seized, and Tiro himself and his son with them. [c]

At this one of the court barbers, named Trypho, rushed forward in some heaven-sent madness and informed against himself. “This Tiro,” he said, “tried to persuade me too to cut your throat with my razor when I was attending to you, and he promised me great rewards from Alexander.” When Herod heard this, he had Tiro, his son and the barber examined under torture. The other two denied it, and the barber said nothing more; so he ordered Tiro to be racked more severely. But the son, pitying his father, promised to tell the king everything if he would spare his father for his sake. When the king agreed, he said that his father, persuaded by Alexander, had intended to kill him. Some said this was made up to free his father from torture, and some that it was true.

Herod accused the officers and Tiro before an assembly of the people, and rallied the crowd against them. There on the spot they were killed, together with the barber, by the clubs and stones that were thrown at them. He sent his sons to Sebaste, which is not far from Caesarea, and ordered them to be strangled. When his order had been carried out without delay, he commanded that their bodies be taken to the fortress of Alexandrium, to be buried with Alexander, their mother’s father. Such was the end of Alexander and Aristobulus. [e]