The Ancients - King Herod

Episode Date: December 19, 2021

Thanks largely to his feature in the Gospel of Matthew, King Herod ‘the Great’ of Judaea is one of the most infamous figures from the whole of history. So what do we know about this ancient near eastern ruler, who in his lifetime had contacts with a series of ‘goliath’ figures from the ancient Mediterranean World: from Caesar to Cleopatra and from Marc Antony to Augustus. To talk about King Herod, with a particular focus on the material and meaning of his monumental tomb at Herodium, Tristan was re-joined by Holy Land archaeologist Dr Jodi Magness. A wonderful speaker, Jodi has previously been on the podcast to talk all about the Siege of Masada and Jewish burial at the time of Jesus.If you’re enjoying this podcast and looking for more fascinating Ancient content, then subscribe to our Ancient History Thursday newsletter here.Music:Valley of the Kings - Hampus NaeseliusIf you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit.To download, go to Android or Apple store

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's the ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and in today's podcast, we'll brace yourself because we are talking about one of the most infamous figures from history, King Herod. Infamous, of course, from the Gospel of Matthew and the Massacre

of the Innocents. But what do we know about the real King Herod? This figure who ruled Judea in the first century BC and had contacts with several prominent figures from this time in ancient history, varying from Julius Caesar to Cleopatra to the Emperor Augustus and Augustus's right-hand man Marcus Agrippa. He was a renowned builder. He built many monumental constructions across Judea, including his own monumental tomb. Now to talk through all of this with a particular focus on the tomb of King Herod, I was delighted to get back on the podcast Dr Jodie Magnus. Jodie, she's been on the podcast a few times before to talk all about Masada and also about Jewish burial at the time of Jesus, but she's also done a lot of work around the monumental

tomb of King Herod at Herodium. Because Herod's tomb, unlike that of say Alexander the Great or Cleopatra, it's not lost. It was discovered roughly a decade ago and since then there have been some remarkable revelations about Herod's tomb and the whole meaning behind why Herod decided to construct his tomb at Herodium, in particular why he decided to construct it so close to Bethlehem. So without further ado, to talk through all of this and more, here's Jodie. Jodie, it is wonderful to have you back on the podcast. Oh, thank you for having me.

You're always welcome on the podcast. Your last few episodes with us have always been big hitters. And I feel that this one is going to be similar because King Herod, we've all heard the name. And we have this great combination of literature and archaeology surviving about him. I mean, Jodie, he surely has to rank among one of the most interesting figures to study in ancient history. Yeah, I would actually agree with that assessment. He's definitely interesting. He's probably, I guess you could say infamous, because of the report in the Gospel of Matthew about the massacre of the innocents. That's

basically how he's become known. That's the association and sort of the popular imagination. Among archaeologists who work in Israel, he is known as the greatest single builder in the history of the country. He left more of a lasting imprint on the landscape of the country than any other single person in history. And that's how, as an archaeologist, we know him. As a fact, that's amazing. That's an amazing way to kick it all off. I mean, let's set the background first before we go into, let's say, the massacre of the innocents and his building program, because I know it's a huge question, but to set the scene, really, Jodie, I mean, who was King Herod? Right. So in order to understand who Herod was, you have to understand first a little bit of what happened before his time.

And so basically in sort of the couple of centuries before Herod was born, the land of Israel or Palestine, whatever you want to call that territory, had come under the rule of Alexander the Great and his successors. And then in the middle of the second century BCE, and I'll just use BCE instead of BC and CE instead of AD, but whatever. So in the middle of the second century BCE, thanks to a Jewish revolt, the Jews gained independence from Alexander's Greek successors. This revolt, by the way, is celebrated by the modern Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, which at the moment, now we're taping, we're right in the middle of Hanukkah. So that revolt is celebrated by this holiday of Hanukkah. And as a result of that revolt, an independent Jewish kingdom was created in the land of Israel, which was ruled by the leaders of that revolt and their successors. And that family is called the

Hasmonean family. The leaders of the revolt were called the Maccabees. But the family is the Hasmonean family and the kingdom is the Hasmonean kingdom. So basically, you have this independent Jewish kingdom in the land of Israel from about the middle of the second century BCE for about 100 years. And then in 63 BCE, it was annexed, taken over by the Romans, and it becomes sort of absorbed into the territories that are ruled by Rome. And the Romans had to decide how to administer this territory once they absorbed it. And, you know, like flying past lots of historical detail here, eventually what happens is that the Romans appoint Herod to be client king of this territory, Judea, which is called Judea, on their behalf. And Herod then rules this kingdom, this client kingdom, on behalf of the Romans from 40 BCE until his death in the year 4 BCE.

And one of the things that's important to remember or understand is why the Romans appointed Herod to be client king. In other words, who was Herod? So Herod was a sort of, I hate to use this term, but he was kind of half Jewish. He was a man whose mother was not Jewish. His mother was an Abatean woman, meaning she was an Arab. His father was an Idumean Jew, meaning his father was from a territory just south of Judea and Jerusalem called Idumea in antiquity, kind of the area of the modern northern Negev desert. This area had been Judaized by the Hasmoneans before Herod's time. So when the Hasmoneans had ruled this territory, they had forcibly converted the inhabitants of Idumea to Judaism. And Herod's

grandfather was one of those forcibly converted Jews. So Herod was Jewish on his father's side of the family, the Idumean side, through forced conversion. So Herod's grandfather and father had worked, or more accurately, his father had worked in the Roman administration before Herod's time. And so Herod was kind of a good choice for the Romans because, number one, he came from a family that had experience in dealing with the local administration, the native administration. He was sort of Jewish, right, on his father's side of the family, but he wasn't fully Jewish, and he wasn't Hasmonean. From the Roman point of view, this was important because they feared that the Hasmoneans would not be loyal to them,

that the Hasmoneans would want to regain their independence. So they didn't want to choose somebody who was a Hasmonean. So Herod kind of fit the bill nicely for the Romans. But on the other hand, this also made him very unpopular among a lot of the Jewish population, which considered him a usurper to the throne because he was not Hasmonean and he was not fully Jewish. So one of the factors that Herod had to deal with throughout his lifetime was sort of a perceived threat among at least part of his Jewish population because of his unpopularity that he would be killed, you know, or, you know, assassinated in some kind of a revolt. And this was not helped by the fact that Herod was also a very cruel person who did have a lot of people put to death when he thought they were a threat. Which is so interesting because you think of this period in ancient history with the end of the

Roman Republic, quite a turbulent period for the Roman Empire or for late Republican Rome. But it sounds as if Herod, as you say, rather than this big exterior potential threat on his doorstep, actually the biggest threat to him is, can we say, more of an internal threat during his reign? Yes, that's partly true that, you know, a lot of the threat or perceived threat to Herod was from within his kingdom and especially from the Jewish part of his kingdom. You know, there were parts of Herod's kingdom that were not Jewish or Judaized, but the core part, sort of the central part, was Jewish. But also, there were external threats to Herod, and that was especially in the first part of his reign, before the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE,

when Herod faced a serious threat from Cleopatra down in Egypt, who was, of course, romantically involved with Herod's patron, Mark Antony. And Cleopatra viewed the territory that Herod had been given to rule as her birthright because she was a successor of the Ptolemies down in Egypt, who back in the third century BCE had ruled over the same territory. And so she, over the course of, you know, the time she was involved with Mark Antony, sort of whittled away at Herod's kingdom by persuading Antony to give her pieces of land to rule over. And there was nothing that Herod could do about that. So there was this sort of serious external threat to Herod, especially in the early part

of his reign. And that was kind of resolved by the Battle of Actium, after which, you know, Mark Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide. And that removes the Cleopatra threat. Fair enough. I do appreciate we're doing a whistle-stop tour of Herod's life, because we're going to get to the tomb. But there's one thing I'd love to ask, first of all, and we kind of highlighted this right at the start, but I'd like to go into the detail of it. And that is our sources for this figure. I mean, Jodie, what sorts of sources do we have available for King Herod? Yeah, so, you know,

that part of the problem with learning about Herod is, in fact, what source of sources we have, which are pretty limited. Our main source is Josephus, Flavius Josephus, who was a Jewish historian who lived in the first century CE. He was born in Jerusalem in the year 37 CE, and he died somewhere around 100 in Rome as a diaspora Jew after the revolt. And after the first Jewish revolt against the Romans ended in the year 70 CE, and Jerusalem was destroyed, and the Second Temple was destroyed, Josephus went to live in Rome, and he spent the last 30 years of his life or so in Rome writing histories of the Jewish people. And we have two major works that he wrote. One is

the Jewish War, which is his story of the first Jewish revolt against the Romans, and then Jewish Antiquities, which is a sort of history of the Jewish people from the time of creation on. And so the great majority of our information about Herod comes from Josephus. Now, Josephus was born long after Herod had died, right? Herod died in 4 BCE, and Josephus was born in the year 37 CE. So, you know, Josephus was born about four decades after Herod's death. So he never actually met Herod. So the question is, where is he getting this information from that he gives us? And so one of the things about ancient writers like Josephus, this is in general ancient

writers, is that they plagiarized freely. You know, they didn't have footnotes and notes indicating their sources. Sometimes, incidentally, they would indicate what the source of information was, but they didn't worry about it the way that we do today. So we don't always know where Josephus got his information, but it's clear that at least a large part of his information came from Herod's court biographer, who was a man named Nicolaus of Damascus. Nicolaus of Damascus wrote a biography of Herod, but that has not survived. So what we basically have is whatever information Josephus drew on from that source and maybe from other sources, right, to talk about Herod. Now, the problem is, of course, we have no way to know how accurately Josephus reproduced the information in Nicolaus of Damascus. And it's also very clear that Josephus presents Herod in a negative light.

And there are reasons for this. So the presentation that we have of Herod, and Herod, I'm not saying that Herod was a good guy or anything like that, but the presentation that we have is skewed by the way that Josephus presents Herod. So there's that. Then, of course, we have the little incidental reference in, you know, the story of the massacre of the innocents in Matthew, which, by the way, occurs only in the Gospel of Matthew and not in the other canonical Gospels. And then the other major source that we have about Herod is archaeology. You know, we have sites all over Israel that Herod built or fortified, And that gives us a lot of information about him. Well, we'll get into that archaeology very, very, very quickly indeed. But first of all,

as it is December, and we've got to talk about the Bible and the mention of Herod in the Bible, in the gospel. And I mean, first of all, Jodie, just so we know completely, I mean, what is this mention in the Bible? What is the massacre of the innocents? Right. So I actually, in anticipation of your question, I have the relevant passage in front of me. Fantastic. You know me too well, Jodie. It's great. So, again, this is from the Gospel of Matthew. So, right, Matthew is the only one of the canonical gospel authors who includes this story in his gospel account. Right. So this is from Matthew chapter

two, when Herod, and this is Herod the Great, and well, more on that in a minute, when Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under. So this is basically an episode where Herod orders all of these boys in the area of Bethlehem who were two years old or younger to be put to death after being informed that the Messiah had been born and fearing that, you know, one of these children was the Messiah. And so that's basically the story. There's a little bit of a continuation in Matthew. When Herod heard this, he was frightened. This is when he hears about this report that the Messiah had been born in Bethlehem. He inquired of them, the wise men, where the Messiah was to

be born. They told him in Bethlehem of Judea. So for so it has been written by the prophet, right? So basically there's this report that the Messiah had been born in Bethlehem, and Herod orders all of these boys put to death, right? That's the account. And so I think that Herod's notoriety throughout history in many ways has been connected to this story, right? The ironic thing is that we have no evidence that this actually happened, that Herod actually did this. I guess it's possible, but many scholars believe that it's not an historical account. Herod had a reputation for having his own sons put to death. He had several of his own sons put to death because he thought they were trying to usurp the throne while he was still alive. And so, you know, there are scholars who

think that this story basically is influenced by Herod's reputation for having young children and even his own sons put to death. So the problem is, of course, that there's no independent confirmation of this story. So it only occurs in the Gospel of Matthew. There's no other literary or historical source that tells it. And so we have no way to independently verify whether it actually ever occurred or not. No, I mean, Jodie, it's important to mention, and like there is some key words there, such as Bethlehem and Messiah figure, which we will definitely be coming back to as we talk about the tomb of King Herod.

I've also got my notes here. We can talk about this briefly before we move on to the archaeology. He's also mentioned in the Psalm of Solomon 17 too. Yeah, that's a little bit more obscure, but yeah, it's more or less the same kind of a thing. You know, there are scattered references to Herod in other places. I don't have the reference to it, But anyway, yes, there are scattered references, but they don't really give us a lot of information about, you know, Herod the person. Which is in contrast to many of his building projects, if I'm not mistaken, Jodie.

Yeah. And so, as I said at the beginning, you know, more than any other individual in the history of the land of Israel, Herod left a lasting impression on the landscape because he built so much and his buildings were so monumental. Probably the one building project that most people would be familiar with is Herod's reconstruction of the second temple in Jerusalem. So the Temple Mount, as you see it today, that big open plaza, is a product of Herod's reconstruction. As you see it today, that big open plaza is a product of Herod's reconstruction. He vastly expanded the area of the Temple Mount, and he also rebuilt the temple building, which stood in the middle of the Temple Mount, probably more or less in the same location as the Dome of the Rock today. And he built other buildings on top of the Temple Mount.

He also built other buildings around Jerusalem. He built a new palace for himself. He may have built new fortifications around the city. That's not clear. There apparently was a new aqueduct built during his lifetime that brought water to Jerusalem. So he did a lot of construction in and around Jerusalem. He built a big fortress overlooking the Temple Mount called the Antonia Fortress, which becomes associated in Christian tradition much later with episodes in The Passion of Jesus. So he built all over Jerusalem.

And then around the country, he built, again, tons of stuff. So he built himself palaces all over the country. One of the major projects was at Caesarea Maritima, or what we call Caesarea Maritima, this huge Greco-Roman city of Caesarea on the sea, which is located today between Haifa and Tel Aviv, where Herod built not only a palace for himself, but actually he built a whole new city there in a Greco-Roman style with the largest artificial harbor that had ever been created until that time, a huge harbor going out into the Mediterranean Sea, and basically a from-scratch city on land modeled after a Greco-Roman city with a temple

dedicated to Augustus in Rome overlooking the harbor with a theater and an amphitheater and just an enormous project. And a lot of that survives today, and you can still see it there. And then, of course, he built other palaces around the country. He built a series of fortified desert palaces on the eastern frontier of his kingdom, the most famous of which is Masada, but there's a whole bunch of other ones along that same line. So yeah, he built all over the place and he had a big palace complex at Jericho, which we have the remains of. The list just goes on and on. Including his tomb. Right. So Herodium, so like the construction of this monumental tomb, is this something that Herod, he constructs when he's alive,

or does it happen after his death? What do we know about the background to this tomb? So a lot of things about Herodium. So first of all, the name. Herodium is the Latin version of the name. Sometimes you see it spelled Herodion with O-N at the end, and that's the Greek version of the name, but they're both the same thing. Herodium is located to the south of Jerusalem, very close to Bethlehem, about five kilometers

from Bethlehem. So that's about three miles from Bethlehem. So very close to Jerusalem, but really directly overlooking Bethlehem. And it's actually one in the line of fortified desert palaces that Herod built on the eastern frontier of his kingdom. So it actually belongs to that same group of fortified palaces as Masada, for example. But in contrast to all of the others, so Masada, Machairus, Alexandria and Sartaba, Horcania, in contrast to all the others, Herodium is a de novo foundation, meaning it was built from scratch. It was not built on the site of a pre-existing Hasmonean fortress. All the others had been fortresses built by the Hasmoneans, which Herod then comes along and rebuilds and expands. Herodium is the only one that was not a Hasmonean fortress previously. And what Herod does at Herodium is he basically creates a mountain.

There was some sort of a pre-existing hill there, but Herod built on top of it to create like what we call a massive tumulus. So a massive sort of artificial mountain or hill. And this mountain or hill had several different focal points. And this mountain or hill had several different focal points. At the base of it was a large palatial complex with an enormous pool that was used both for swimming and boating and also storing water that was supplied by aqueduct brought in from a great distance. The palace complex at the foot of the mountain also included a hippodrome, which is sort

of a horse racing course. It included gardens. It was used as an administrative center. And then at the top of the mountain, there's another palace. So inside the top of the mountain, which kind of looks like the crater of a volcano when you look at it from the top, inside there, Herod also had palatial buildings. And the bottom of the mountain, which we call Lower Herodium, and the top, which we call Upper Herodium, were connected by a staircase that went up the side of the mountain, which we call lower Herodium, and the top, which we call upper Herodium, were connected by a staircase that went up the side of the mountain between them and originally was vaulted over.

So it wouldn't have been open to the sky. It would have been sort of covered over. Now, we know from Josephus that Herod died in the year 4 BCE in his palace at Jericho. And Josephus says that when Herod died, his body was then brought by procession for burial at Herodium. But Josephus doesn't tell us where at Herodium Herod was buried. And it's this huge complex, right, with this basically a mountain. So where was Herod's tomb at Herodium? And for many years, the Israeli archaeologist Ehud Netzer, who started digging at Herodium in the early 1980s, he literally spent decades looking for Herod's tomb at Herodium. Many scholars had thought that maybe Herod was buried inside the top of the mountain,

sort of like the idea of a pyramid kind of a thing. Ehud Netzer also speculated that maybe Herod was built in the complex at the base of the mountain. Ehud Neser also speculated that maybe Herod was built in the complex at the base of the mountain. And then, lo and behold, in 2007, Neser found the tomb of Herod, the mausoleum, about halfway up the slope of the mountain on the side facing Jerusalem. So it's basically if you walk up the staircase about halfway up, it's up there. So that was a spectacular discovery. In my opinion, by the way, the discovery of Herod's tomb at Herodium by Ehud Nesser is the most important discovery in the region since the Dead Sea Scrolls. And the reason is because Herod's tomb at Herodium gives us direct information about

Herod the man. It's basically Herod telling us how he wanted to be memorialized and how he wanted to be remembered for posterity. So it's almost like we're hearing from Herod first person. And in light of, you know, the problems with the other sources of information we have about Herod, I think that this is an extremely important discovery. I mean, it absolutely is, Jodie. And before we really delve into like the actual construction of the mausoleum the design of it itself which is really interesting let's go to the purpose of the tomb as you hinted at there because of course we also mentioned earlier Bethlehem you mentioned Bethlehem is very close by do you have any idea why Herod decides he wants to be buried at this

location very close to Bethlehem. So I think we should actually defer that for a minute, but I will say that this is one of the things that had always puzzled me. So Josephus says that Herod established Herodium at that spot. And by the way, going back to this from before, Herodium not only is a de novo foundation, it is the only site apparently that Herod named after himself. And he named all his other sites after someone else. Caesarea, he named in honor of Augustus. Samaria Sebaste, he named in honor of Augustus. He built, you know, buildings around Jerusalem, these three towers that protected his palace, which he named in honor of, you know, friends

and relatives. And likewise, he named the wings of his palace in Jerusalem after Augustus and after Marcus Agrippa, the son-in-law of Augustus. So Herod generally named his buildings and his building projects in honor of other people. Herodium is the only one that he named after himself. And it's apparently because he planned it to be his everlasting memorial, right? So again, it gives us an indication of how important it is. But one of the things that was always so puzzling to me about Herodium was that Josephus tells us that Herod established it on that spot because it was the site of a place where he won a battle. It was a military victory against the Hasmoneans. So very early in his reign,

the first three years of his reign after he had been appointed king of Judea by the Romans, Herod spent fighting one of the Hasmonean claimants to the throne. And Josephus says that Herod defeated one of these, you know, had a big victory or something, a victory against, you know, these Hasmoneans at this spot, you know, during that period of three years. But otherwise, we don't really have much information about the battle. It doesn't seem to have been a huge deal. It wasn't the end of, you know, Herod's problems with the Hasmoneans. It wasn't until 37 that the siege of Jerusalem ended and that then, you know, eliminated the Hasmonean threat, direct threat, at least to the throne. So it was always sort of puzzling to me. It doesn't really explain why he established such an important place on this particular spot, right? And that comes back to, I think, the location with Bethlehem, which is something that I had thought about for a very long time.

Okay, keep going then, Jodie. Right. Let me just describe the mausoleum a bit. So the mausoleum, which is the tomb itself, right? So basically, you could call the whole mountain a mausoleum, right? Because the whole tomb is a memorial. I mean, the whole mountain is a memorial to Herod, right? And it's named after him. But when I say mausoleum, I mean the actual tomb, the spot where Herod was buried at Herodium. And that's this monument that's located halfway up the slope, you know, facing Jerusalem. So the mausoleum is basically kind of this tall structure that consisted of a square podium, and it's all constructed of stone, a square podium with a circular building on top of the square podium. The circular building was surrounded by columns.

And then on top, you had kind of this conical shaped roof, right? So after Netser's discovery, it became clear that Herod's mausoleum at Herodium was modeled after Hellenistic models. Hellenistic meaning the kinds of tombs that you would find in the period after the conquest of Alexander the Great. And this kind of tomb model, what we call a mausoleum, really goes back to a little bit before the time of Alexander. So Alexander conquered the area of Syria-Palestine in 332 BC. But a couple of decades before Alexander's conquests, a monumental tomb was constructed in what is today southwest Turkey, southwest Asia Minor, at a site today called Bodrum, but in antiquity called Halicarnassus. Now, in the middle of the 4th century BCE, which is where we

are right now, that area was part of a kingdom ruled by a local king, not a Greek king, a local king, whose name was Mausolus. When Mausolus died around, you know, in the middle of the 4th century BCE, he was interred in a monumental stone tomb monument that became one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. And it consisted of a giant square podium with not a circular building, but a Greek temple-like building on top, surrounded by columns and a pyramidal roof, and it had a lot of sculpture decorating it. And that monument, the tomb of Mausolus, became so famous that it not only became one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, but gave its name ever after to all monumental tombs, which we call mausolea. A mausoleum takes its name from the tomb of Mausolus, and which we call mausolea. A mausoleum takes its name from the tomb of Mausolus, and the plural is mausolea. And so after the tomb of Mausolus was built,

it sparked a fashion. And rich and famous people around the Mediterranean began designing their own family tombs to look like the mausoleum at Halicarnassus. And so in the centuries after the conquest of Alexander, we find a lot of these kind of tombs all around the Mediterranean world that are inspired directly or indirectly by the mausoleum at Halicarnassus and have many of the same elements. So we can see in Herod's mausoleum at Herodium elements of the mausoleum at Halicarnassus, right? It has this big square podium and then this monument on top, which is circular rather than square. And so then you have the conquest of Alexander the Great, and Alexander dies in 323 BCE. And eventually, Alexander's remains were brought for burial to Alexandria in Egypt, which was a city that Alexander had founded and named after himself.

And his remains were interred in a tomb in Alexandria, which became known as the Sema, S-E-M-A, or the Soma, S-O-M-A, which are Greek words basically meaning monument or body. The body, yeah. OMA, which are Greek words basically meaning monument or body. The body, yeah. That's right. And this sema or soma of Alexander at Alexandria was a very well-known monument. It was visited by Augustus and almost certainly by Herod during their lifetimes. And people like that would come and pay homage to Alexander's remains. Augustus reportedly put a gold wreath on the remains when he visited the tomb.

The problem is we have no archaeological remains of the Sema at Alexandria. It's never been found. We don't know. It was destroyed at some point in the third century CE. The remains have never been located. And we don't have any good descriptions of it. We don't have any like artistic depictions of it. We don't have any good literary descriptions of it. We don't have any like artistic depictions of it. We don't have any good literary descriptions of it. So exactly what it looked like is unknown, but it almost certainly contained the major elements that we would expect of a monumental tomb at that time, meaning it likely had some sort of a mausoleum type structure, probably a pyramidal or conical roof over it, and probably some sort of a tumulus, meaning a big burial mound of earth, which is the kind of tomb that was

monument that was characteristic of royalty in Alexander's native Macedonia, which is in northeastern Greece. That's about as much as we can say. There was probably some sort of tomb chamber inside, but we don't really know. So we can only speculate. So then what happens is that in the first century BCE, Augustus visited the Sema at Alexandria accompanied by Herod. And although we don't have direct information that Herod actually went into the Sema at that time with Augustus, Herod certainly would have been familiar with the monument. So when Augustus builds his own monumental family tomb in Rome, the Mausoleum of Augustus, which is called the Mausoleum of Augustus, he certainly was inspired by these traditions, that is the mausoleum at Halicarnassus

and the sema at Alexandria. And like pretty much everyone from Alexander on, Augustus would have sought to portray himself as one of the successors of the tradition of Alexander the Great, right? Basically, every ruler in the Mediterranean world and especially the Eastern Mediterranean after the time of Alexander connected themselves somehow to Alexander and sort of sought to portray themselves in an Alexander-like way. So it's not surprising when we look at

the Mausoleum of Augustus in Rome that what we have is a kind of mausoleum type structure and that you have these tiers of stone building, right? But it's circular. It's not square. It's circular because it had a tumulus of earth over it, which might've been inspired by the Cema at Alexandria if it had a tumulus, a big amount of earth, but also probably was inspired by the native Italian Etruscan, Tuscany tradition of having tombs that were covered by mounds of earth. So when we look at the mausoleum of Augustus in Rome, it's incorporating elements that were common in the Hellenistic world

and also from sort of the native area of Italy, you know, around Rome. And in fact, in calling it a mausoleum, you know, Augustus is actually connecting himself directly to this existing Hellenistic tradition. So then it's interesting to think about, well, then how does Herod attempt to portray himself, right, when he designs his tomb? And it's very interesting that Herod's tomb, again, incorporates a lot of these elements, right? You have the square podium, you have the circular structure on top of it with the tholos on top, and the whole mountain of Herodium is a tumulus, right? It's basically a gigantic mound of earth. So we can see Herod situating himself in this tradition, visually connecting himself to figures like Alexander the Great and Augustus, right?

And Augustus, of course, was Herod's patron. Now, there's more to it, however. Hi, I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb, and in my podcast, Not Just the Tudors, we talk about everything from sex to spying, wardrobes to witch trials. Not, in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors. Subscribe from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. Well, I tell you what, what I'm going to say now is, Jodie, is because you mentioned like the circular nature of it.

And this is something I'd like to talk about next, because my mind instantly, Hellenistic mindset mindset that i have and unashamedly so my mind instantly goes to the iconic circular structure within the altis at olympia constructed by alexander the great's father philip and also named after himself the philippeion could this also have an influence on it? Right. Thank you for mentioning that. So I wasn't going to get to the Philippeion, but before I get to the Philippeion. So the Mausoleum of Augustus at Rome and the Sema of Alexandria were more than just tombs. They

were royal dynastic monuments that were also the focus of imperial cult, ruler cult. And what they did is they presented these figures, not just as deceased, but specifically as divinized. And they were focal points for the worship of these figures, both Alexander, in the case of the Sema at Alexandria, and the Mausoleum of Augustus in Rome. So it's all part of the representation of these figures as divinized. And by the way, if you represent yourself in the manner of somebody like that, then by way of extension, you are also presenting yourself as a divinized ruler who's a dynastic

king like that, right? So that brings us back to Herod. Now, you did correctly mention the Philippian at Olympia, which this is my contribution to the, this is something that I noticed that had not been noticed previously. So Herod clearly was situating himself in this tradition of Hellenistic and then Roman tomb architecture when he builds his mausoleum at Herodium and connecting himself by way of extension to Alexander and Augustus. But one of the things that nobody had ever explained is why the structure on

top of the square podium in his mausoleum is circular rather than square, which is odd, because generally those kinds of structures, when you have them on top of like that square podium, they're generally not circular. And that's odd. But even more interesting is that that circular structure at Herodium, the tholos, is surrounded by 18 ionic columns. Ionic is the kind of capital that has the little curly Qs at the top. And there are 18 of them. And that's what struck me because at Olympia, which is this ancient sanctuary of Zeus in the Peloponnese, at Olympia in Greece, you have a sacred precinct dedicated to Zeus,

and inside the sacred precinct is a circular structure called the Philippian. It's named after Philip II, who was the father of Alexander the Great. In the year 338 BCE, Philip II defeated the other Greek city-states in battle, and by way of extension, then became ruler of Greece. other Greek city-states in battle, and by way of extension, then became ruler of Greece. And he built the Philippine to celebrate that victory. The Philippine is a really interesting monument because, first of all, it's constructed inside the sacred precinct, which automatically suggests a connection with the divine. So it's important to remember that up until the time of Alexander, Greek kings were not considered divine. They weren't worshipped as gods. That's different from the tradition in the ancient Near East,

where, for example, the pharaohs and so on. So in Greece, before the time of Alexander, there was no tradition of worshipping a mortal ruler as a god, even after their death. So in placing the Philippian inside the sacred precinct, Philip II was making a statement. And inside that Philippian building were statues of himself and his family, including Alexander. And in doing that, then also making a statement about connecting them to divinities, to gods. Now, the Philippian, and we know that the Philippian was then visited in Alexander's lifetime and afterwards and viewed in that way. The Philippian at Alexandria is a circular structure that is surrounded by 18 ionic columns. Now, what's even more interesting, though,

is that in the year 12 BCE, Herod went to Rome, visited Rome, and on his way during his trip, he also made a visit to Olympia, where he made a huge donation of money, so much money that the locals voted him president for life of the Olympic Games. And then after his trip, he returns to his kingdom. And so I, and it's all around this time that according to A. Netser's excavations, that the mausoleum is built. And I think that the mausoleum is inspired not only by the mausoleum of Augustus at Rome, and also by the lost Sema of Alexander at Alexandria, but also by the Philippian, because of the circular structure with 18 ionic columns. And again, we know that Herod visited Olympia. So certainly what Herod is trying to do here is make a connection between himself and Alexander, situating himself in the tradition of Alexander,

and not just as sort of an Alexander type figure, but as a heroic divinized ruler figure in the Hellenistic tradition, right? And that's the same tradition that Augustus was seeking to situate himself in as well. Even though Augustus tried to be a little bit more, you know, Augustus tried to have it both ways. He also tried to present himself as one among, you know, equals, right? Primus inter pares and all of that. But anyway, so that kind of fiction that the Republic was continuing, you know, and all of that. So the visual connections, I think, are clear,

the architectural and visual connections are clear to me, right? And I think that they would have been clear to people who visited Herodium in, you know, the first century BC and first century CE. This is Herod making a claim, right, that like Augustus, like Alexander, he too is, you know, a dynastic ruler, but also alluding to a divinized status, right? Now, here's the problem, and this goes back to Bethlehem. So the problem is that that would have been probably pretty obvious and fine to non-Jewish subjects of Herod. But Jews would not have accepted Herod as a divinized ruler, right? They're not worshiping a king as a ruler. That's right. Okay.

worshiping a king as a ruler. That's right. Okay. So if Herod is going to make a claim that is analogous to that among his Jewish population, it can't be quite that, right? Situating himself in the tradition of Alexander isn't going to work. He has to do something else. Now, Herod's problem with his Jewish population is that he wasn't descended from the Hasmoneans with his Jewish population is that he wasn't descended from the Hasmoneans, and he wasn't even fully Jewish, right? He's Jewish on his father's side of the family through forced conversion. To be a legitimate Jewish king, if you really want to be a legitimate Jewish king in that period, what you would want to do is situate yourself as a descendant of David, right? Because nobody is going to be able to deny that you're legitimate if you connect yourself to David. So for the Greek and Roman tradition, you're going

to connect yourself to Alexander. For the Jewish tradition, however, you're going to connect yourself to David. And David's birthplace, of course, was Bethlehem, right? And the gospel authors clearly take for granted that the Messiah, who is going to be a king descended from David, right, will be born in Bethlehem, just as David was. And that's why two of the Gospel authors, Matthew and Luke, go to such pains to insert birth narratives at the beginning of their accounts, right? Connecting Jesus to David. And we also saw in Matthew, the connection to Bethlehem, right? So if Herod wants to present himself as a legitimate king in the eyes of his Jewish subjects, the best thing to do is connect yourself to David, right? Now, but how does Herod do that, right?

I mean, because everybody knows he's, I mean, everybody knows he's like this half-Idomenean Jew, you know, kind of. So he does a number of things, in my opinion. So one thing that he does is he establishes his royal dynastic tomb monument overlooking Bethlehem. He puts it as close to Bethlehem as he can get, right? So you're sitting at Bethlehem, it's overlooking Bethlehem. So he's making, in my

opinion, a visual connection to the birthplace of David. He's putting himself right there. And it's actually the location of Herodium. It's just inside the boundary between Bethlehem and Idumea. So it's in Idumea, which is Herod's native territory, but overlooking Bethlehem. So there also, he kind of has it both ways. And then he does a number of other things. He rebuilds the second temple. And actually, you know, even in Josephus, we have references to Herod rebuilding the temple and sort of claiming to be like, you know, he's basically carrying out what Solomon did, right? He's situating himself as like, well, a successor to David and Solomon building the temple or rebuilding the temple on an even larger scale

than the temple was before. So the rebuilding of the temple is also connecting Herod, right? I'm a legitimate Jewish king. I'm rebuilding the temple of David and Solomon, so to speak. It wasn't the temple of David and Solomon, same spot, the temple to the God of Israel. And therefore, you know, in this way, legitimizing myself as a successor, right, to David and Solomon. And then there was a scholar a number of years ago named Abraham Shalit who published a book on Herod, King Herod, which is an amazing book, but unfortunately is not read by a lot of English speaking readers because it was never translated into English. It was published in German and translated into Hebrew, but a very important book. And Shalit has this substantial section.

And in this section, he talks about how Herod portrays himself as a Messiah, a Messiah in the Davidic tradition, a Davidic Messiah, by claiming to have fulfilled the will of the God of Israel by rebuilding the temple and by ushering in a period of unprecedented peace and prosperity. And so basically, if you take all of this evidence together, right, what Herod is doing then is saying, I am a legitimate Jewish king. saying, I am a legitimate Jewish king. I have fulfilled the expectations associated with a Davidic Messiah. And you only need a little bit of leap of imagination then for people to then think to themselves, well, he must be the Davidic Messiah, right? Because he's fulfilled the expectations associated with a Davidic Messiah. Shalit and other scholars have also speculated that these messianic claims by Herod might have been bolstered by his claims that he had some Babylonian Jewish blood in him, that part of his

family came from Babylonia, which is where the Jews had been exiled after the destruction of the first temple. And in doing that, Herod is basically trying to say, yes, I do have, I am in fact, or I could be, right, descended from David by way of the Babylonian Jewish part of my family. There's no substantiation for that kind of a claim, but Herod could have been making those claims, in order to help legitimize his position. So I think that all of this goes along with what we see at Herodium. In other words, when you look at Herodium, you have two aspects to it. You have the Hellenistic Roman aspect with the tradition of Alexander and Augustus and the divinized dynastic rulers. And then on the other hand, what you have are the Messianic Davidic Jewish claims.

And then on the other hand, what you have are the Messianic Davidic Jewish claims. And this then actually helps explain the story of the massacre of the innocents in Matthew. Right. Because if we come back to that, I think that what this story is doing is responding to that claim by Herod by saying that, first of all, the true Messiah actually was born in Bethlehem. And that's not true of Herod. Herod's claim is false, right? And not only is Herod not the true Messiah, but he actually tried to have the true Messiah put to death, right? So I think that episode in the Gospel of Matthew is responding to the claims made by Herod, including the very big visual statement of his tomb looming over Bethlehem. I mean, that's so interesting, Jodie.

And I mean, for those people who, let's say they believe that Herod was this Messiah figure, does Herodium, do we think Herodium becomes similar to, let's say, the tomb of Alexander the Great in Alexandra, in which it becomes a place of pilgrimage too? Yeah, well, that's really one of the very interesting questions. And there is an afterlife of Herodium, but it's clear that around the time of the Jewish revolt against the Romans, and maybe also afterwards, there was a lot of vandalism to Herod's tomb. Also afterwards, there was a lot of vandalism to Herod's tomb and the sarcophagi. There were three sarcophagi, stone sarcophagi, which are big stone coffins that were found at the site of the mausoleum. And they had been smashed into little bits.

And the excavators hypothesize that this vandalism and damage was carried out by Jews in the decades after Herod's death and around the time of the First Revolt and maybe afterwards because Herod was so unpopular and his claim was so unpopular. So it's sort of hard to say. On the other hand, it could have remained a family dynastic monument. We have some hints that Herod's son and grandson maybe had some connection to the site of Herodium. and grandson maybe had some connection to the site of Herodium. It's kind of hard to know for sure. And there is also a long tradition of literary sources referring to a group called the Herodians. So there's actually a group in the gospel accounts. If you go through the different canonical gospel accounts where they refer to groups like the Pharisees and the Sadducees and

the scribes, but they also in the gospel authors refer to a group called the Herodians. And most scholars have assumed that the Herodians were sort of a group of elite Jews who were sort of in the entourage of Herod, right? They were associated with Herod. But there are then later Christian sources from about 200 CE on that also refer to the Herodians, a group called the Herodians, who they explicitly say are a Jewish sect who considered Herod to be Christ, who considered Herod to be the Messiah. And so apparently there were Jews and probably there were groups among the elites, right, who were in the circle of Herod, and after his death, who did consider Herod to be the Messiah, who considered his claims to be legitimate. And in my opinion, these people are the people who are called the Herodians. Now,

whether the Herodians in the gospel accounts are the same as the Herodians mentioned in the later sources, we don't know for sure. I think it's actually quite possible, but we don't know that for sure. I mean, it is really interesting seeing what this archaeology combined with the literature once again. I would like to ask a bit about those sarcophagi. I know they're crushed up, they've been vandalized, but do we have any idea who these sarcophagi belong to? So again, there were three sarcophagi. One is of this beautiful, it's an exquisite sarcophagus, even though it's smashed, made of this very hard redstone, local redstone that was basically not used otherwise in this period. It becomes common

in later periods, but not in this period. And then there are two white sarcophagi. And the excavators speculate, and I think this is a reasonable speculation, they speculate that the red sarcophagus was Herod's sarcophagus. And it's the one that actually had the most damage. It's smashed into teeny little bits. The two white sarcophagi were in bigger pieces. And they speculate that maybe those were, you know, among Herod's wives. Herod had nine or ten wives, depending on how you read

Josephus. He had one wife who he divorced and then he remarried later. But anyway, so they speculate that maybe those two sarcophagi were, you know, Herod's wives. And if we don't know, it's not unreasonable. One of the problems with this is that there are no inscriptions on the sarcophagi. So it would be nice if we had an inscription that says this is Herod's sarcophagus. We don't have that. But, you know, it's an amazing sarcophagus. The red one is, you know, extraordinary. And in my opinion, there's no reason to doubt that it's Herod's, even though there are scholars who doubt it because there is no inscription, but I don't see a good reason to doubt that. Now, also very interesting. So you asked about the afterlife of Herod, and I mentioned the Herodians. By, you know, in the years after Herod's

death, some of the elite Jewish families in Jerusalem began to build their own family tombs in Jerusalem in imitation of the mausoleum of Herod at Herodium. And the best example is this monument called the Tomb of Absalom, which is misnamed, which is in the Kidron Valley at the foot of the Temple Mount. Basically, it's at the foot of the slope of Mount of Olives. And it's still standing today, you can see it. And it's clearly an imitation of the mausoleum at Herodium. And that, by the way, is very interesting too, because it's not just a fashion thing. I mean, there's no doubt that these Jewish families were aware of the symbolic significance of,

you know, Herod's mausoleum and what it represented. And so by imitating that, it's by way of extension sort of saying, yeah, well, fine with us, you know, and let's build a tomb like this for ourselves, you know. So I do think that there were portions of the Jewish population, and probably particularly among some of the elites who were in Herod's circle who would have accepted his claims as legitimate. I mean, Jodie, good for you to get that link to our previous podcast in there with the rock cut tombs in and around Jerusalem. And that link to King Herod is interesting indeed. Now, before we really start wrapping up with this topic, there is one last thing I'd like to ask about because it's sometimes, I think, overlooked sometimes with these tombs, and that is the gardens or the garden of this tomb, because there is quite a magnificent garden next to the

mausoleum, isn't there, Jodie? Yes. And actually, thank you for pointing that out, because we know that gardens were an important feature of many of these ancient tombs, particularly the monumental ones, right? So, you know, poorer people or simpler tombs didn't necessarily have gardens, but the big tombs, and this, even in the biblical tradition, there are gardens associated with tombs. So we know, for example, that there were gardens associated with the Sema of Alexander at Alexandria, and the Mausoleum of Augustus at Rome was in the middle of a giant garden complex. So the Mausoleum of Herod at Herodium also was in a precinct that had gardens around it. So this is very typical. I mean, yeah, brilliant. Once again, it's nice to bring that to

light. As you say, the gardens, you've got to imagine this very colourful ancient world. And Jodie, as we wrap up, from what we've been chatting about King Herod, especially this archaeology looking at the tomb, I mean, the whole design of Herodium of this tomb complex constructed whilst Herod was alive, it gives this amazing insight into the life of this figure. This is like this invaluable lens of archaeology through which we can learn more about, as we said at the start, one of the most infamous characters from ancient history. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that this is one of these cases which highlights the value of archaeology in shedding light on the past. Right. So and it's also a case where, again, one of the things that is important to me as an archaeologist is combining all of the information that we have about the past, that is important to me as an archaeologist, is combining all of the information that we have about the past, both from literary sources and from archaeology. And here we can do that very productively to understand this figure of Herod. And Jodie, last but not least, because it's just come to my mind now, is actually, we haven't really talked about the actual death of King

Herod. Do we know how he dies? Yeah, well, again, we only have Josephus' account describing how Herod died. So Herod died in the year 4 BCE. And according to Josephus, he died of some illness. Josephus describes it in extremely grotesque terms. He had worms coming out of his privy parts. And I mean, he was in great agony. It was a horrible death. And scholars have speculated about what exactly the illness was. There have been all kinds of suggestions, syphilis, and I don't know, all sorts of different

things. We don't actually know. We also don't know how accurate that is. I mean, I think it's reasonable to assume that Herod died of some illness, and maybe it was kind of an agonizing illness. Was it as grotesque as the way Josephus describes? Or did Josephus embellish it? We don't know. Again, Josephus presented Herod in a negative light, a very negative light. And the point of describing

the illness so grotesquely is to show that a horrible man was punished at the end of his life by dying a horrible death. And by the way, you know, Josephus nowhere mentions anything about Herod being Messiah. I think Josephus did not accept that tradition and may have actually been actively opposed to it. And so part of the point of this horrible death description could be to show he couldn't be the Messiah because he died this horrible death and was punished by God at the end of his life. So it could be another element of Josephus's spin on presentation, right? Well, let's hope one day they may find a parchment somewhere, which is, let's say, the complete account of Nicolaus of Damascus's biography of Herod, and then you would know exactly. I know a lot of scholars who'd be like, right, they'd be extremely excited if that was discovered well hopefully

hopefully one day soon you never know there's always going to be new extraordinary discoveries being made in that part of the world from ancient history something will happen in the years and decades ahead jody it's wonderful to have you back on the podcast today and it only goes for me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come back on the show. Thank you for having me. I hope you enjoyed this episode all about King Herod and particularly his tomb with the awesome archaeologist Jody Magnus. I mean, that potential link between Herodium, Herod's own wishes to be seen as this messiah figure, and the whole story of the massacre of the innocents is just astonishing. It blows your mind, it really does.

Now, if you'd like to keep up to date with the ancients, if you want more ancients content, then we've got the solution for you. Sign up to our newsletter via the link in the description below. See you in the next episode.