Alexander Severus became emperor
this day in CMLXXV A.V.C. (222 AD).
On this day in DCCL A.V.C. (4 BC), King
Herod
the Great died after an unsuccessful attempt at suicide, and five days after
murdering his own firstborn, Antipater. Herod had given orders to have the
principal men of Judea shut up in the hippodrome at Jericho and slaughtered
as soon as he had passed away, that his grave might not be without the tribute
of tears. The command was not carried into effect; but the Jews celebrated
as a festival the day of his death, by which they were delivered from his
tyrannical rule.
Herod, born in DCLXXXI A.V.C. (73 BC) into
a wealthy family of Arab origin, was a practicing Jew, but paid hommage to
the gods of Rome and was always in conflict with the
Pharisees.
He rose to power through a string of remarkable military victories, and became
a puppet of the Romans, who named him King of the Jews at a senate meeting
in DCCXIV A.V.C. (40 BC). Three years and many battles later he succeeded
in uniting the warring fragments of Judea and the Jewish colonies. Herod turned
the country into a prosperous Roman protectorate, building numerous fortresses,
palaces, temples, seaports, and cities where there had been none before. A
friend to Julius Caesar and Augustus (whose favor he eventually lost), he
made Judea so prosperous that it even assumed all support for the Olympic
games, which the Greeks could no longer afford.
Herod's cruelty became worse with age. After
divorcing his first wife, Doris, and banishing her and his son from the court,
he married Mariame, and became so jealous of her that, in DCCXLVIII (6 BC)
he murdered her, his two sons by her (Aristobulus and Alexander), her brother,
her mother, and her grandfather. He had 10 wives in all, and had 14 children
by 6 of them. Shortly before his death, he ordered the
massacre
of the infants of Bethleem, which gives a fix on the birth of Jesus Christ
as having taken place between 8 and 4 BC.
—
“It is better to be Herod's swine than his
son” — Augustus (after hearing that among the children
whom Herod had ordered to be slain in Syria was the king's own son). This
according to what Macrobius wrote in the beginning of the fifth century (Saturn.,
II, 4). Augustus said this in Greek, in which
hys means swine
(which Herod, as a Jew, would not eat, and therefore would not be interested
in killing), and
hyios means son.