Jerusalem. The Biography

Antonia Fortress rushed into the Temple to arrest them. Paraded before Herod on his sickbed, they insisted they were obeying the Torah. The culprits were burned alive.
    Herod collapsed, suffering an agonizing and gruesome putrefaction: it started as an itching all over with a glowing sensation within his intestines, then developed into a swelling of his feet and belly, complicated by ulceration of the colon. His body started to ooze clear fluid, he could scarcely breathe, a vile stench emanated from him, and his genitals swelled grotesquely until his penis and scrotum burst out into suppurating gangrene that then gave birth to a seething mass of worms.
    The rotting king hoped he would recover in the warmth of his Jericho palace but, as his suffering increased, he was borne out to the warm sulphur baths at Callirhoe, which still exist on the Dead Sea, only for the suphur to aggravate the agony. * Treated with hot oil, he passed out andwas carried back to Jericho where he ordered the summoning of the Temple elite from Jerusalem, whom he had locked en masse in the hippodrome. It is unlikely that he planned to slaughter them. Probably he wanted to finesse the succession while holding all troublemaking grandees in custody.
    At around this time, a child named Joshua ben Joseph, or (in Aramaic) Jesus, was born. His parents were a carpenter, Joseph, and his teenaged betrothed, Mary (Mariamme in Hebrew), based in Nazareth, up in Galilee. They were not much richer than peasants, but it was said they were descended from the old Davidian house. They travelled down to Bethlehem where a child, Jesus, was born ‘that shall rule my people Israel’. After he had been circumcised on the eighth day, according to St Luke, ‘they brought him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord’ and make the traditional sacrifice in the Temple. A wealthy family would sacrifice a sheepor even a cow, but Joseph could afford only two turtle-doves or pigeons.
    As Herod lay dying, Matthew’s Gospel claims, he ordered his forces to liquidate this Davidian child by massacring all newborn babies, but Joseph took refuge in Egypt until he heard that Herod had died. There were certainly messianic rumours afoot and Herod would have feared a Davidian pretender, but there is no evidence that the king ever heard of Jesus or massacred any innocents. It is ironic that this monster should be particularly remembered for the one crime he neglected to commit. As for the child from Nazareth, we do not hear of him again for about thirty years. *
    ARCHELAUS: MESSIAHS AND MASSACRES
     
    Emperor Augustus sent his reply to Herod: he had had Livia’s slave girl beaten to death and Herod was free to punish Prince Antipater. Yet Herod was now in such torment, he seized a dagger to kill himself. This fracas convinced Antipater, in his nearby cell, that the old tyrant was dead. He exuberantly called in his jailer to unlock the cell. Surely, finally, Antipater was King of the Jews? The jailer had heard the cries too. Hurrying to court, he found Herod was not dead, just demented. His servants had seized the knife from him. The jailer reported Antipater’s treason. This pustulous but living carcass of a king beat his own head, howled and ordered his guards to kill the hated son immediately. Then he rewrote his will, dividing the kingdom between three of his teenaged sons – with Jerusalem and Judaea going to Archelaus.
    Five days later, in March 4 BC , after a reign of thirty-seven years, Herod the Great, who had survived ‘ten thousand dangers’, died. The eighteen-year-old Archelaus danced, sang and made merry as if an enemy, not a father, had died. Even Herod’s grotesque family were shocked. The body, wearing the crown and gripping the sceptre, was borne on a catafalque of purple-draped, bejewelled gold in a parade – led by Archelaus and followed by the German and Thracian guards, and by 500 servants carrying spices (the stink must have been pungent) – the 24 miles to the mountain fortress of Herodium. There Herod was buried in a tomb * that was lost for 2,000 years. 44
    Archelaus returned to secure Jerusalem, ascending a golden throne in the Temple, where he announced the softening of his father’s severity. The city was filled with Passover pilgrims, many of whom, certain that the king’s death heralded an apocalyptic deliverance, ran amok in the Temple. Archelaus’ guards were stoned. Archelaus, although he had just promised an easing of the repression, sent