Zealot - The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

appointing his sons Phasael and Herod as governors over Jerusalem and Galilee,
     respectively. Herod was probably only fifteen years old at the time, but he immediately
     distinguished himself as an effective leader and energetic supporter of Rome by launching
     a bloody crusade against the bandit gangs. He even captured the bandit chief Hezekiah
     and cut off his head, putting an end (temporarily) to the bandit menace.
    While Herod was clearing Galilee of the bandit gangs, Antigonus, the son of Aristobulus,
     who had lost the throne and the high priesthood to his brother Hyrcanus after the
     Roman invasion, was stirring up trouble in Jerusalem. With the help of Rome’s avowed
     enemies, the Parthians, Antigonus besieged the holy city in 40 B.C.E ., taking both the high priest Hyrcanus and Herod’s brother Phasael prisoner. Hyrcanus
     was mutilated, rendering him ineligible, according to Jewish law, to serve any longer
     as high priest; Herod’s brother Phasael committed suicide while in captivity.
    The Roman Senate determined that the most effective way to retake Jerusalem from Parthian
     control was to make Herod its client-king and let him accomplish the task on Rome’s
     behalf. The naming of client-kings was standard practice during the early years of
     the Roman Empire, allowing Rome to expand its borders without expending valuable resources
     administering conquered provinces directly.
    In 37 B.C.E ., Herod marched to Jerusalem with a massive Roman army under his command. He expelled
     the Parthian forces from the city and wiped out the remnants of the Hasmonaean dynasty.
     In recognition of his services, Rome named Herod “King of the Jews,” granting him
     a kingdom that would ultimately grow larger than that of King Solomon.
    Herod’s was a profligate and tyrannical rule marked by farcical excess and bestial
     acts of cruelty. He was ruthless to his enemies and tolerated no hint of revolt from
     the Jews under his reign. Uponascending the throne, he massacred nearly every member of the Sanhedrin and replaced
     the Temple priests with a claque of fawning admirers who purchased their positions
     directly from him. This act effectively neutered the political influence of the Temple
     and redistributed power to a new class of Jews whose reliance on the favors of the
     king transformed them into a sort of nouveau riche aristocracy. Herod’s penchant for
     violence and his highly publicized domestic disputes, which bordered on the burlesque,
     led him to execute so many members of his own family that Caesar Augustus once famously
     quipped, “I would rather be Herod’s pig than his son.”
    In truth, being King of the Jews in Herod’s time was no enviable task. There were,
     according to Josephus, twenty-four fractious Jewish sects in and around Jerusalem.
     Although none enjoyed unfettered dominance over the others, three sects, or rather
schools
, were particularly influential in shaping Jewish thought at the time: the Pharisees,
     who were primarily lower- and middle-class rabbis and scholars who interpreted the
     laws for the masses; the Sadducees, more conservative and, with regard to Rome, more
     accommodating priests from wealthier landowning families; and the Essenes, a predominantly
     priestly movement that separated itself from the authority of the Temple and made
     its base on a barren hilltop in the Dead Sea valley called Qumran.
    Charged with pacifying and administrating an unruly and heterogeneous population of
     Jews, Greeks, Samaritans, Syrians, and Arabs—all of whom hated him more than they
     hated each other—Herod did a masterful job of maintaining order on behalf of Rome.
     His reign ushered in an era of political stability among the Jews that had not been
     seen for centuries. He initiated a monumental building and public works project that
     employed tens of thousands of peasants and day laborers, permanently changing the
     physical landscape of Jerusalem. He built markets and theaters, palaces and ports,
     all modeled on the classical Hellenic style.
    To pay for his colossal construction projects and to satisfy hisown extravagance, Herod imposed a crushing tax rate upon his subjects, from which
     he continued to dispatch a hefty tribute to Rome, and with pleasure, as an expression
     of his esteem for his Roman masters. Herod was not just the emperor’s client-king.
     He was a close and personal friend, a loyal citizen of the Republic who wanted more
     than to emulate Rome; he