1. Does Herod deserve to be called “the Great”? In comparison with his feebler descendants-the kings and princes of the house which he founded-he may fairly be so designated, although there is only one passage in the works of Josephus (Antiq. xviii. v. 5) where he receives that proud title. He cannot with any propriety be admitted into the company of those kings and conquerors whom historians agree to call “great” in the absolute sense. But this much may be said with truth, that if he was only relatively great, he was endowed by nature with all the gifts which, had he used them wisely, might have made him great in the higher sense. As it is, his astonishing success is a fact beyond dispute. While some men are born to greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them, the first Herod achieved all the greatness with which he is credited. By his own efforts he attained the position of power and glory to which his restless ambition aspired. His energy, his daring, his political ability, his personal beauty and power of fascination won in succession the greatest of the Romans to support his cause. And receiving a kingly crown, founding a royal house, and amassing fabulous wealth, he rivalled Solomon in the extent of his dominions, the splendour of his court, the grandeur of his palaces and temples.
Herod was born to be a ruler. Blessed by nature with a powerful body capable of enduring fatigue, he early inured himself to all manner of hardships. He was a skilful rider, and a bold, daring huntsman. He was feared in pugilistic encounters. His lance was unerring, and his arrow seldom missed its mark. He was practised in the art of war from his youth. Even in his twenty-fifth year he had won renown by his expedition against the robbers of Galilee. And then again, in the later period of his life, when over sixty years of age, he led in person the campaign against the Arabians. Barely did success forsake him where he himself conducted any warlike undertaking.1 [Note: E. Schürer, The Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, I. i. 417.]
Even if we contemplate the personality of Herod apart from his friends and flatterers, we cannot deny that there have rarely been united in any ruler so much tenacious strength of mind, so much almost inexhaustible address and sagacity, and so much inflexible activity, as were combined in him: even the surname of the Great, though only applied to him subsequently by a misunderstanding of a Greek expression, he at any rate merits within the series of his own family and in the circuit of the sovereigns of the century. Loving power and command above everything, he was yet not insensible to the blessings of honourable tranquillity and the arts of peace. After such tedious and desolating struggles, the whole country longed for rest, and accordingly the labours of Herod for the external prosperity and honour of his house and his people found a most happy response in the similar need of repose which was then so forcibly experienced throughout the whole Roman empire. And yet the end of his reign was destined to be practically the end of the new dynasty established by him with such prodigious effort; and what was much worse, his memory was to be justly cursed by his contemporaries and by posterity, and his whole career upon the throne, with all its outward success and splendour, was to be irremediably disastrous and full of affliction; so that there has scarcely ever been a sovereign whose life, passed in the enjoyment of all possible power and glory, terminated more painfully in itself or more mischievously for the kingdom at large.1 [Note: H. Ewald, The History of Israel, v. 418.]
2. It was in the year 40 b.c. that Herod, walking between Antony and Octavian (afterwards Augustus), was conducted from the Roman Senate to the Capitol, where, with solemn services to Jupiter Capitolinus, his reign was inaugurated. On the same day he was fêted by Antony. “Thus,” says Josephus, “did this man come into his kingdom.” He was then in his thirty-seventh year, and for the next thirty-four years he shaped the destinies of the Jewish nation, while he was one of the most brilliant figures of the Augustan age.
During the prosperous period of Herod's reign splendid public works were commenced and new cities were built. He rebuilt the city of Samaria, to which he gave the name of “Sebaste,” in honour of the Roman emperor. The small town on the seacoast called the Tower of Strato was transformed into a magnificent city with an artificial harbour, on a scale of the utmost grandeur, and named “Cæsarea.” Temples in honour of Augustus were multiplied in all directions. To celebrate the quinquennial games which had been instituted in almost all of the Roman provinces, likewise in honour of Augustus, Herod erected in Jerusalem a theatre, an amphitheatre, and a hippodrome. Citadels and cities rose in honour of the different members of Herod's family: Antipatris, in honour of his father: Cypros, commemorating his mother; Phasaelis, as a memorial to his brother; and the two strongholds named Herodium in honour of himself. Military colonies were planted at Gaba in Galilee, and at Heshbon; and the fortresses Alexandrium, Hyrcania, Machærus, and Masada were rendered impregnable.
Of all Herod's building operations, however, the most magnificent was the restoration of the Temple at Jerusalem. This work, begun in the eighteenth year of his reign, was completed in its essential parts in eight years. Its beauty was proverbial. “He who has not seen Herod's building has never seen anything beautiful,” was a common proverb of the day. Moreover, Herod did not content himself with erecting architectural monuments in his own country only; Ashkelon, Aere, Tyre, Sidon, Byblus, Berytus, Tripoli, Damascus, Antioch, Rhodes, Chios, Nicopolis, Athens, and Sparta also received proofs of his generosity in many a monumental structure. He defrayed, too, the cost of the erection at Rhodes of a temple devoted to the Pythian Apollo, and gave a fund for prizes and sacrifices at the Olympian games.
All the worldly pomp and splendour which made Herod popular among the pagans, however, rendered him abhorrent to the Jews, who could not forgive him for insulting their religious feelings by forcing upon them heathen games and combats with wild animals. The annexation to Judæa of the districts of Trachonitis, Batanea, Auranitis, Zenodorus, Ulatha, and Panias, which Herod through his adulations had obtained from Augustus, could not atone for his crimes.1 [Note: I. Broydé, in the Jewish Encyclopedia, vi. 358.]
