Antipater, presuming on
the incapacity of Hyrcanus, renewed his ambitious intrigues, and contrived
to make his son, Phasael, governor of Jerusalem, and Herod, a second son,
governor of Galilee.

(M251) Herod developed great talents, and waited for his time. After the
battle of Philippi Herod made acceptable offerings to the conquering
party, and received the crown of Judea, which had been recently ravaged by
the Parthians, through the intrigues of Antigonas, the surviving son of
Aristobulus. By his marriage with Mariamne, of the royal line of the
Asmoneans, he cemented the power he had won by the sword and the favor of
Rome. He was the last of the independent sovereigns of Palestine. He
reigned tyrannically, and was guilty of great crimes, having caused the
death of the aged Hyrcanus, and the imprisonment and execution of his wife
on a foul suspicion. He paid the same court to Augustus that he did to
Antony, and was confirmed in the possession of his kingdom. The last of
the line of the Asmonaeans had perished on the scaffold, beautiful,
innocent, and proud, the object of a boundless passion to a tyrant who
sacrificed her to a still greater one--suspicion. Alternating between his
love and resentment, Herod sank into a violent fit of remorse, for he had
more or less concern in the murder of the father, the grandfather, the
brother, and the uncle of his beautiful and imperious wife. At all times,
even amid the glories of his palace, he was haunted with the image of the
wife he had destroyed, and loved with passionate ardor. He burst forth in
tears, he tried every diversion, banquets and revels, solitude and
labor--still the murdered Mariamne is ever present to his excited
imagination. He settles down in a fixed and indelible gloom, and his stern
nature sought cruelty and bloodshed. His public administration was, on the
whole, favorable to the peace and happiness of the country, although he
introduced the games and the theatres in which the Romans sought their
greatest pleasures. For these innovations he was exposed to incessant
dangers; but he surmounted them all by his vigilance and energy. He
rebuilt Samaria, and erected palaces. But his greatest work was the
building of Caesarea--a city of palaces and theatres. His policy of reducing
Judea to a mere province of Rome was not pleasing to his subjects, and he
was suspected of a design of heathenizing the nation. Neither his
munificence nor severities could suppress the mu