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Antipater, whose history we are tracing, remained a friend of Pompey until B.C.48,
when Pompey was defeated by Cæsar (Augustus) at Pharsalia. At this a lesser man might
have despaired, but not so Antipater. He immediately transferred his allegiance, and
rendered Cæsar such service in an hour of peril that Cæsar became the friend of the
Idumeans. Consequently when Antigonus complained to Cæsar that Antipater had
robbed him of his kingdom, he was dismissed, and Antipater made a Roman citizen and
Procurator of all Judæa (B.C.47). Antipater was now practically King, and made his
elder son governor of Jerusalem, while Herod his younger son received the governorship
of Galilee. It is at this point that the name of Herod enters the pages of Jewish history.
On March 15th B.C.44 Julius Cæsar was assassinated, and in B.C.43 Antipater, the
founder of the house of Herod, died of poison.
"But he had already gratified the highest hopes of his ambition, and in Herod he left a
son who inherited all his energy, his subtleness, his marked daring, his political ability,
his magnificence, his personal beauty, and the singular power of fascination by which he
won over in succession even the greatest of the Romans to support his cause" (Farrar).
Such is the history, in brief, that leads up to Herod the Great.
It is impossible to condense the story of Herod into closing paragraphs of this article.
We must devote at least one complete article to the subject, and will therefore close this
outline of Herod's ancestry by indicating the family tree of the Herods as they come into
the Scriptural record.
Antipater was poisoned in B.C.43. He had four sons and one daughter. Phasael
committed suicide; Joseph was killed in battle; Pheroras died a natural death. His
daughter Salome was the mother of Berenice.
Herod the Great is the Herod mentioned in Luke 1: and Matt. 2: He married several
wives. Mariamne the Asmonæan was the mother of Aristobolus, who married Berenice,
and was executed in B.C.6. Of this marriage there were two sons--Herod, King of
Chalcis (A.D.48), who married his niece (Acts 25: 13) and Agrippa I, whose death in
A.D.44 is recorded in Acts 12:
Another son of Herod the Great by Mariamne the Boethusian was Herod Philip, who
married Herodias (Matt. 14: 3) and had a daughter Salome 2: Malthase, a Samaritan,
bore him Antipas and Archelaus. Antipas is the Herod mentioned in Luke 3: 1 and 19;
9: 7; 13: 31; 23: 7; Matt. 14: 1 and 3; and Mark 6: 14. Archelaus is the king
mentioned in Matt. 2: 22.
Agrippa I, whose pedigree we have traced above, was the father of Agrippa II
(Acts 25: 13), and of Berenice (Acts 25: 13), and of Drusilla, who married Felix
(Acts 24: 24). The son born of this marriage with Felix bore the name of Agrippa and,
together with his mother, perished in A.D.73 in the eruption of Vesuvius. So ended the