Herodias
Herodias (c. 15 BC-after 39 AD) was a Jewish princess of the herodian dynasty. She was the daughter of Aristobulus IV, one of the two sons of Herod the Great and the Hasmonean princess Mariamne I. Her mother was Berenice, a daughter of the sister of Herod, the cunning Salome I, and of Costabarus, governor of Idumea. She had three brothers, Herod, king of Chalcis, Herod Agrippa, king of Judea and Aristobulus V, and one sister, Mariamne III, who may have been the first wife of her uncle, Herod Archelaus, etnarch of Judea.
Around 1 or 2 AD, she married her uncle, Herod II, also called Herod Boethus, son of Herod the Great and Mariamne II, daughter of the high priest Simon Boethus. He is mistakenly named Philip in the Gospels of Mark and Matthew. Although seen for a while as the successor of Herod the Great, he fell from grace after his mother's implication in a plot to kill the king. After his marriage with Herodias, he and his wife lived as upper-class private citizens in or near a harbor city, possibly Azotus, Ascalon or Caesarea Maritima.
With Herod II, Herodias had a daughter (born circa 14AD) to whom she gave the name of her maternal grandmother, Salome. But around 23AD, she divorced her husband and married another uncle, Herod Antipas, tetrach of Galilee and Peraea. Although they may really have loved each other, political considerations were probably of more importance to them than mere sentimental preoccupations. Herodias' Hasmonean descent was a very good asset for Antipas' ambitions to the royal crown and gave a sort of legitimacy to his claim. However this union was not well received by Antipas' subjects and offended the religious sensiblities of many Jews. Indeed, Antipas' and Herodias' union was considered a violation of Jewish Law of marriage and, according to the Gospels, was thus openly critized by John the Baptist. This may have enraged the hellenistically educated herodian couple who probably wanted to pose for observant Jews over the population.
In the Gospels of Mark and Matthew, Herodias plays a major role in John the Baptist's execution, having the prophet beheaded through a machiavelian scheme using her daughter to dance before Antipas and his birthday party guests and to ask for the head of the Baptist as a reward. However, the historicity of this retelling has seriously been put to question by most modern historians and biblical experts. According to the ancient historian Josephus, John the Baptist was put to death by Antipas for political reasons, for Antipas fearred the prophet's seditious influence. Some exegets believe that Antipas' and Herodias' struggle with John the Baptist as told in the Gospels was some kind of a reminescence of the political and religious fight opposing the Israelian monarchs Achab and Jezebel to the prophet Elijah.
In 37 A.D., Herodias' brother Herod Agrippa was made king over the territories of Batanaea and Trachonitist and the tetrarchy of the late Lysanias. This roused Herodias' jealousy and she prodded Antipas to sail for Rome and ask the title of king from the emperor. They embarked for Rome in late 39. However, they were outsmarted by Agrippa, who had sent letters to Caligula denouncing Antipas' implication with the former preator Sejanus and also his alliance with Parthia. When Caligula deposed Antipas and sentenced him to exile in Lyon (Gaul), he offered Herodias the possibility to return in Judea and live at the court of her brother. But she proudly refused and accompanied her husband in his banishment. They probably died in their exile, shortly afterwards.
Reference
- Gillman, Florence Morgan. Herodias: At Home in the Fox's Den. Interfaces. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2003.
- Meier, John P. A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Volume Two: Mentor, Message and Miracles. Anchor Bible Reference Library, New York: Doubleday, 1994.
- Theissen, Gerd. The Shadow of the Galilean: The Quest of the Historical Jesus in Narrative Form. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987.
Herodias in fiction
- Hérodiade, opera by Jules Massenet.
- Hérodias, story by Gustave Flaubert, one of the Three Tales (Trois contes), published in 1877.
- Salomé, play by Oscar Wilde, French (1894), translated into English by Lord Alfred Douglas, 1895.
- Salome, opera by Richard Strauss, based on a German translation (by Hedwig Lachmann, grandmother of Mike Nichols) of the play by Oscar Wilde.