Herodias

	Email		Print
	Bookmark		Link

Herodias

Herodias (c. 15 BC-after 39 AD) was a Jew

Jew

A Jew is a member of the Jewish people, an ethnoreligious group that traces its ancestry to the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East....
ish princess of the Herodian Dynasty

Herodian Dynasty

The Herodian Dynasty was a Jewish dynasty of Idumea descent, who ruled Iudaea Province between 37 BC - AD 92....
.

nd the year AD 1 or 2, she married her uncle, Herod II, also called Herod Boethus, son of Herod the Great

Herod the Great

Mariamne (third wife of Herod)

Mariamne II was the third wife of Herod the Great. She was the daughter of Boethusians the Kohen Gadol. Josephus recounts their wedding thus:...
, daughter of the high priest Simon Boethus

Boethusians

The Boethusians were a Jewish sect closely related to, if not a development of, the Sadducees....
.

Discussion

Ask a question about 'Herodias'

Start a new discussion about 'Herodias'

Answer questions from other users

Full Discussion Forum

Encyclopedia

Herodias (c. 15 BC-after 39 AD) was a Jew

Jew

A Jew is a member of the Jewish people, an ethnoreligious group that traces its ancestry to the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East....
ish princess of the Herodian Dynasty

Herodian Dynasty

The Herodian Dynasty was a Jewish dynasty of Idumea descent, who ruled Iudaea Province between 37 BC - AD 92....
.

Relationships

Daughter of Aristobulus IV
Aristobulus IV

Aristobulus IV was a prince of Judea from the :Category:Herodian dynasty, and was married to his cousin, Berenice , daughter of Costobar and Salome....
(one of the two sons of Herod the Great
Herod the Great

Herod , also known as Herod I or Herod the Great , was a Roman Empire client state of Israel. Herod is known for his colossal building projects in Jerusalem and other parts of the ancient world, including the rebuilding of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, sometimes referred to as Herod's Temple....
and the Hasmonean princess Mariamne I
Mariamne (second wife of Herod)

Mariamne I, also called Mariamne the Hasmonean was the second wife of Herod the Great. She was known for her great beauty, as was her brother Aristobulus....
)
Daughter of Berenice
Berenice (daughter of Salome)

Berenice was the daughter of Salome I, sister of Herod the Great. She married her cousin Aristobulus IV, who was executed by his father in 6 BC; she was accused of complicity in his murder....
(a daughter of Herod
Herod

Herod is a name used of several kings belonging to the Herodian Dynasty of Roman Empire Iudaea Province:* Herod the Great , king of Judea who reconstructed the Second Temple in Jerusalem....
's sister Salome I
Salome I

Salome I was the sister of Herod the Great and the mother of Berenice by her husband Costobarus, governor of Idumea.Berenice's children were Herodias, Agrippa I, king of Judea, Herod of Chalcis and Aristobulus V, and Mariamne III ....
, and of Costabarus, governor of Idumea)
Full sister to Herod III
Herod of Chalcis

File:Herold_of_Chalcis_coin_showing_Herod_of_Chalcis_with_brother_Agrippa_of_Judaea_crowning_Roman_Emperor_Claudius_I.jpgHerod of Chalcis , was a son of Aristobulus IV, and the grandson of Herod the Great, Roman client king of Iudaea Province....
(king of Chalkis
Chalcis, Syria

Chalcis was an ancient city in Syria. Syrian Chalcis was the birthplace of 3rd century AD Neoplatonism philosopher Iamblichus .It is thought to be the site of the modern town of Qinnasrin, though Anjar, Lebanon in Lebanon has also been suggested as the site of ancient Chalcis....
), Herod Agrippa
Agrippa I

Agrippa I also called the Great , King of the Jews, was the grandson of Herod the Great, and son of Aristobulus IV and Berenice . His original name was Marcus Julius Agrippa, and he is the king named Herod in the Acts of the Apostles, in the Bible, "Herod " ....
(king of Judea), Aristobulus V, and Mariamne III
Mariamne III

Mariamne III was a daughter of Aristobulus IV and Berenice . She had three brothers, Herod III, king of Chalcis, Syria, Herod Agrippa, king of Judea and Aristobulus V, and one sister, Herodias....
(possibly the first wife of her uncle, Herod Archelaus
Herod Archelaus

Herod Archelaus was the ethnarch of Samaria, Judea, and Edom from 4 BC to 6 AD. He was the son of Herod the Great and Malthace, the brother of Herod Antipas, and the half-brother of Herod Philip I....
, ethnarch of Judea
Judea

Judea or Jud?a is the name given to the mountainous southern part of the historic Land of Israel , an area now divided between Israel and the West Bank ....
).

Marriages

Herod II

Around the year AD 1 or 2, she married her uncle, Herod II, also called Herod Boethus, son of Herod the Great

Herod the Great

Mariamne (third wife of Herod)

Mariamne II was the third wife of Herod the Great. She was the daughter of Boethusians the Kohen Gadol. Josephus recounts their wedding thus:...
, daughter of the high priest Simon Boethus

Boethusians

The Boethusians were a Jewish sect closely related to, if not a development of, the Sadducees....
. Although seen for a while as the successor of Herod the Great

Herod the Great

Herod , also known as Herod I or Herod the Great , was a Roman Empire client state of Israel. Herod is known for his colossal building projects in Jerusalem and other parts of the ancient world, including the rebuilding of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, sometimes referred to as Herod's Temple....
, 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

Azotus

Azotus , a Greek language name for an ancient Philistine city, is identified by different authorities with either:*Gaza, now the largest city within the Gaza Strip, part of the Palestinian Territories...
, Ashkelon

Ashkelon

Ashkelon or Ashqelon is a coastal city in the South District of Israel. The ancient seaport of Ashkelon dates back to the Bronze Age. In the course of its history, it has been ruled by the Canaanites, the Philistines, the Babylonians, the Phoenicians, the Ancient Romes, the Muslims and the Crusaders....
or Caesarea Maritima. With him, Herodias had a daughter (born circa 14), whom she named Salome

Salome

Salome or Salom? the Daughter of Herodias , is known from the New Testament in connection with the death of John the Baptist. Another source from Antiquity, Flavius Josephus' Jewish Antiquities, gives her name and some detail about her family relations....
after Herodias's maternal grandmother

Salome I

Salome I was the sister of Herod the Great and the mother of Berenice by her husband Costobarus, governor of Idumea.Berenice's children were Herodias, Agrippa I, king of Judea, Herod of Chalcis and Aristobulus V, and Mariamne III ....
.

Herod Antipas

However, around 23, she divorced her husband and married another uncle, Herod Antipas

Herod Antipas

Herod Antipas After inheriting his territories when the kingdom of his father Herod the Great was divided upon his death in 4 BC, Antipas ruled them as a client state of the Roman Empire....
, tetrarch of Galilee

Galilee

Galilee , is a large region in northern Israel which overlaps with much of the administrative North District of the country. Traditionally divided into Upper Galilee , Lower Galilee , and Western Galilee , extending from Dan to the north, at the base of Mount Hermon, along Mount Lebanon to the ridges of Mount Carmel and Mount Gilboa t...
and Peraea. Although Herod Antipas and Herodias may really have loved each other, political considerations were probably of more importance to them in this marriage - Herodias' Hasmonean descent was a very good asset for Antipas' ambitions to the royal crown and gave a sort of legitimacy to his claim; for Herodias, her marriage with Antipas improved her social status very significantly and she was close to being a queen, a position she might have dreamed of since her betrothal to her first husband, the former sole legatee of Herod the Great. However this union was not well received by Antipas' subjects and offended the religious sensibilities of many Jews. Indeed, Antipas' and Herodias' union was considered a violation of Jewish Law of marriage and was openly criticized by John the Baptist

John the Baptist

John the Baptist was a mission preacher and a major religious figure who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River in expectation of a divine apocalypse that would restore occupied Israel....
. This may have enraged the Hellenistically educated Herodian couple, who probably wanted to pose before the population as observant Jews. In the Jewish law of the time, the sin of the marriage was not that Herod Antipas was her uncle (marriage to an uncle was only later outlawed), but rather she was his living brother's ex-wife.

In 37, Herodias' brother Herod Agrippa was made king over the territories of Batanaea

Batanaea

File:Iturea-Trachonitis.PNGBatanaea or Batanea was an area of the Holy Land , north-east of the Jordan River, to the east of Trachonitis....
and Trachonitis

Trachonitis

File:Iturea-Trachonitis.PNGTrachonitis was a region that once formed part of Herod Philip tetrarchy. It now lies within the boundaries of modern Syria....
and the tetrarchy of the late Lysanias

Lysanias

Lysanias was the ruler of a small realm on the western slopes of Mount Hermon, attested to by the Jewish writer Josephus and in coins from circa 40 BC....
. This roused Herodias' jealousy and she prodded Antipas to sail for Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city, with 2,724,347 residents in an urban area of some ....
and ask the title of king from the emperor Gaius Caligula

Caligula

Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus , more commonly known by his nickname Caligula , was the third Roman Emperor, reigning from 16 March 37 until his assassination on 24 January 41....
. They embarked for Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia....
in late 39. However, they were outsmarted by Agrippa, who had sent letters to Caligula denouncing Antipas' alliance with Parthia

Parthia

Parthia is a region of north-eastern Iran, best known for having been the political and cultural base of the Arsacid dynasty, after which the Arsacid Empire is then also known as the 'Parthian Empire'....
and other of his misdeeds. When Caligula deposed Antipas and sentenced him to exile in what is now Lyon

Lyon

||-||}Lyon, also known as Lyons in English, is a city in east-central France. Its name is pronounced in French language and Franco-Proven?al language, and or in English language....
(Gaul

Gaul

Gaul is the name used for the region of Western Europe comprising part of present day northern Italy, France, Belgium, western Switzerland and the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the west bank of the River Rhine....
), 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.

In the Gospels

In the Gospels of Mark

Gospel of Mark

The Gospel of Mark is the second of the four canonical gospels in the New Testament and was probably the first of the three synoptic gospels to be written....
and Matthew

Gospel of Matthew

The Gospel of Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels in the New Testament and is a synoptic gospel. It narrates an account of the New Testament view on Jesus' life and Ministry of Jesus of Jesus of Nazareth....
, Herodias plays a major role in John the Baptist

John the Baptist

John the Baptist was a mission preacher and a major religious figure who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River in expectation of a divine apocalypse that would restore occupied Israel....
's execution, using her daughter's dance before Antipas and his party guests to ask for the head of the Baptist as a reward. Antipas did not want to put John the Baptist to death, for Antipas liked to listen to John the Baptist preach (Mark 6:20). Furthermore, Antipas may have feared that if he put John the Baptist to death, his followers would riot.

Modern scholarship

At least one biblical scholar has doubted that the Gospels give historically accurate accounts of John the Baptist's execution. According to the ancient historian Josephus

Josephus

Josephus , also known as Yosef Ben Matityahu and, after he became a Roman citizenship, as Titus Flavius Josephus, was a first-century Jewish historian and apologist of priestly and royal ancestry who survived and recorded the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70....
, John the Baptist was put to death by Antipas for political reasons, for Antipas feared the prophet's seditious influence. Some exegetes believe that Antipas' and Herodias' struggle with John the Baptist as told in the Gospels was some kind of a remembrance of the political and religious fight opposing the Israeli monarchs Achab and Jezebel

Jezebel (Bible)

Jezebel is the name of two women in the Bible....
to the prophet Elijah.

In medieval literature

In medieval

Middle Ages

File:Karl 1 mit papst gelasius gregor1 sacramentar v karl d kahlen.jpgThe Middle Ages of European history are a period in history which lasted for roughly a millennium, commonly dated from the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century to the beginning of the Early Modern Period in the 16th century, marked by the division of Western Christi...
Europe

Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
a widespread belief held Herodias to be the supernatural leader of a supposed cult of witches, synonymous with Diana

Diana (mythology)

In Roman mythology, Diana was the goddess of the hunting, being associated with wild animals and woodland, and also of the moon. In literature she was the Greek deities and their Roman and Etruscan counterparts of the Greek mythology Artemis, though in Cult she was Italy, not Greek, in origin....
, Holda

Holda

In German folklore as established by Jacob Grimm, Frau Holda or Holle is the supernatural matron of Spinning , childbirth and domestic animals, and is also associated with winter, witchcraft and the Wild Hunt....
and Abundia. See Cult of Herodias

Cult of Herodias

A Cult of Herodias is mentioned in some medieval sources.The 10th century a fragment of text called the Canon Episcopi made mention of it as a perversion of the mind originated by Satan, and consider the fable of the flying women accompanied by Diana to be a fantasy experienced while dreaming....
.

Herodias in fiction

Hérodiade
Hérodiade

H?rodiade is an opera in four acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann, based on the novella H?rodias by Gustave Flaubert....
, opera by Jules Massenet
Jules Massenet

Jules Massenet was a France composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era....
.
Hérodias, story by Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert

Gustave Flaubert was a France writer who is counted among the greatest Western literature. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary , and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and style....
, one of the Three Tales (Trois contes), published in 1877.
Salomé
Salome

Salome or Salom? the Daughter of Herodias , is known from the New Testament in connection with the death of John the Baptist. Another source from Antiquity, Flavius Josephus' Jewish Antiquities, gives her name and some detail about her family relations....
, play by Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish people playwright, Irish poetry and author of numerous short stories and one novel. Known for his biting wit, he became one of the most successful playwrights of the late Victorian era in London, and one of the greatest Celebrity of his day....
, French (1894), translated into English by Lord Alfred Douglas
Lord Alfred Douglas

Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas was an England author, poet and translator, better known as the intimate friend and lover of the writer Oscar Wilde. Much of his early poetry was Uranian in theme, though he tended, later in life, to distance himself from both Wilde's influence and his own role as a Uranian poetry....
, 1895.
Salome
Salome

Salome or Salom? the Daughter of Herodias , is known from the New Testament in connection with the death of John the Baptist. Another source from Antiquity, Flavius Josephus' Jewish Antiquities, gives her name and some detail about her family relations....
, opera by Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss

Richard Georg Strauss was a German composer of the late Romantic music and early modern eras, particularly of operas, Lieder and tone poems. Strauss was also a prominent Conducting....
, based on a German translation (by Hedwig Lachmann, grandmother of Mike Nichols
Mike Nichols

Mike Nichols is an United States television, stage and film director, writer, and producer. Nichols is one of the few people to have won List of persons who have won Academy, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Awards: an Oscar, Grammy, Emmy and Tony Award....
) of the play by Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish people playwright, Irish poetry and author of numerous short stories and one novel. Known for his biting wit, he became one of the most successful playwrights of the late Victorian era in London, and one of the greatest Celebrity of his day....
.
Herodias is the name of an outcast devil
Devil (Dungeons & Dragons)

In the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game, devils are a powerful group of monsters used as a high-level challenge for players of the game. Devils are Lawful Evil in alignment and originate from the Baator....
in the Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons

Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by TSR, Inc....
roleplaying game.

Herodias

Relationships

Marriages

Herod II

Herod Antipas

In the Gospels

Modern scholarship

In medieval literature

Further reading

Herodias in fiction