The primary source for this biography is the ancient historian Josephus, born some forty years after Herod’s death. Josephus sometimes cast Herod as a greedy tyrant reaping what he sowed, or as a king over the Jews rather than of the Jews. His histories recorded Herod’s faults, but didn’t explore their causes. Martin Goodman argues that the modern biographer needs to ask why Herod blundered and became so unhinged. Was it his traumatic upbringing? Goodman wants to give us Herod from Herod’s point of view — a tall order, to be sure.
Herod did have one contemporary who wrote about him: Nicolaus of Damascus. Josephus doubted his objectivity; but then again, Herod probably didn’t appreciate unvarnished truth-telling, given the number of family and friends he had murdered. In any event, Nicolaus’s thoughts on Herod have survived only through Josephus’s accounts, so everything we know about Herod is next-generation hearsay. The “modern biographer” can be forgiven for not finding any window into Herod’s soul.
Goodman takes an indirect approach instead, highlighting key moments of Herod’s life that might have been formative: his father receiving Roman citizenship, Cleopatra begging him to “stay awhile” instead of rushing to Rome, and of course the many scheming wives he kept in-house, all with various kingship designs for their sons. The milestones Goodman discusses may not have been definitive, but they give readers context, a taste of Herod’s world. We realize that Herod was relatively young and inexperienced when Rome crowned him king of the Jews; he looked to Rome for approval the rest of his days. We understand that Herod lived his whole life in a maelstrom of intense political intrigue, in which backstabbing, shifting alliances, and the occasional poisoning were all normal.
Goodman offers clues about Herod’s Jewishness, reminding us that having multiple identities, like being Roman and Jewish, was typical in the ancient world. When Emperor Augustus quips that he’d rather be Herod’s pig than Herod’s son, we know he’s joking about Herod’s habit of killing off his sons — but he’s also alluding to the fact that Herod was known for not eating pork. Most Jews would have praised his magnificent temple renovations, were it not for the gold eagle honoring Augustus that Herod just couldn’t resist adding.
In the end, we don’t really know how Jewish Herod felt, or how he felt about other Jews. We don’t know why he murdered the one wife he really seemed to adore and merely banished the others. Nor do we know what it was like for him, killing so many of his sons. Herod as a man may still be elusive, but readers come away from Goodman’s scholarship with some perspective about the difficulties of operating a Jewish state in a Roman empire.
Bettina Berch, author of the recent biography, From Hester Street to Hollywood: The Life and Work of Anzia Yezierska, teaches part-time at the Borough of Manhattan Community College.
