Book 3, lines 871-891

[Previous: lines 829-870]

Joseph narrates. He and Mary have fled to Egypt to avoid Herod's wrath. Now read on!

“Iam verò Pelusiacas vulgata per oras
fama Palaestinum subitò serit undique regem
florentem teneris orbâsse nepotibus urbem;
quos frustra insontes passim ferro impius hausit
dulcia linquentes vagitu lumina vitae.                            [875]
Palluit, applicuitque sinu perterrita mater
infantem; atque animum sceleris perstrinxit imago.
Quos ibi tum gentis fletus, qualive per urbem
funestam credis matres errâsse ululatu!
Sanguine diluta est tellus, cava tecta natârunt.              [880]
Non, si forte olim incautis pastoribus orta
ingruerit subitò tempestas omnibus arvis,
omnibus et sylvis, tot fusi grandine dira
spectentur per humum afflictis cum matribus agni;
corpora quot passim puerorum abjecta iacebant            [885]
per fora, perque vias urbis: sic denique multis
exitio fuit, ut vates praedixerat, infans.
Nunc etiam lugent orbae sua pignora matres.
Non tamen ille diu scelere est letatus abillo:
nam, membra immundo correptus tabida morbo,            [890]
illaudatam animam parvo post tempore fudit.”

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“Now word reached Pelusium that the king
in Palestine had attacked from every side
and bereaved the town of its flourishing young;
though that impious man had drawn sword in vain
in depriving so many of life’s sweet light.                       [875]
The mother grew pale with fear and hugged tighter
her child; the crime pressed itself on her soul—
the weeping that resounded through that city,
wandering mothers’ dreadful ululation!
The empty houses swimming with spilt blood.              [880]
As when the fields and thickets are overwhelmed
by a sudden tempest, taking by surprise
shepherds, and all around lie scattered the
bodies of lambs and the distress of their ewes;
this is how numerous were the bodies of boys                [885]
cast about the streets of the town: so many
were killed, as the prophets are foreseen, for one.
Even now mothers still lament these deaths.
But the murderer would not exult long
in his crime: a hideous wasting disease                           [890]
consumed him and he died an unlamented death.”

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‘Pelusium’ (line 871) was a Roman city in the extreme north-east of Egypt, up on the coast in the Nile delta, here used as a synecdoche for the whole of Egypt.

The massacre of the innocents is on rather shaky grounds, historical-likelihood-wise. It’s not probable that Herod was even aware of the birth of a carpenter’s son in Bethlehem, let alone that he considered such a birth any kind of threat. Then again, there is no question that Herod the Great had a lot of people, including children—including his own children—killed. Macrobius (writing four centuries later, so hardly an eye-witness), recorded the Emperor Augustus’s rather grisly witticism: ‘it is better to be Herod’s pig [Gr. hys] than his son [Gr. huios]’, a reference to the fact that Herod, as a Jew, would not kill pigs, but did have three of his sons, and many other folk, murdered. Modern scholarship dates the nativity to 4BC, and offers a range, from 5BC to 1BC, for the death of Herod—of some hideous physical decay, referred to at the time, according to Josephus, as ‘Herod’s Evil’: This is a widely agreed timeline:

5BC—Antipater (Herod’s son) was brought before the court charged with the intended murder of Herod. Herod, by now seriously ill, named his son (Herod) Antipas (from his fourth marriage with Malthace) as his successor.

4 BC—Young disciples smashed the golden eagle over the main entrance of the Temple of Jerusalem after the Pharisee teachers claimed it was an idolatrous Roman symbol. Herod arrested them, brought them to court, and sentenced them. Augustus approved the death penalty for Antipater. Herod then executed his son, and again changed his will: Archelaus (from the marriage with Malthace) would rule as ethnarch over the tetrachy of Judea, while Antipas (by Malthace) and Philip (from the fifth marriage with Cleopatra of Jerusalem) would rule as tetrarchs over Galilee and Peraea.

4/3 BC; Herod dies. As Augustus did not confirm his will, no one received the title of King; however, the three sons were granted rule of the stated territories.

The two main sources for Herod's life are the Gospels—which have their own narrative axe to grind—and Josephus. This latter is interesting, actually, although if you listen carefully the sound of grinding axes are also audible here.

Josephus’ account of the career of Herod in the Antiquitates Judaicae is notable in that work for its length and narrative quality. A career of forty-three years (AJ 14.158-17.190) occupies almost twenty percent of a work that covered thousands of years of Jewish history from the Creation to AD 66. The historian apparently found a congenial topic in Herod and his career, or a very good source. Josephus' Herodian books present a moral saga of Herod's struggle to attain power in Judaea that then evolves into an artful characterization of the king's steady descent into paranoia, cruelty, and murder due to domestic intrigue.

Probably the most striking part of Herod's story is Josephus' account of the king's last days, which interweaves the gruesome nature of Herod's illness, his paranoid plotting, and dramatic turns to conclude appropriately the life of the most (in)famous character in the Antiquitates. It is also an account that presents enigmatic episodes in the last week of Herod's life that require explanation. Energetic leadership, risk-taking, and a canny ability to ally himself with the dominant Romans in the region (the assassin Cassius, Mark Antony, and Octavian, in succession) secured Herod the kingship of Judaea, which he held against the will of a significant portion of its population for more than thirty-five years.

That Herod's external success then engendered domestic discord and intrigue is the main theme of Josephus' account. Herod would end up executing his grand father-in-law, a mother-in-law, two brothers-in-law, an uncle, a wife, and three sons in the course of thirty years. Such a dramatic and sordid career called for an appropriately theatrical conclusion, and Josephus provides it. [Mark Toher, ‘Herod’s Last Days’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, 106 (2011), 209]

Not the least of this drama is the detailed Josephian description of the final illness, which Vida hurries past in a line and a half:

But Herod's illness became more and more acute, for God was inflicting just punishment upon him for his lawless deeds. The fever that he had was a light one and did not so much indicate symptoms of inflammation to the touch as it produced internal damage. He also had a terrible desire to scratch himself because of this, for it was impossible not to seek relief. There was also an ulceration of the bowels and intestinal pains that were particularly terrible, and a moist, transparent suppuration of the feet. And he suffered similarly from an abdominal ailment, as well as from a gangrene of his privy parts that produced worms. His breathing was marked by extreme tension, and it was very unpleasant because of the disagreeable exhalation of his breath and his constant gasping. He also had convulsions in every limb that took on unendurable severity. Accordingly it was said by the men of God and those whose special wisdom led them to proclaim their opinions on such matters that all this was the penalty that God was exacting of the king for his great impiety. [AJ 17:168-170]

Urgh. The Biblical story of the massacre of the innocents may recall, in a garbled way, the scheme Herod definitely did hatch on his deathbed: ‘Herod devised a nefarious plan to have the “notable Jews” (άξιολόγων, 17.174) gathered under guard in the hippodrome at Jericho, where, upon his death, they were all to be slaughtered to ensure that the country would be filled with lament rather than joy at his demise.’ This plan was not, in the event, carried out. But it has a kind of insane-evil logic to it, I suppose. Toher, though, doesn’t believe any of it.

Scholars have long been suspicious of Josephus' description of Herod's illness and death. It contains many of the characteristics of the ‘death of a tyrant’ found throughout Greco-Roman histories and biographies. Among these characteristics are unendurable pain, infestation by worms, bad breath, and skin eruptions. It was a theme that appealed to Josephus. The Bellum Judaicum closes with a description of the foul death of Catullus, the Roman governor of the Libyan Pentapolis, after he had conspired against the most reputable Jews of Alexandria and Rome through charges of sedition and had even incriminated Josephus himself (BJ 7.437-450). Although Catullus avoided punishment by Vespasian, not long afterwards he became deranged, was haunted by the ghosts of his victims, and was attacked by an incurable disease that culminated in his ulcerated bowels falling out (BJ 7.451-453).

Don't be a tyrant, kids! Not if you want to keep your ulcerated bowels from falling out your bum. A moral from the ancient world we can all get behind, I feel.

The image at the top is Herod, from a mosaic in St Mark's cathedral.

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