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00:00Herod is one of history's most notorious monsters, known as the man who tried to kill the baby Jesus in the slaughter of the innocents.
00:12A ruthless tyrant who makes a career out of executing his rivals for the throne, his wife, his sons, his mother-in-law, and many more.
00:22But behind the monster is a man who keeps Rome at bay, a Middle Eastern strongman who imposes his will on the desert sands of Judea, not just with a vortex of terror, but with magnificent buildings.
00:36A bad guy who creates one of the greatest monuments ever built, the Temple in Jerusalem.
00:43This is the story of the secrets of Herod's reign.
00:52Judea, in the decades before the birth of Christ, is a land of war and tribes.
01:04Herod is born into a murderous region. Weakness means death.
01:10Between civil wars within and the Roman Empire without, he must walk a precarious line.
01:17Herod is a battle-seasoned soldier and perfect marksman when he enters his capital, Jerusalem, as newly crowned king of Judea.
01:27His first task? Eliminate his enemies.
01:31For they are anti-Rome.
01:36True power in his religious state rests with a council of 71 priests.
01:45He orders his soldiers to kill 45 of them.
01:51The Jewish people knew that they now had a ruler who meant business. Nothing was going to stand in his way. Don't mess with Herod.
02:03And yet, he's a man of visions so daring, he builds entire cities, fortresses, magnificent monuments.
02:17No one else has made such an impact on the Holy Land as we see it today.
02:24But one of his finest achievements, the sacred Temple of the Jews, each of its walls nearly 1,000 feet long and more, is a place he can never enter.
02:34For Herod, king of the Jews, is only half Jewish. Which means he can't be a priest. And only priests can enter the temple precinct.
02:44The slander against him was that he was not fully Jewish. This haunted him throughout his career.
02:51The secrets of Herod's reign begin in Judea, where Herod grew up. A world where the Hasmoneans are the true royal family.
03:01His ancestors are from a tribe to the south. The Idumeans. Pagans. Arabs.
03:08Skilled builders surviving in this arid desert by digging underground.
03:14You can wander from room to room, cave connecting to another cave. Literally an underground city of monumental proportions.
03:23The Idumeans are a conquered people. The Jews invaded their land several generations before and forced Herod's ancestors to convert to Judaism.
03:33The Judean royal family, the Hasmoneans, think they are born to rule. They are 100% Jewish.
03:45They'll never let Herod forget he's not one of them. What's more, he's a collaborator with the hated superpower Rome.
03:54Herod's father is a Roman citizen, friend of Julius Caesar.
04:01There's no doubt that Herod, at the earliest age that he could begin to comprehend what was going on in the world,
04:06recognized that as the real power were the Romans. And this was the power that he would have to carry favor with.
04:13Rome is the world's most powerful nation. Judea lies at the eastern edge of its empire.
04:20A critical trading hub and a buffer against Rome's greatest rival in the east, the Parthian Empire.
04:26Olive oil, dates, wine, all passed through Judea. Judea remains an independent kingdom, but only because Rome allows it to be so.
04:38What Rome wants is a stable frontier. Judea is full of warring peoples.
04:46With endless civil wars, Herod seizes his chance. He's brutally single-minded.
04:52Herod was a very ambitious young man, completely fascinated by wealth and power and absolutely determined to achieve the highest position he could.
05:05By the age of 25, Herod is governor of Galilee. By 30, he's charmed his way into the Hasmonean royal family.
05:16Herod found himself in a world that he was perfectly suited for. This highly driven, highly skilled outsider who saw that the world of the changing Roman Republic and the changing world of the Hasmonean dynasty meant that there was a place for him.
05:33But Rome's great enemy, the Parthenians, impede Herod's effortless rise to power.
05:42In 40 BC, Parthian armies invade from the east. Full-scale civil war erupts.
05:49Herod flees with his family to the desert rock of Masada, a fortress south of Jerusalem.
05:55Here, they may seem protected by cliffs that plunge 1,400 feet down to the Dead Sea. But Herod knows he'll never win if the Parthians attack.
06:05Herod realized that if he stayed there, he was finished. He had to recoup the situation. And he had to do that by bringing a superior power down on his side.
06:18Herod makes a dangerous winter voyage across the Mediterranean to the heart of the Empire. With him, he takes his passport to power.
06:28A 16-year-old boy. His name is Aristobulus, heir to the Hasmonean throne.
06:35Herod has a simple plan. Ask the Romans to install the boy as king. Then he can be the power behind the throne.
06:45The plan depends on one man. The kingmaker who holds the key to Judea. The legendary Roman general, Mark Antony.
06:57Mark Antony was just a boy when he first met Herod's father. Mark Antony knows he's dealing with a family that understands Rome.
07:07Herod turns on the charm. Antony and Herod see eye to eye. Judea is a thorn in Rome's side. Unrest in this unruly province must be quashed.
07:21Mark Antony has no time for Herod's plan. He wants Herod, not Aristobulus, to be king. And right away, Judea needs a new kind of ruler.
07:31A cold-blooded, ruthless politician. A strong man who can force his will on warring peoples.
07:39Rome was built on the pursuit of power. And that is what Mark Antony recognized in Herod.
07:50Someone who also was driven in the pursuit of power exactly like himself.
07:57Herod left home a defeated man. He returns to Judea a king. King of the Jews. He's 36.
08:07With two of Rome's fabled legions, he returns to Galilee and starts to fight his way south to Jerusalem.
08:14It takes two long years to win Judea back. Now that he has Rome's total backing, he must turn his title into real power and hang on to it.
08:27Herod's reign of terror is underway. First, Judea's supreme court succumbs. Then the old Hasmonean king. And to truly solidify his power, the ultimate fortress bearing his name.
08:45Herod, king of the Jews, anointed by Rome.
08:53His Roman patron, Mark Antony, has pushed aside the heir to the throne of Judea.
09:03When Herod returns from Rome, his first task is to solidify his power base by removing any opposition to his rule. And he does this with extreme brutality.
09:13Herod's first victims, the Sanhedrin, Judea's supreme court. Seventy-one legal and religious leaders revered as sages.
09:27They meet daily and are the final authority on Jewish law. They will be a challenge to Herod's power.
09:35Herod wipes out 45 of them. A huge blow to the Jewish leadership.
09:41He himself could not become a priest and therefore could not become a part of that power base.
09:47If he couldn't become a part of it, he had to eliminate it.
09:52Next, Herod has the old Hasmonean king strangled. One less royal competitor.
10:00Yet his grip on power isn't yet absolute. He has the rest of the royal family to contend with.
10:08He knows brutality isn't the only way. There's a tactic as old as there have been dynasties.
10:16Marriage.
10:20He takes the beautiful princess Miriam as his bride.
10:28By marrying into the old dynasty, Herod hopes to gain legitimacy in the eyes of his subjects.
10:34But he's inviting the enemy into his house. He has to contend with his mother-in-law, Alexandra.
10:41And the heir to the throne, the Romans pushed aside, Miriam's brother, Aristobulus.
10:47Yet, the Hasmoneans will also profit from this union.
10:51Herod is Rome's man in Judea.
10:54It was a political match par excellence.
10:57The Hasmonean probably thought that they would have some kind of an insurance policy which would make their positions secure.
11:07But Herod's plans for Judea transcend politics.
11:13He'll impose his reign on Judea for all to see.
11:17With a vision so grandiose, his people will be awestruck.
11:21This vision took root when he was a boy. He's seen how man can play God with nature.
11:31To survive, deep beneath the hillside in Idumea, his ancestors dug networks of caverns, passages and reservoirs.
11:39And there's no doubt that Herod being in such a place certainly left an impression on him seeing what people could do with nature.
11:46And that's certainly one of the most important features of everything that Herod builds.
11:50He never lets nature stand in his way. His imagination seems to be the limit.
11:56But Herod's dreams aren't underground.
12:01They reach for the skies.
12:04A statement of power, of daring, of vision.
12:09He wants to replicate the splendor of imperial Rome with palaces, temples, amphitheaters.
12:19And his desire to control nature will prove so strong he'll literally move mountains.
12:25Herod creates a palace like no other. A fortress to keep watch over his unruly subjects.
12:32And a tomb for his remains, set on top of a mountain.
12:37The scale here is monumental. The mountain itself behind us is an artificial mountain.
12:46It was artificially created by Herod. And it's huge.
12:51It's about 64 meters in diameter. A meter is about a yard.
12:55So that's an enormous mountain to make from scratch, to build out of nothing.
13:01Thousands of slaves move thousands of tons of earth to build his monument.
13:07Constructed eight miles to the south of Jerusalem, he names it Herodium.
13:15At its centerpiece, Herod builds a fortress to all his enemies and a palace to all his subjects.
13:24From the very top, Herod has a spectacular view of the Judean hills and can easily communicate by signal mirror or fire with the city of Jerusalem.
13:34Nobody had ever built anything like this before. Something like this would have been absolutely overwhelming.
13:40It would have been almost as if it was from another planet.
13:432,000 years ago, this was an oasis with huge artificial gardens surrounded by a thriving metropolis.
13:52Slaves carved 200 stone steps into the hillside. An aqueduct brought water from a spring near Bethlehem, three miles away.
14:01And slaves carried the water up the 200 steps from the cisterns below the citadel.
14:08Herod used architecture not just to glorify himself, but also to intimidate his enemies, to show how immensely strong, solid and permanent he was.
14:19From here, he can look out over his kingdom. But while he's dreaming magnificent dreams of leaving a permanent legacy to Judea, he must watch his back.
14:30His power is being eroded by the very family he's married into. His mother-in-law Alexandra wants her family to rule, not Herod.
14:41The next chapter in this deadly duel will now be decided in Jericho. And these pools will be center stage.
14:48There is no doubt in my mind that the Hasmoneans would have disliked Herod intensely and that if they could have got rid of him and regained power for themselves, they would have done so.
15:05Miriam plays the dutiful wife while her mother Alexandra schemes.
15:16Herod must decipher friend from foe. His rival is a charismatic young prince.
15:24Miriam's brother may have lost out as king, but in this deeply religious kingdom, another role rivals the throne, high priest.
15:41Miriam sees her chance. She hates Herod as much as Herod is in love with her.
15:48She'll call on the help of a man Herod is utterly indebted to, Mark Antony.
15:54She sends him portraits of herself and Aristopoulos. Her brother is very handsome.
16:00She's sure Mark Antony will succumb to his charm.
16:05Herod's terrified.
16:12Mark Antony does indeed succumb and Alexandra gets her way.
16:17Herod realizes he's been outmaneuvered by the legitimate heir to the throne.
16:25Never mind high priest.
16:27Might Aristopoulos now make a play for Herod's crown?
16:31Herod always harbors a suspicion that the Romans might in the end prefer a Hasmonean to him because of the traditional legitimacy of the Hasmoneans.
16:40Herod realizes there will be riots if he banishes Aristopoulos.
16:46So he appoints him high priest.
16:50Pilgrims flock to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Tabernacles.
16:56Aristopoulos appears before the crowds dressed in rich and glittering robes.
17:02There was an outpouring of love and support for Aristopoulos.
17:08Herod must have been terrified by what he saw.
17:12He must have felt that this groundswell of support, this uninhibited show of public affection to Aristopoulos, would undermine his own rule and authority as king.
17:24He must have begun thinking, what can I do to get rid of him?
17:30While the Hasmoneans celebrate, Herod plots his counterattack.
17:36He can brook no rival.
17:40Herod will wreak his murderous revenge on the royal family.
17:44In a desperate attempt to cling to his power, Herod attacks his rivals, swears allegiance to a new master, and builds a majestic desert oasis.
17:56Secrets of Herod's reign.
17:58Herod is facing a huge threat.
18:02A more legitimate rival to his throne.
18:08The 17-year-old high priest, his brother-in-law, Aristopoulos.
18:14To the Jewish people, he is a rallying cry.
18:18Herod was almost psychotic when it came to the Hasmoneans.
18:23He always felt threatened by them.
18:25And he realized that in a popular conception, the only legitimate kings were Hasmoneans.
18:31The Hasmoneans believe they have a divine right to rule.
18:36They see power within their grasp.
18:38Yet the family celebrations are premature.
18:41Herod invites Aristopoulos to his winter palace in Jericho.
18:47Whispers words of charm.
18:52Plies him with drink.
18:57Encourages him into the water to cool off.
19:02Then has him drowned.
19:08It's made to look like a tragic accident.
19:14First the removal of the Jewish Supreme Court.
19:19Then the old Hasmonean king.
19:22And now his brother-in-law.
19:25Herod is a monster who will do anything to cling to power.
19:30Herod's rise to power is the classic method of all dictators.
19:35You marry the boss's daughter, and if you think someone might be a rival, even if you're not certain, you still get rid of them.
19:41You are absolutely ruthless.
19:43You are absolutely ruthless.
19:4431 BC.
19:47Though Herod has eliminated this latest threat, another looms hundreds of miles away.
19:53Rome is being torn apart by its own civil war.
19:58The ruler in the East, Mark Antony, Herod's patron, is locked in a power struggle to gain complete control of the Empire, East and West.
20:13Herod's fate is tied to Mark Antony's.
20:16When Herod learns Mark Antony has been defeated by Octavian at the Battle of Actium, he realizes he's backed a loser.
20:26Octavian, Rome's new emperor, summons Herod.
20:29Herod must answer for his devotion to the defeated Antony.
20:34Herod's a pathologically jealous man with a very beautiful wife.
20:39Before he leaves, he gives a friend some instructions.
20:47He went, realizing that he probably had no choice.
20:51He didn't know whether he was going to be put to death or suffer some other penalty like exile to some godforsaken place.
21:02Herod removes his crown as a sign of deference and takes a big gamble.
21:09He just tells the truth.
21:15Herod admits his past loyalty to Mark Antony, but shows no sign of remorse.
21:24Herod took a very unusual and bold strategy.
21:28Instead of throwing himself at Octavian's feet, saying, I was wrong, I made a mistake,
21:34he took a different rhetorical strategy.
21:36And what he was saying to Octavian was essentially, I support Rome.
21:40Whoever Rome has set up here as a ruler, I'm behind him.
21:46Like his father before him, Herod knows he's nothing without Rome.
21:50Ever the wily operator, he swears allegiance to his new master, the Emperor Octavian.
22:06Herod's political instincts save his life.
22:08Not only does he come back with his head on his shoulders, but he comes back reconfirmed as king of the Jewish people.
22:16His authority secure, Herod tightens his grip on his kingdom.
22:21His secret police spread out across the country.
22:24At night, Herod goes out in disguise to find out what people think of him.
22:31He creates a terrifying climate of fear with his national security state.
22:36Dissidents just disappear inside his prisons and fortresses.
22:40For the last few years, he's been building the gigantic fortress at Masada.
22:50Although it's in the middle of the Judean desert, he wants a palace there too.
22:56An oasis.
22:57You're in the middle of the desert.
23:03You're on a rock that's hundreds of meters up and you discover a swimming pool.
23:08You discover a bath.
23:09You discover a kind of opulent use of water, which is contrary to everything that you expect.
23:17Tens of thousands of slaves and Jewish forced laborers turn his dream into reality.
23:23What's more, to the side of the cliff clings a spectacular three-tier hanging palace.
23:34Of all the various fortresses that had been built, this was clearly the most impregnable, the most dominating, the one that had the most natural advantages.
23:46And yet Herod still feels the need to top this 1400-foot cliff face with a defensive wall one mile long.
23:57Here, he can furtively scan the lands of Judea and imagine threats, betrayals, rebellious subjects, treacherous relatives.
24:06He may be safe here from the outside world, but his inner demons never leave him.
24:14Herod's murderous spree continues.
24:17Herod started doing things that had no real rhyme or reason and that were simply the product of a mind that was no longer in full control of itself.
24:26We now return to secrets of Herod's reign.
24:32Herod returns from pledging his allegiance to Rome's new emperor, Octavian.
24:38But he has some unfinished business.
24:41The instruction to his friend that if he fails to return, his wife Miriam should be killed.
24:48So jealous is he of her, still so passionately and helplessly in love with her, if he can't have her, neither can another man.
24:57But he returns.
25:01And Miriam discovers his instructions.
25:04Herod's sister Salome now enters the fray.
25:18For a year, she spins a web of deceit, whispers insinuations in his ear.
25:33His mother-in-law is plotting against him.
25:38His wife is brewing love potions, poisons.
25:41The friend charged with guarding his wife has betrayed him.
25:53Miriam speaks the unspeakable.
25:56She calls Herod.
25:58Half Jew.
25:59Half Jew.
26:03It would have been very, very insulting.
26:06And because Herod very well knew he hadn't come out of an aristocratic family, the insult would have been even greater.
26:19Herod unleashes his murderous temper and has his friend executed.
26:24Then he turns his fury on Miriam, convinced she's guilty of adultery.
26:36In his rage, he has her executed too.
26:40She's not yet 25.
26:44What pushed him over the edge was the fact that she was Asmonean.
26:48He loved her and he was afraid of her at the same time.
26:50The murder of Miriam was different from all of Herod's acts of violence.
26:57This is again also part of Herod's passion.
27:00He often reacted with violence and then in the end regretted.
27:05Herod refuses to believe his wife is dead.
27:09He speaks to her as if she's still alive.
27:11Miriam's fate in death has passed into legend.
27:17According to the Talmud, the Jewish scriptures written 500 years after Herod, he kept Miriam's body preserved for seven years in honey.
27:26Now Herod turns his suspicions on his mother-in-law. He executes her too.
27:40Herod started doing things that had no real rhyme or reason and that were simply the product of a mind that was no longer in full control of itself.
27:48In the dark night of his reign of terror, he also executes his sister's husband.
27:55Then ten assassins.
27:58He demands a loyalty oath.
28:00He sees treachery everywhere.
28:03And yet he pulls himself and his country together.
28:07Ever mindful of who his masters are, Herod determines to send his emperor in Rome, Octavian, an unmistakable sign of his allegiance.
28:17On the desolate and windy coast of the Mediterranean, he builds a colossal tribute in marble, concrete and stone.
28:26This is the city of Caesarea, a salute to the emperor himself.
28:31The more Herod can create a kingdom which mirrors the Roman Empire, the more he will create an impression in Rome that this is a loyal state.
28:40He's a loyal king. You have nothing to fear from me. I want to be like you.
28:44Herod starts to build a city in the image of Rome.
28:48A pagan city. An un-Jewish city.
28:52And at its heart, one of the largest harbors in the Mediterranean.
28:55It would have been the first thing that mariners from the west saw when they arrived.
29:03This would have given them an initial impression of Judea as a prosperous, Romanized, civilized place.
29:13Not some backward province on the edge of the world.
29:16Herod builds a temple dedicated to his master Octavian, but he doesn't stop there.
29:25Herod embraces all the trappings of a western civilization.
29:31Caesarea was designed and intended as the Roman non-Jewish capital in which any Jewish visitors would have felt that they were in a foreign country.
29:50Herod builds an amphitheater where gladiators fight to the death.
29:56Blood sports are decidedly un-Jewish.
30:00Herod designs his city to entertain in truly Roman fashion.
30:06His giant stadium houses the greatest spectacle of all.
30:10Chariot racing.
30:12Over here, this would be where Herod sat.
30:15On top of a large podium.
30:16And the reason why his box was placed here was chariot racing was a very aggressive sport.
30:26The Hippodrome is host to the Grand Prix of its day.
30:31The horses would race around this very elongated arena.
30:35When they came to the corners, which by the way were painted red,
30:38because the Romans believed that red scared the horses.
30:41One of the main points of having a chariot race was not just the race, but the crash.
30:51You'd often have chariots overturning, riders trampled, horses and riders smashing into the wall.
30:57That was all part of the spectacle.
30:59And of course, Herod, sitting over here, would have the best seats in the house.
31:02Everyone's attention should be focused on this corner.
31:05So he would be here watching everything and being watched by everyone.
31:15With the building of Caesarea, Herod gives his people a city to match the superpower Rome.
31:20His city, his port are a magnet for trade.
31:25Judea is now a major player in the Roman world.
31:29Herod has built a huge new city from scratch within ten years.
31:34A daring and grandiose scheme, yet it's also the product of a deranged mind.
31:39Beneath the madness, the monstrous behavior, the murders, the spies, lurks the twisted sanity of a Middle Eastern strongman, desperate to cling to power, but also to hold his nation together.
31:55Herod was the ultimate pragmatist.
31:59He had to merge the two absolutely opposed worlds and get them to work alongside one another without conflict.
32:09Judea is a Jewish state, yet Herod feels he'll never be accepted by the Jews.
32:16He'll make one final throw of the dice.
32:19Sensing time is running out, Herod turns to his capital Jerusalem.
32:26Here, he vows to build the greatest monument ever in the name of the Jewish God.
32:32The most magnificent temple in antiquity.
32:36But will it be enough to make the Jews love him and to save his crown?
32:40Paranoid, homicidal, irrational, Herod turns his attention to his sons.
32:51Then to the infant Jesus.
32:54The infamous massacre of the innocents.
32:57But did it really happen?
32:59Find out...
33:01Herod now plans the most ambitious and daring building he's ever attempted.
33:06Jerusalem is the heart of the Jewish faith.
33:12The polar opposite of the Roman pagan world.
33:16Of Caesarea with its theaters, amphitheaters, chariot racing, gladiators.
33:25He'll restore his reputation with a wondrous temple for the Jews.
33:30For the Jewish people, the temple was the center of the whole of their religion.
33:43It was the most sacred place on the face of the earth.
33:46The biblical king Solomon built the first great Jewish temple.
33:52Destroyed in 586 BC by Nebuchadnezzar, it was replaced by a pale imitation.
33:59With his temple, Herod can prove himself the heir to Solomon and the true king of the Jews.
34:07The challenge is monumental.
34:09Herod changes the fabric of the landscape.
34:15He slices off the top of a mountain to create a blank canvas.
34:20Here, he'll erect a platform the size of 24 football fields.
34:28The soft white stone that will be used is the stone used for Solomon's temple.
34:35Taken from Solomon's quarries a few hundred yards to the north,
34:42cut and shape before it reaches the temple mount,
34:45so the sacred site won't be disturbed by the noise.
34:52It's still possible to see where Herod's men cut the mount away.
34:55Ten thousand men surround the platform with giant walls, each measuring nearly one thousand feet long and more.
35:06The Talmud says that when the temple was built, it only rained at night, so that the men could work uninterrupted during the day.
35:16The scale of Herod's ambition can be seen in one of the giant foundation stones.
35:26More than forty feet long, eleven feet high, and fourteen feet wide.
35:31It weighs six hundred tons.
35:34Some of the walls still exist.
35:47Orthodox Jews still pray by the western wall of Herod's creation, the Wailing Wall.
35:52And at the center of the complex, Herod builds its crowning glory.
36:00The inner temple.
36:03It's a declaration to his masters in Rome and to the Jewish people of Herod's greatness.
36:11Since Laman can't enter the inner precinct, one thousand priests were trained to be stonemasons and carpenters.
36:20Visitors of the time describe a wondrous holy building, sheathed in white marble that gleams in the morning sun like a snowy mountain.
36:28Herod wants to overlay it with gold, but the rabbis tell him, leave it alone, for it's more beautiful as it is.
36:39It looks like waves on the sea.
36:43But access to the inner temple is the sole privilege of priests.
36:48The builder of the greatest temple in antiquity cannot set foot inside it.
36:53So, Herod builds a viewing platform.
36:58What Herod does is to trump the notion of him not being allowed in the temple.
37:03Okay, you can have your temple, but here's my basilica.
37:07I'm looking down on you.
37:09I'm king of the Jews.
37:11Herod's platform is now the site of the Muslim mosque, now known as the Dome of the Rock.
37:17And this fragment still remains.
37:19Herod has completed the greatest temple in antiquity in honor of the Jewish God.
37:26His life has been one long quest to overcome his unroyal origins and to gain acceptance.
37:33Herod's temple is meant to be a glorious epitaph.
37:36Herod is 63 when the temple is dedicated in 10 BC.
37:42But his demons never leave him.
37:45He's ruled for nearly 30 years.
37:47Time to make plans for his succession.
37:51He's made will after will.
37:53No one knows how many children he had.
37:55Maybe 12, maybe more.
37:57His poisonous sister Salome strikes again.
38:00One of the great fears of dictators is who is getting together?
38:05Who is talking in secret?
38:07What sort of possible plot is being hatched against me?
38:10She convinces him his two sons by Miriam are plotting his murder.
38:17Seeking revenge for the death of their mother.
38:20Herod has them strangled and extinguishes the last of the male line of the Hasmonean kings.
38:32But can there be a physical explanation for Herod's homicidal rage?
38:38His irrational behavior is paranoia.
38:40We now know very well that physical illnesses and mental illnesses go together.
38:47It must have been creeping on and creeping on and creeping on.
38:52By 4 BC in Jerusalem, there are the stirrings of revolt, street demonstrations.
39:01Herod has built the greatest temple ever to the Jewish God and yet still he offends his Jewish subjects.
39:07They say that he still remembers his masters in Rome.
39:12He's adorned the temple doors with the symbol of Rome, a golden eagle, pagan.
39:18This is sacrilege.
39:20Herod had to have known that putting an eagle on the temple gates would have provoked immediate and deep resentment and opposition.
39:29Rumors are now circulating that Herod's dying.
39:32Students tear down this symbol of Roman oppression and hack it to pieces with axes.
39:41A raging Herod rises from his sick bed to confront the leaders of the uprising.
39:48In his mind, he's done more for the Jews than any other king since Solomon.
39:53He berates them for being ungrateful.
39:56He reminds them that the Hasmoneans had 125 years to honor God.
40:03And they didn't.
40:05He, Herod, did with a magnificent temple.
40:08As always, retribution is swift.
40:17The perpetrators are led away.
40:19And the ringleaders are burned alive.
40:23Herod's end is near.
40:25According to the Gospel of St. Matthew, it's around this time that Herod ordered his most notorious atrocity.
40:33His attempt to kill the infant Jesus, a challenger to his title, King of the Jews.
40:39Herod orders all male children two and under in the Bethlehem area to be murdered.
40:44It's known as the Massacre of the Innocents.
40:47The story of the Massacre of the Innocents only appears in Matthew's Gospel.
40:54There is not a shred of evidence from any other source, historical or archeological, that this event took place at all.
41:04So how did this story enter history?
41:07Herod was the perfect king for this story.
41:09First of all, he was a king who was capable of impulsive violence, of brutal violence, and of violence on a fairly large scale.
41:19He had proven that throughout his career.
41:22Without doubt, Herod's hands are soaked with blood.
41:26His reign has been murderous.
41:29Yet there's no evidence of this particular atrocity.
41:35Herod is now 69.
41:39His body is riddled with disease.
41:44A remarkably detailed account of the final days of Herod's illness still remains.
41:50It's written by the historian Josephus.
41:54He reveals that Herod is suffering from convulsions, acute stomach pain, severe itching, swelling of the limbs, and worst of all, his body is producing worms.
42:05I took that one.
42:08Worms were regarded as a punishment from God, and certainly this all says talk about the whole illness, the last illness of Herod being due to his wickedness and punishment for his misdeeds.
42:22Recent medical analysis of the historical evidence sheds new light on the cause of his symptoms.
42:31The main symptoms are severe persistent itching, shortness of breath, and swelling.
42:41That can be caused by heart failure and by kidney failure, and is often a combination of both.
42:48But what's the explanation for the worms?
42:53His last days were spent in the humid, hot area of Jericho, where flies would have laid eggs on his swollen and infected body, and those would have emerged as maggots.
43:08Herod is in agony. He knows his days are numbered. He also knows that at best, his passing will be greeted with indifference. In his delirium, he orders all the kingdom's prominent men to be executed on the day of his death.
43:27He sees this as a perfectly reasonable way of ensuring that he is mourned.
43:37There be no mourning on the day he dies. No one is executed.
43:44Herod leaves Judea stained with blood, but enriched with splendor.
43:51From the coastal city of Caesarea with its theaters and games, to the mountain of Herodium with its palace and pools, to the jewel in the crown, the temple of Jerusalem.
44:09For three decades, Herod walks a political tightrope between the Jews and Romans.
44:19A brutal strong man, he forces unity on warring tribes.
44:24A great visionary, he creates a thriving nation out of the desert sands, but all in vain.
44:30In 73 AD, the Jews make a famous last stand against the Romans at the fortress of Masada.
44:40By 135 AD, the Romans have destroyed Jerusalem.
44:46Herod, charmer and torturer. Monster and visionary.
44:51Yet we remember him for an atrocity for which there's no evidence.
44:58The massacre of the innocents.
45:04With his death, Herod's name becomes a byword for terror and insanity.
45:10His triumphs become secrets, overshadowed by the brutality and the horror of his reign.
45:17Of his reign.
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