Killer Kings Season 1 Episode 6

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00:00ancient israel first century bce a ruthless king of judea is struggling to keep his throne

00:10he had many many enemies and they remembered him as a wicked king because of the way in which he

00:17dealt with his political opponents there are no holes barred for herod the great in his pursuit

00:23of power he's jealous and paranoid he will do whatever is necessary even if that means killing

00:33his own family most infamous of all of his acts allegedly a horrific mass infanticide to eliminate

00:42one baby jesus of nazareth people do monstrous monstrous things when power wealth status

00:52is on the line but there remains huge doubt about the historical accuracy of this claim

01:02using groundbreaking ai imagery we shall separate the myth from the truth can new evidence

01:09reassess herod's role as a child killer this whole picture of herod is simply missing from the jewish

01:16tradition rulers come and go but what legacy will the sands of time leave behind herod the great

01:26was he truly a killer king

01:40herod's rule in 37 bce

01:53since its conquest by rome in 63 bce to this day the kingdom of judea now the west bank has

02:01seen bitter disputes over who should rule the land under herod's rule in 37 bce even he has to walk a

02:11tightrope keeping his jewish subjects in check and his roman rulers happy the complication for herod's

02:19rule is that he was living through a time of huge political change within the world of the roman empire

02:26and which kept him in power as roman leaders rise and fall dozens of judeans are brutally executed

02:33under herod as he struggles to assert control over the region over the centuries his name has become

02:40a byword for terror many people think about herod strictly through the depiction that we get in matthew's

02:48gospel of this extremely paranoid tyrannical figure who would call for something as horrifically upsetting

02:58as the massacre of the innocents but when we think about herod the great the historical figure we need

03:05to be looking past that perhaps a complex man who has more than meets the eye he's also a man who

03:15really truly understood how to build a strong nation he clearly had an affinity for art architecture and

03:24design the grand buildings that he engaged with they were beautiful he knew what he was doing there

03:32so what truth can be established about herod the great great or not so great a ruthless killer or a

03:41hapless pawn in a roman territorial game so what did he do who was he

03:59the roots of what would become a range of herod's insecurities are perhaps found in his upbringing

04:04under the rule of the hasmoneans the hasmoneans are a powerful jewish dynasty

04:10that governed the kingdom of judea and its surrounding regions from around 140 bce herod was born

04:18probably in jerusalem in 73 bc his father was a courtier of the hasmonean high priest

04:28hyrcanus who ruled in jerusalem the hasmoneans were a dynastic ruling family in judea that was pretty

04:37well liked by the jewish people herod was not hasmonean his grandfather was a convert to judaism

04:46his mother is nabatean so he's arab on his mother's side a fact which left many of his future subjects

04:55skeptical was herod originally jewish at all

04:59early in his life in judea the young herod is already judged by those around him as not being a

05:08real jew my sense with herod is that he has grown up in always existed in only ever known a world of

05:18insecurity um a world of being caught between battling divisions his father antipater had come

05:28from idumea which is an area south of judea around hebron which had been converted to judaism only two

05:35generations before so although he was brought up within a jewish environment he was brought up

05:41very much as an outsider he will have sensed it and this will have made him agitated confused angry

05:50even contemporaneous accounts of herod's life cast the same aspersions there were always doubts within

05:57the jewish texts whether he should really be considered as a jew quite unreasonably really since

06:02conversion to judaism was a very standard thing by the time of herod's ancestors who'd been converted

06:10the young herod grows up battling against this injustice and it will have caused no small degree

06:17of destabilization of of his mental state as well as feeding into considerable level of anger and

06:26resentment but through his well-connected father herod has a chance to turn the tables

06:33in galilee in 47 bc when julius caesar was presiding over the roman world julius caesar gave authority to

06:45antipater herod's father to appoint his sons governor herod to galilee and herod's brother phasael to jerusalem

06:55in his twenties and now governor of galilee herod is already showing signs of ruthlessness

07:02according that is to flavius josephus a roman jewish historian writing towards the end of the first

07:08centuries ce who was known to not be well disposed towards herod so any crimes he accuses herod of

07:16or any details of herod's life we really only have josephus to go on that means that we have to

07:23take everything with a bit of a grain of salt

07:28one of the first things that he accuses herod of is when herod was in the start of his career

07:34he captured a group of bandits and had them executed without trial

07:41very difficult now to tell whether behind the description of bandits whether behind that lies

07:51something more political whether these are freedom fighters we just don't know but it's clear that there

07:57were objections to this kind of ruthlessness herod's first killings aren't allowed to pass without

08:07censure so this was an extrajudicial execution and that upset the families of those who were executed

08:16and they appealed to hyrcanus the second who was high priest in judaea at the time and asked that he

08:23called herod to trial before the sanhedrin the sanhedrin were the sort of high court of judea and

08:30galilee so this was the first time that herod really was getting into trouble for something that he had

08:36done but the young galilean governor plans to wheedle his way out of a tight spot herod was summoned to

08:46jerusalem to stand trial and herod's response to that was essentially to march on jerusalem with troops

08:54and refused to undergo trial looking instead to romans support so he didn't have to follow the laws

09:02that were being imposed by the the husbandian high priest who is meant to serve

09:09herod's brinkmanship fails spectacularly and he's forced to face the wrath of the sanhedrin

09:14the custom was to show humility before the court by appearing meek and disheveled but herod has other

09:24plans the jewish historian josephus records that herod instead came with his hair on his head finely

09:33trimmed clean shaven face and dressed in purple so what josephus is telling us is that herod was a bit

09:43shameless herod's vanity is legendary we know he he dyed his hair black but for me psychologically i

09:54think it's driven by his awareness that he needs to appear strong and virile in order to retain his power

10:03he was ostentatious he didn't have the right mannerisms for that context not that he didn't

10:11know it but that he chose to avoid it and so that gives us a good idea of herod

10:20herod then goes over the heads of the jewish judiciary and appeals directly to the romans

10:25it is they after all that are the real power in the land the roman ruler of syria at the time sextus

10:35he was an ally with herod and he pressured hyrcanus the second who was high priest to ensure that herod

10:42would not be found guilty of the charges against him and so herod ultimately is acquitted of that charge

10:48this tells us that herod even in these early stages of his political career is a master of of

10:58spin of strategy it tells us that he has these finely honed political instincts he knows that this is the

11:06way to maintain any sense of one-upmanship so very early in his career this began his reputation of

11:14somebody who is completely ruthless and this is the origins of his power the young governor of galilee

11:22will stop at nothing to get what he wants soon he sets his sights on the ultimate prize sovereignty

11:29over the entire kingdom of judea

11:31roman leader julius caesar has been assassinated his replacement mark antony is now defending the empire

11:51he was facing a little bit of a crisis at home in rome the eastern border of the roman empire was not

11:57all that well secured in the parthian forces the military force from persia crossed the border they

12:03managed to infiltrate into roman territory at the eastern reaches rising star herod uses the crisis

12:13to further his efforts to take complete control over judea at the expense of his rival the hasmonean high

12:20priest hercanus the second the parthian forces do indeed come down a number of battles ensue herod loses

12:30he's captured it doesn't work out so well for her goodness the second either who is also captured and

12:36mutilated he's castrated so this means that he can no longer be high priest

12:42with the jewish de facto king of judea hercanus not the man he was the way is clear for herod's royal

12:49ambitions if only he was not in prison herod then escapes and he is fleeing south

12:59and in his flight south sometimes he encounters other forces and they have to battle again and

13:05there's one battle in particular that happens among supporters of the hasmoneans just outside bethlehem

13:11and herod wins that battle quite decisively

13:13herod is called to rome where the senate rewards him for his victory rome ultimately rewards him with

13:23kingship and that's how we get herod the great king of the jews

13:30questions over the new king's jewish heritage continue to haunt him he came to power entirely

13:38because he was appointed as king of judea by the roman state and therefore had to impose his rule

13:46over judea as a puppet king of the romans so the appointment of herod having been made by rome in 40

13:57bce was as an outsider to the judean political elite that meant that he was bound to find that there were a

14:06large number of opponents from the previous regime when herod returns to jerusalem to take the throne

14:15he finds that he acanus's nephew antigonus has already proclaimed himself king

14:23herod is helped by the romans antigonus is removed from power

14:28only for another challenge to arise the hasmoneans were pretty well liked by the jewish people and the

14:38hasmoneans both rule as king and as high priest but you need to have this patrilineal descent to have

14:45that position and herod did not so he could not be high priest

14:49in order to try to establish himself more firmly he married into the elite

15:02despite already having a wife and a son herod marries the 17 year old granddaughter of hyrcanus

15:09the high priest mariammy his second wife mariammy who was a a princess from the hasmonean ruling

15:18family which had ruled over judea for the previous hundred years or so and a great coup

15:27herod's first wife doris and their son antipater are banished from his court

15:34so marrying marianne that family that she's part of it legitimizes herod

15:41herod and that is incredibly important because he doesn't have the lineage he's not from that

15:48dynastic family this is the point to which the family of herod became so to speak part of the

15:57establishment so this outsider entering properly into the mainstream of the judean elite in a way

16:05which she couldn't have done before the royal couple have two sons and heirs to herod's throne

16:13alexander and aristobulus with hasmonean royal blood running through their veins

16:19the sons that they have together legitimize him these things are vital and it's good pr

16:26it's good strategy in herod's eyes his beloved mariammy who gives him legitimacy is also a potential

16:35threat it was perfectly possible in the 40s and 30s bce for people to imagine that a powerful woman

16:45from within the hasmonean family could rule over judea there were powerful women ruling over neighboring

16:53states of whom best known is cleopatra in egypt if herod was suspicious of mariammy's political

17:03intentions that was entirely reasonable this is a man whose whole existence whose whole personality

17:11is defined by the sense of always needing to protect himself always living on his survival instincts

17:19the increasingly paranoid king of judea even arranges a backup plan in the event of his own murder

17:27in one of his most dramatic gestures we know that herod makes plans for his beloved

17:34wife mariammy to be executed should he herod die in order that she cannot take up with any other man

17:44this tells us so much about the inner emotional landscape of this man the sense of paranoia

17:55he is prepared to do anything to ensure that that does not happen

18:03to further protect his position herod decides to clean up his court by ridding it of all disloyal

18:08hasmoneans and that for the first part of his reign was the main cause of his brutality in getting rid

18:18of those political opponents done actually to surprisingly extent judicially so with trials

18:26to show that they were treacherous meaning that they were threats to his rule after which they were put

18:31to death the king's ever watchful eye then turns towards his in-laws particularly mariammy's handsome

18:50brother aristopoulos mariammy's brother really wanted to be high priest there were public demonstrations

18:59requiring herod to react by sacking his first high priest and getting in jonathan aristobulus

19:08jonathan aristobulus at the age of 17 became high priest people got far too enthusiastic about him

19:15suspicious of a threat to his throne herod places his brother-in-law and mother-in-law under surveillance

19:21by his own personal bodyguard most of his control was done through police work he had spies

19:28all through his kingdom who would tell him if there were any attempts against his rule

19:36aristobulus and mother alexandra hatch a plot to flee to egypt as guests of its celebrity queen

19:42cleopatra the seventh but herod uncovers their plans then jonathan aristobulus was invited down to

19:51the palace in jericho and went swimming with friends where they had some kind of game which involved

19:59holding him underwater and there was a terrible accident he died he was drowned that's what herod said

20:09jonathan aristobulus's mother alexandra complained bitterly to her friend cleopatra of egypt and mark

20:16antony cleopatra's consort that this was murder and antony's response was that kings must be allowed to

20:26do what they need to do the bloodletting of herod's in-laws isn't over next he eyes his former rival

20:37hyrcanus ii who's returned to judea mariamma's grandfather hyrcanus was also accused of

20:46treachery and also put to death this is a man operating in survival mode it's a man who has long

20:57ago learned to completely suppress his emotions and the killing doesn't end there if threatened

21:06he will do whatever is necessary to obliterate that threat even if that means killing his own family

21:14to be close to herod meant being close to the acts of his executioner

21:33herod's husband and wife mariamma is racked with grief her brother and now her grandfather have been

21:39murdered at the hands of her husband now having learned of herod's plans to have her killed in

21:45the event of his death mariamma gives herod the cold shoulder herod eventually starts to worry that

21:55his wife mariamma is plotting against him and it's possible that she was

22:01when herod hears that his beloved wife mariamma is potentially plotting against him this will have

22:10triggered the pervasive sense of paranoia uh his survival instincts the insecure king

22:17hauls his beloved wife before the courts she was accused of treason of obtaining under the guise of a

22:25love potion for herod what was actually poison we have no idea whether that was true or not the accusation

22:32was treason as well as adultery and we don't know who the adultery would have been with

22:39whether to manufactured charge against mariamma this is impossible to tell

22:46and there's an unexpected twist in the courtroom mariamma's mother who'd supported her all the way

22:52down to this point in 29 bc so eight years of marriage to herod which should be pretty tempestuous

23:00mariamma's mother alexandra switched sides and accused her of treason exactly what herod was accusing

23:08her of and so he has her executed but the killer king is not done yet mariamma's mother was also

23:22accused of treachery and put to death

23:33after herod has mariamma executed he falls into a prolonged state of deep grief and mourning

23:42he will do whatever it takes even if it means causing himself considerable unbearable pain his survival

23:52instincts trump all

24:00herod soon recovers from his malaise and with most of his rival hasmoneans now out of the way the king

24:07embarks on a huge scale building program to cement his herodian legacy he was a remarkable builder

24:14it's not just that there are so many of them but they were done in a really impressive monumental style

24:21most monumental of the lot is the temple in jerusalem situated on the temple mount the holiest

24:28site of judaism where the first temple stood centuries earlier built by solomon himself the israelite king

24:35and son of david herod improved and expanded the second temple in jerusalem turning it into one of

24:43the greatest wonders in the ancient world it was a mammoth structure built out of limestone covered in gold

24:50remnants of the western wall of herod's temple remain a place of pilgrimage to this day

24:59it is a great new central shrine for the jews rebuilt far more impressively than it had been

25:07under his predecessors the hasmoneans it is through building that herod seeks to reinforce

25:13his legacy and shows his obedience to rome herod transformed judea with in some cases quite

25:25specifically roman buildings so the great port port of caesarea which allowed trade to come into judea

25:34across the mediterranean which is now a major trading route from all over the roman world

25:39it kept herod in power it kept things stable it kept rome at bay and herod's sweeping changes also

25:50herald a new prosperous era for his subjects he engaged in these very large infrastructure projects

25:58aqueducts which would bring clean water so the rule of herod i think is mixed there were people

26:06who of course judged him for being a jewish convert but herod didn't reign with terror herod was a deft

26:14politician many of his subjects profited from living unto him and he grew the kingdom back to the

26:23largest size that it had been under the hasmoneans and he did this through clever politicking not through

26:30conquest he was basically given more land by the romans who were the ultimate ruling power in the

26:36region at the time as he reaches his 60s the wheeler dealer herod becomes less sure-footed in his

26:48abeyance to almighty rome in 9 bce he makes a major miscalculation he was very proud of himself as a

26:58military man rather astonishingly when he's in his 60s he appears to have gone on campaign himself

27:07the southern border of judea is being raided by the nabateans in present-day jordan

27:13without consulting the roman emperor augustus herod invades and crushes the opposition

27:19he was severely reprimanded by augustus and nearly lost all authority in judea for going on a foreign

27:30campaign without authority from the roman emperor we're told that herod contemplated suicide

27:38increasingly frail herod's paranoia reaches another level the cloud of his suspicions now surrounds the

27:50two sons that he'd had with his second wife mariami aristobulus and alexander

27:57these sons were assumed by the romans as the most plausible heirs to his rule when herod should die

28:09they had more right to rule than their father because they came from the previous ruling dynasty

28:17and they were accused by herod of plotting against him both sons are imprisoned pending trial

28:25in a whole series of trials in front of roman magistrates including the emperor himself in which

28:41herod was indeed involved he was demonstrating quite how horrified he was

28:48that his sons should be plotting against him how dare they he has his two sons executed

29:00thus cutting off the hasmonean line that could challenge him for his position of power

29:05the psychology of herod is such that if threatened his reaction will be to do whatever is necessary to

29:16remove that threat even if that means killing his own offspring

29:20we are told that augustus who is the emperor in rome at the time said of herod that he rather be

29:33his pig than his son herod maintains jewish dietary laws pigs would have lived a happy life without being

29:39slaughtered herod's sons not so much i understand why he did it logically there was a concern of a plot

29:49against him and it's quite probable that that was a real thing

29:58herod's everlasting notoriety is still to reach new heights with the tale of the alleged infamous

30:03slaughter at the end of his reign is the story likely to be true if herod was sufficiently concerned

30:14about any possibility of opposition to him anything is possible

30:31the frail and insecure herod edges towards 70. it's at this point that the new testament alleges his final

30:39murderous act one for which he becomes most infamous throughout the ages within the christian world

30:47herod has been best known uh for the massacre of the innocents as described in the gospel of matthew

30:56on hearing of the birth of jesus in bethlehem the so-called king of the jews herod according to matthew

31:01orders the slaughter of all the town's infants under the age of two most christians have always engaged

31:08with herod through that narrative and it's characterized solely by paranoia and tyrannical behavior

31:18this sweeping brutality against boys under the age of two whether true or not tells us that he is seen

31:26as somebody who is capable of anything he's somebody who's held in considerable fear and whose responses

31:36and acts have given him a reputation which means that nothing is seen as impossible with herod

31:44but does herod deserve a bad reputation one of biblical proportions many historians say the evidence

31:51simply doesn't stack up it's unlikely that this event ever happened and we can say that for one main

31:59reason the vast majority of the information that we have about herod comes to us from the jewish historian

32:05josephus and no reference to the massacre is found in josephus's accounts written in the first century

32:13and closest to herod's lifetime josephus fills his record with many ill deeds that herod had done

32:22josephus was no fan of herod's so it's highly unlikely that he would have avoided including such a story

32:30had herod actually committed that act and there is more evidence to suggest that this lurid description

32:40was christian propaganda rather than historical fact the story of the massacre of the innocents

32:47is totally missing from the later jewish tradition

32:54i mean i think you can say how deeply implausible it is that herod at the very end of his life coming

33:01out to 70 a baby takes time to be a threat they're not going to be a threat to herod because he's not

33:07going to be there by the time a baby grows up we know that he committed some violent acts

33:15in order to secure succession but it's a little bit of a stretch that he would have been concerned

33:23about an infant being born at this point in his life

33:27so how does the infamous king of the jews acquire his status as a child killer

33:35it is likely that the the widespread publicity giving to the execution of his sons around the roman world

33:52which was sort of the affair of tabloids everybody would know about them and they were remembered

34:02that these were terrible things that herod had done to his own family and therefore he's the kind

34:07of person to whom such a reputation could be attached or was the inspiration the battle young herod

34:16waged in bethlehem on his road to being anointed king the battle in which herod was victorious that

34:25occurred around the year 40 bce just outside bethlehem would have resulted in the deaths of many of

34:31bethlehem's young men was retained in memory in a form and became sort of folded into the narrative

34:41that matthew is crafting of mass execution and acts of violence whether herod's massacre of the

34:51innocence is truth or fiction almost certainly the latter there's little doubt about his final infamous act

34:57despite having married nine times the frail king has now reconciled with his first wife doris

35:15and his first born antipater the herod invited first antipater back and then through antipater

35:23antipater's mother doris was allowed to come back to court but like many of herod's relatives the

35:30rapprochement doesn't last in the end doris and antipater were both accused of plotting against herod

35:41antipater was kept in chains and again followed long discussions with the emperor in rome by augustus

35:51as what was the best way to deal with a disloyal son and the answer from the emperor eventually

35:56was herod should do what he wished as a king and as a father not easy

36:05as antipater languishes in jail the sickly king is going through his own torment due to the agonies of

36:11his physical infirmities herod was lying very ill there was a great cry through the palace in jericho

36:20because herod had tried to stab himself with the knife that he was using to peel an apple

36:33because he was in such great pain and he was just stopped from committing suicide

36:41antipater believes the scream is his father's last sound

36:45antipater thought that's great and asked his jailers to let him out

36:53we know that herod hears that his firstborn son in prison is is plotting against him

37:00and when herod got to know that he said that's one step too far and antipater was put to death

37:06his whole life herod has existed herod has survived to the extent that he destroys that he obliterates

37:17those plotting against him so here we see him prepared to do that even to his firstborn son

37:23i think as a last desperate attempt to hold on to his life his strength his position

37:31the grief-stricken herod remains in agony on his deathbed

37:35but even from there it's said that he attempts one final masterstroke to boost his pr

37:42he puts top-ranking jews in jail the story was that herod wanted his sister and her husband to put all

37:53these leading jews to death so that even if uh his subjects did not cry did not mourn when he died

38:02at least they'd be crying for somebody else that was the story and then harry dies

38:14josephus tells us that he died a gruesome death um of multiple illnesses he was not a wild man

38:22and all these jews who were in the hippodrome in jericho were let free

38:26we have no idea whether an unrealized project was actually really intended or was rumored and again

38:36the significance is that the rumor was there people said it that they could imagine it as the kind of

38:43thing that herod might have done herod's kingdom is divided up amongst his remaining family but the

38:54region soon misses the iron grip of its former leader what is certain is that his methods of ruling

39:04kept the peace in judea from 37 down to 4 bc so that's 33 years and that when he died the whole of

39:14his kingdom erupted into a series of different uprisings different groups rose up in rebellion

39:23against his sons immediately after his death the repression was effective

39:37so was herod a strong ruler or just an out of control tyrant how will the sands of time treat

39:44this killer king's legacy we know that he tried to sit between

39:52the jewish people and and the roman empire all of this will have meant that he became somebody

40:01forever looking over his shoulder somebody who learnt to live entirely on his survival instincts

40:10some jews thought that herod had done rather well at negotiating the relationship between the people he

40:18was meant to be ruling over and the wider government of rome

40:25there were other jews who thought that he was clearly a traitor because he'd been far too roman

40:31and the judgment as to whether he's a good thing or a bad thing swung back and forth

40:38he was a very skillful politician and i think he deserves a lot of respect for what he was able to

40:45achieve at that time for his people and what of the brutality he meted out to so many of his subjects

40:54and to his own family the things that he did are immoral but we cannot look at harriet in a vacuum he

41:03needs to be understood in his own context he was very concerned about his own position during his own

41:11lifetime but so were many kings and many rulers in many different time periods so the actions he took

41:19i don't think i don't think put him on the fringes of history by any means although herod's thinking

41:28processes are utterly logical strategic i think this is a man driven by such a profound fear and paranoias

41:38to almost render him insane he clearly is a killer king he had many many enemies and they remembered

41:50him as a wicked king because of the way in which he dealt with his political opponents but in first

41:57century bce it would be wrong to think of the amount of violence that he used as being particularly unusual

42:04what is different about herod and gave rise to his later reputation was the publicity surrounding these

42:15judicial executions in particular those of his sons

42:34the

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