Herod, called “the Great,” has ruled the…

Herod, called “the Great,” has ruled the Roman client-kingdom for thirty-six years, during which period Jerusalem has reached its peak of greatness, growing in wealth and expanding even beyond the new double line of walls.

Toward the end of Herod's life, the complex demands of a vast family, involving at least nine wives, have led him into difficulties regarding the succession, and it is now that he develops into the gruesome and vicious figure that Christian tradition has made so familiar in the Gospel according to Matthew.

Owing to the course of the war against the Nabataeans initiated the previous year, Herod has fallen into disgrace with the Roman emperor Augustus.

Herod again suspects murderous intentions on the part of Alexander, the eldest of his two surviving sons by Mariamne I, whose execution he had ordered, on a trumped-up charge of adultery, twenty years earlier.