Philip the Tetrarch

Near East (9 BCE–CE 3): Consolidation Under Rome and Herodian Rule

The Near East in this era remains firmly within the Roman imperial orbit, as Augustus Caesar continues to consolidate his vast territorial dominions. Egypt, now securely established as a critical Roman province, remains the Empire’s essential breadbasket, supplying Rome with grain shipments vital for urban stability and imperial control.

In Judea, Herod the Great, Rome’s influential and powerful client king, continues his extensive construction projects, further reshaping the region’s landscape and infrastructure. The Second Temple in Jerusalem, whose reconstruction Herod had initiated around 20 BCE, progresses toward completion, becoming a spectacular architectural and religious monument symbolic of Jewish identity and Herod’s political ambitions.

Herod also maintains diplomatic relations with Augustus and seeks to strengthen his regime through marriages and political alliances among the various ethnic and religious communities under his rule. Despite these efforts, his reign is marked by family intrigues, paranoia, and ruthless suppression of potential rivals, leading to growing tensions among his subjects.

Around 4 BCE, following Herod’s death, Judea becomes embroiled in succession struggles among his sons, eventually resulting in the division of his kingdom. Rome intervenes directly, appointing Herod’s son Herod Archelaus as ethnarch over Judea, Samaria, and Idumea, while dividing the remainder of Herod’s territories among other sons such as Herod Antipas and Philip the Tetrarch.

Legacy of the Era

The period from 9 BCE to CE 3 solidifies Rome’s administrative and cultural influence in the Near East, marked prominently by Herodian building projects and political structures. The death of Herod the Great and subsequent political fragmentation significantly impact the region, setting the stage for further Roman intervention and administration, and ultimately shaping the socio-political context into which early Christianity would soon emerge.

The Pharisees, according to Josephus, ultimately opposed Herod and thus in 4 BCE fell victims to his bloodthirstiness ("The Antiquities of the Jews, xvii. 2, § 4; 6, §§ 2–4).

Young students of the Torah smash the golden eagle over the main entrance of the Temple of Jerusalem after the Pharisee teachers claim that is a Roman symbol.

Herod has the students arrested, brought to trial, and punished.

The family of Boethus, whom Herod had raised to the high-priesthood, revives the spirit of the Sadducees, and henceforth the Pharisees will again have them as antagonists (The Antiquities of the Jews, xviii. 1, § 4).

Augustus in this year approves of the death penalty for Antipater, who Herod executes.

Having thus executed his sole heir, Herod again changes his will: Archelaus (from the marriage with Malthace) is to rule as king over Herod's entire kingdom, while Antipas (from Malthace) and Philip (from the fifth marriage with Cleopatra of Jerusalem) as Tetrarchs over Galilee and Peraea, also over Gaulanitis (Golan), Trachonitis (Hebrew: Argob), Batanaea (now Ard-el-Bathanyeh) and Panias.

Salome I is also given a small toparchy in the Gaza region.

Since the work of Emil Schürer in 1896 (Emil Schürer, A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, 5 vols. New York, Scribner’s, 1896) most scholars have agreed that Herod died at the end of March or early April in 4 BCE.

However, Schürer's consensus did not go unchallenged in the twentieth century, with several scholars endorsing 1 BCE as the year of Herod's death.

Evidence for the 4 BCE date is provided by the fact that Herod's sons, between whom his kingdom is divided, date their rule from 4 BCE, and Archslaus apparently also exercised royal authority during Herod's lifetime.

Josephus states that Philip the Tetrarch's death took place in 34 CE after a thirty-seven-year reign, in the twentieth year of Tiberius; he also writes that Herod's final illness was excruciating.

Modern scholars agree he suffered throughout his lifetime from depression and paranoia.

More recently, others report that the visible worms and putrefaction described in his final days are likely to have been scabies; the disease might have accounted for both his death and psychiatric symptoms.

Similar symptoms will attend the death of his grandson Agrippa I in CE 44.

Josephus also states that Herod was so concerned that no one would mourn his death, that he commanded a large group of distinguished men to come to Jericho, and he gave order that they should be killed at the time of his death so that the displays of grief that he craved would take place.

Fortunately for them, Herod's son Archelaus and sister Salome do not carry out this wish.

Archelaus is proclaimed king by the army, but declines to assume the title until he has submitted his claims to Augustus in Rome.

Before setting out, he quells with the utmost cruelty a sedition of the Pharisees, slaying nearly three thousand of them.

Herod's plans for the succession have to be ratified by Augustus because of Judea's status as a Roman client kingdom,

The three heirs therefore travel to Rome to make their claims, Antipas arguing he ought to inherit the whole kingdom and the others maintaining that Herod's final will ought to be honored.

Despite qualified support for Antipas from Herodian family members in Rome, who favor direct Roman rule of Judea but consider Antipas preferable to his brother, Augustus largely confirms the division of territory set out by Herod in his final will.

Archelaus has, however, to be content with the title of ethnarch rather than king.

Augustus allots to Archelaus the greater part of the kingdom (Judea and Idumea, which are Jewish, and Samaria, which is not).

Antipas, as tetrarch, receives Galilee and Peraea (east of the Jordan River).

These territories are separated by the region of the Decapolis, with Galilee to the north and Perea to the south.

The non-Jewish areas (except Samaria) are assigned to a third son, Philip, to Herod's sister Salome, or to the province of Syria.

Philip is to rule Trachonitis, Batanaea, and Auranitis, the area between the Decapolis and Damascus.

Salome is given a toparchy including the cities of Jabneh, Ashdod, Phasaelis, and five thousand drachmae.

Augustus supplements this with a royal habitation at Ashkelon.

While she is nominally queen of these areas, they are ultimately subject to the Judaean prefect.

Various radical Jewish elements, some of which are messianic, rise in revolt after Herod's death.

Threats to stability in both Galillee and Pearea would have been clear to Antipas when he took office.

While he has been making his case to Augustus in Rome, dissidents led by one Judas son of Hezekiah, whose followers tear down the Roman Eagle that had adorned the Temple, attack the palace of Sepphoris in Galilee, seizing money and weapons with which they terrorize the area.

In a counterattack ordered by Quinctilius Varus, Roman governor of Syria, Sepphoris is destroyed by fire and its inhabitants sold as slaves.

Perea borders on the kingdom of Nabatea, which has long had uneasy relations with Romans and Jews.

Here, one Simon, a former slave of Herod the Great, burns down the royal palace at Jericho.

Athronges, a shepherd, inaugurates, with his four brothers, a two-year rebellion in Judea.

Herod the Great, after annexing the Golan in 20 BCE, had erected here a temple of "white marble" in honor of his patron, Augustus.

Philip the Tetrarch of Batanaea, which encompasses the Golan and the Hauran, in the year 3 BCE, founds a city at Paneas, which becomes the administrative capital of Philip's large tetrarchy

Flavius Josephus, in The Antiquities of the Jews, refers to the city as Caesarea Paneas; the New Testament as Caesarea Philippi (to distinguish it from Caesarea Maritima on the Mediterranean coast).

Publius Quinctilius Varus, whose paternal grandfather was senator Sextus Quinctilius Varus, is a patrician, born to an aristocratic but long-impoverished and unimportant family in the Quinctilia gens.

His mother is a daughter from consul Gaius Claudius Marcellus Minor's first marriage.

His father was Sextus Quinctilius Varus, a senator aligned with the conservative republicans in the civil war against Julius Caesar.

Sextus had survived their defeat, but it is unknown whether he was involved in Caesar's assassination.

He had committed suicide in 42 BCE after the Battle of Philippi.

Varus, despite his father's political allegiances, had become a supporter of Caesar's heir, Octavian, later known as Augustus.

He had in about 14 BCE married Vipsania Marcella, the daughter of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and Claudia Marcella Major, and had become a personal friend of both Agrippa and Augustus.

Vipsania Marcella is a grandniece of Augustus; when Agrippa died in 12 BCE, it was Varus who delivered the funeral eulogy.

Thus, his political career was boosted and his cursus honorum finished as early as 13 BCE, when he was elected consul junior partner of Tiberius, Augustus' stepson and future emperor.

Following the consulship, Varus was between 9 and 8 BCE governor of the province of Africa.

He had gone after this to govern Syria, with four legions under his command.

As governor of Syria, Varus is known for his harsh rule and high taxes.

The Jewish historian Josephus mentions the swift action of Varus against a messianic revolt in Judaea after the death in 4 BCE of Rome's client king Herod the Great.

After occupying Jerusalem, he had crucified two thousand Jewish rebels, and may have thus been one of the prime objects of popular anti-Roman sentiment in Judaea, for Josephus, who made every effort to reconcile the Jewish people to Roman rule, felt it necessary to point out how lenient this judicial massacre had been.

Indeed, at precisely this moment, the Jews, nearly en masse, begin a full-scale boycott of Roman pottery (Red Slip Ware).

The archaeological record thus seems to verify mass popular protest against Rome because of Varus' cruelty.

Aretas IV Philopatris, the King of the Nabataeans from roughly 9 BCE and the most powerful neighbor of Judea, frequently takes part in the state affairs of this country, and is to be influential in shaping the destiny of its rulers.

While on not particularly good terms with Rome—as intimated by his surname, "Friend of his People", which is in direct opposition to the prevalent "Friend of the Romans" and "Friend of the Emperor"), and though it was only after great hesitation that Augustus had recognized him as king—had nevertheless taken part in the expedition of Varus against the Jews, and has placed a considerable army at the disposal of the Roman general.