Herodium under Herod’s Rule

Herod ruled Judaea for 33 years until his death from a fatal disease in the year 4 CE. He was born to Antipatris, son of an aristocratic Edomite family which converted to Judaism and was incorporated into the Hasmonean administrative system, and Cypros, a Nabatean princess, in 73 BCE. In his youth, he was appointed governor of Galillee, and eventually crowned King of Judaea by the Romans in 40 BCE, bringing the Hasmonean dynasty to its end.
In the course of Herod’s rule, Judaea flourished and knew peace and prosperity, allowing for the establishment of some of the greatest building projects ever in the country which changed its face completely – in particular the largest and most grandiose project of all – the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple and the Temple Mount.
Despite this, Herod’s name is also linked with a series of brutal and cruel murders and paranoid behavior, whose climax was the execution of three of his sons and his beloved wife, Mariamne, a Hasmonean princess. Herod died a painful death in Jericho, and his body was brought in procession to Herodium, where he was buried.
Herod had built the largest and most splendid of his palaces close to the border between Idumea and Judaea. The site was intended to perpetuate his memory (it is apparently the only site he built which bears his own name) and here he intended to be buried.
Herod’s decision to establish Herodium in this apparently peripheral and insignificant location in the desert is linked to two events during his reign; in 40 BCE, the king and his family fled from Jerusalem to Masada in the face of the Parthians and their Hasmonean client, Hyrcanus II. In the dark of the night, his mother’s carriage overturned and Herod, believing her dead, almost committed suicide. The Parthians, hearing of Herod’s flight, followed in hot pursuit and the showdown between the two sides took place in the area where Herodium was later established. After the battle, which Herod won, he proceeded to Rome to be invested as King; some ten years later, Herod returned to the site and established the large palace complex, and apparently started building his mausoleum. With its establishment, Herodium became a Judaean administrative center, replacing the local administrative capital in Beth-Zur; its officials were transferred, and the site became permanently inhabited.
Atop the artificial hill, Herod built a Fortress-Palace with a private wing, guest quarters and magazines. At its foot, in Lower Herodium, the various wings of the Great Palace complex were built, with a large pool in their center surrounded by gardens, bathhouses and an administrative area for the district officials. On the hill’s northern slope, Herod built a small theater with a reception room for distinguished visitors, while to its east he chose to establish his lavish Burial Monument. At the time of the building of the massive manmade hill as Herod’s perpetual monument, all the other structures (apart from the Fortress-Palace and the Burial Complex) were covered with dirt and stones, giving the hill its distinctive cone shape.

Read more:

• Netzer E., 1999/ The Palaces of the Hasmoneans and Herod the Great, Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, Jerusalem, Pp. 90-108. (in Hebrew)
• Netzer E., 2009. The Architecture of Herod, the Great Builder, Baker Academics, Grand Rapids, Michigan. P. 449.
• Netzer E., Kalman Y., Porat R. & Laureys-Chachy R., 2009. “Herodium, Between the Visit of Marcus Agrippa and the Death of Herod, in the Light of the New Findings on the Hill’s Slope”, Teva HaDvarim 159, Pp. 34–44. (in Hebrew)
• Netzer E., 1999. Herodium An archaeological guide, Jerusalem