Tunnel through a Woman's Breast
| Herodium | 31 39 56.49N 35 14 30.79E | You can clearly see the hill and the paths lead up to it, as well as the excavated pool to the north. See if you can hunt around and find the picture some person with more enthusiasm than historical knowledge has labelled "Roman canonballs"! |
Herod the Great is one of history's great villains and at Christmas time we remember his most famous outrage, the Massacre of the Innocents in Bethlehem.
Josephus, in his Antiquities of the Jews, records how Herod's father, an Idumean called Antipater, led three thousand Jews to help Julius Caesar in his conquest of Egypt and so conducted himself that when Caesar left the east to return to Rome, he appointed Antipater as procurator of Judea, with Hyrcanus as the high priest and nominal king.
Hyrcanus was idle and possibly not terribly intelligent, and Antipater took advantage of the situation to install his eldest son, Phasael, as governor of Jerusalem, but gave Galilee to the 15-year old Herod. Herod promptly eliminated a nest of robbers, led by a certain Hezekiah, which had been disturbing the peace in both Galilee and Syria. This gave him a deserved reputation for ability and courage.
Meanwhile Antipater was busy strengthening his position with the Romans, for as procurator he demanded the right to handle the tribute being sent to Rome, and whatever money Hyrcanus handed over for that purpose, Antipater sent in his own name. The result was that when Jews opposed to Antipater and his sons managed to arraign Herod before the Sanhedrin on capital charges, the Roman governor of Syria wrote to Hyrcanus and instructed him to find Herod innocent.
Herod, however, took no chances and when he appeared before the Sanhedrin he was accompanied by a substantial body of troops, all in their best parade ground gear, while Herod himself dressed magnificently. The Sanhedrin, bereft of the high priest's support and faced with an arrogant young man with armed men at his command, sat in silence and the case more or less went by default!
Just as this time Julius Caeasar was assassinated in Rome and the civil war began, with Mark Antony on one side and the conspirators on the other. Cassius was sent to Palestine to raise money for the assassins and Antipater and his sons cooperated with them, but in the disturbances a Jew named Malichus managed to poison Antipater, only to be killed himself a short time later by Herod.
Unfortunately for Herod, he had backed the wrong party, for Cassius and Brutus were defeated at Philippi and it wasn't long before Mark Antony appeared in the east in vengeful mood. Those Jews who were opposed to Antipater and his sons promptly sent a long list of complaints to Antony, who ignored them because of his friendship towards Antipater and the large sums of money Herod sent to him. It may have helped that he had just fallen in love with Cleopatra and was therefore distracted from affairs of state!
Things were still unsettled, however, and the Parthians saw this as their opportunity to invade Syria and Palestine. Once more those Jews who were opposed to Herod joined his enemies and promised the Parthians a thousand talents and five hundred women if they would kill Herod. They also opened the gates of Jerusalem to the Parthians and Phasael ventured into the Parthian camp to try and make a peace treaty.
For a while he was treated honourably, for Herod would have nothing to do with negotiations and the Parthians were unwilling to show their hand until they had Herod in their power. Herod, however, slipped away from Jerusalem with his mother and his fiancee and took refuge in Masada, the strongest fortress in his province. As he fled, however, he was attacked by dissident Jews, but managed to defeat them a short distance outside Bethlehem in a place distinguished by two odd-shaped hills.
Phasael was then bound by the Parthians and, seeing how he had been deceived, he managed to commit suicide by hurling himself head-first at a rock. Upon hearing this, Herod left his dependents in the safety of Masada and headed from Egypt and thence to Rome (with a brief stopover in Rhodes after a storm drove him there). In Rome he sought out Mark Antony and obtained his help.
Despite Roman assistance, it still took Herod three years of hard fighting to conquer Judah and he lost another brother, Joseph, in the numerous skirmishes that marked the campaign. Eventually, however, Jerusalem was captured - with great slaughter - and Herod was back on the throne. To mark his success, Herod married a second wife, the most beautiful woman in Jerusalem.
When this wedding was over, he built another citadel in that place where he had conquered file Jews when he was driven out of his government, and Antigonus enjoyed it. This citadel is distant from Jerusalem about threescore furlongs. It was strong by nature, and fit for such a building. It is a sort of a moderate hill, raised to a further height by the hand of man, till it was of the shape of a woman's breast. It is encompassed with circular towers, and hath a strait ascent up to it, which ascent is composed of steps of polished stones, in number two hundred. Within it are royal and very rich apartments, of a structure that provided both for security and for beauty. About the bottom there are habitations of such a structure as are well worth seeing, both on other accounts, and also on account of the water which is brought thither from a great way off, and at vast expenses, for the place itself is destitute of water. The plain that is about this citadel is full of edifices, not inferior to any city in largeness, and having the hill above it in the nature of a castle.
Josephus: Antiquities of the Jews XV.4
Josephus gives another description of this citadel in his Wars of the Jews
And as he transmitted to eternity his family and friends, so did he not neglect a memorial for himself, but built a fortress upon a mountain towards Arabia, and named it from himself, Herodium, and he called that hill that was of the shape of a woman's breast, and was sixty furlongs distant from Jerusalem, by the same name. He also bestowed much curious art upon it, with great ambition, and built round towers all about the top of it, and filled up the remaining space with the most costly palaces round about, insomuch that not only the sight of the inner apartments was splendid, but great wealth was laid out on the outward walls, and partitions, and roofs also. Besides this, he brought a mighty quantity of water from a great distance, and at vast charges, and raised an ascent to it of two hundred steps of the whitest marble, for the hill was itself moderately high, and entirely factitious. He also built other palaces about the roots of the hill, sufficient to receive the furniture that was put into them, with his friends also, insomuch that, on account of its containing all necessaries, the fortress might seem to be a city, but, by the bounds it had, a palace only.
Josephus: Wars of the Jews I.10
Elsewhere we are told that there were, in fact, two hills shaped like a woman's breasts and that Herod caused the one hill to be dug up and piled on top of the other hill to produce his fortress. The fact is that Herod probably used the one hill as a quarry to provide the stone for the buildings he erected, with the result that the one hill did more or less disappear while the other appeared taller from the towers built on it.
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| The distinctive shape of the Herodium stands out against the skyline a short distance east of Bethlehem. |
I first recognised this Herodium in 1976 when a series of events left me at liberty in Jerusalem for a day. I hired a car and drove to Bethlehem and on the way spotted a very distinctive hill - which I immediately recognised from Josephus' description. There were no signs pointing to the hill, but I wound my way through narrow lanes and eventually came out at the base, to discover a path leading up to the top.
I climbed the path and was astonished to find myself looking down on what appeared to be the crater of a volcano, except that this crater was full of ruins, the most imposing of which were the very thick foundations of a round tower. The size of the foundations indicated that the tower must have been very high. Other ruined buildings were identified as a synagogue and possible rooms in a palace.
On my next visit a couple of years later there was a ticket office half-way up the path and we had to pay for the privilege of walking around the ruins. The only problem was that none of the ruins appeared to be a tomb or mausoleum, yet Josephus was very clear that the Herodium was Herod's burial place.
After this was over, they prepared for his funeral, it being Archelaus's care that the procession to his father's sepulchre should be very sumptuous. Accordingly, he brought out all his ornaments to adorn the pomp of the funeral. The body was carried upon a golden bier, embroidered with very precious stones of great variety, and it was covered over with purple, as well as the body itself; he had a diadem upon his head, and above it a crown of gold: he also had a sceptre in his right hand. About the bier were his sons and his numerous relations; next to these was the soldiery, distinguished according to their several countries and denominations; and they were put into the following order: First of all went his guards, then the band of Thracians, and after them the Germans; and next the band of Galatians, every one in their habiliments of war; and behind these marched the whole army in the same manner as they used to go out to war, and as they used to be put in array by their muster-masters and centurions; these were followed by five hundred of his domestics carrying spices. So they went eight furlongs to Herodium; for there by his own command he was to be buried. And thus did Herod end his life.
Josephus: Antiquities of the Jews XVII.3
Meanwhile the press reported that excavations had been conducted at the foot of the Herodium which had uncovered a sumptuous palace, that included an ornate pool with a little pergola in the middle of it. That required another visit to the Herodium where, sure enough, there was the large but shallow pool 220'x150' - obviously now devoid of water - with the little stone island in the middle which could only be reached either by swimming or by a small boat. The entire complex covered some forty acres.
On that same visit the man who sold me our tickets indicated that instead of climbing up to the summit, we should go along a path which went around the hill and gave me a hefty key, insisting that I must lock the gate after I had passed through. Curious, I followed his instructions and found myself in a series of tunnels which had been dug by Jewish terrorists fighting against the Romans in AD 135. These tunnels led eventually to the floor of the crater and enabled the Jews who had captured the fortress to sneak out to attack the Romans and those they regarded as collaborators.
Access to the Herodium was restricted after Ariel Sharon provoked the second intifada and ceased altogether when the Jewish ticket collector in his little booth was shot by Arab terrorists. After that you could only visit the Herodium by prior arrangement with the Israeli authorities.
Things changed perforce in 2007 when Ehud Netzer of the Hebrew Uniersity announced that he had discovered Herod's tomb, not on the summit of the hill but half-way down the eastern slope, where the dead king would have had an unrivalled view out over the wilderness of Judea towards the Dead Sea. Netzer was hailed for his discovery, though since then the usual critics have dismissed the discovery on the grounds that it was too small to be the tomb of such a grandiose monarch as Herod.
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| Archaeologists work to clear the original entrance to the Herodium. |
Just before Christmas, 2014, the Hebrew University team, which has continued to excavate at the Herodium, announced a fresh discovery, this time of what may have been Herod's original entrance to the Herodium. This is an impressive arched corridor 65' high and 19' wide with four arches, each one built on a higher level than the one before. The corridor led into a large vestibule whose walls were decorated with painted frescoes.
Curiously, as the Herodium grew ever higher, this arched entrance appears to have become redundant and was deliberately filled in, to be replaced by a monumental stairway from the base of the hill to the summit. The vestibule continued to be used as a room and coins from the AD 70 revolt have been found in it.
The tunnels dug by the Bar Kokhba rebels made use of the looser soil filling the corridor, but that brought its own problems and the archaeologists found that the roof of one of the tunnels was suported by twenty branches of cypress wood, arranged in a cross-weave pattern.
Shaul Goldstein, director of the Israeli Parks Authority, which has ultimate responsibility for the site, announced the intention that "in the future the excavation of the arched corridor will allow visitors direct access to the Herodium hilltop palace-fortress, in the same way that Herod entered it two thousand years ago."
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| View from the vestibule towards the newly discovered corridor. |
As part of this redevelopment, the little ticket kiosk half-way up the hill has been replaced by a massive visitor centre at the foot, which not only houses some of the finds made during the excavations but also provides security for the staff working there. You can see some of the displays in this visitor centre by viewing this video on YouTube.
an Idumean When the Babylonians carried the Jews into captivity in 586 BC, the Edomites saw that Palestine was deserted and flocked across the Rift Valley to settle in the more fertile territory of southern Judah, an area which took their name and became known as Edomea or Idumea. One of the Macabbean kings conquered Idumea and forced the people to convert to Judaism. Antipater was thus an Edomite, one of the bitter enemies of the Jews!
Meanwhile an Arab tribe from further out in the desert saw that the more fertile territory of Edom was now empty and took it over - which is how the Nabateans came to live in Petra, the former capital of the Edomites. Return
Jewish terrorists Always remember that one man's "terrorist" is another man's "freedom fighter". Rather than look at the cause, I prefer to look at the methods. For me, a terrorist is someone who fights against a legitimate government by secret means, who does not discriminate between military and civilian targets, and who kills more of his own people than those of his enemy. On that basis the sicarii and zealots of the First Century AD were indeed terrorists, as were the Irgun of more modern times and as are the Palestinians of Hamas. Return
© Kendall K. Down 2014
