Antipater (son of Herod)

Antipater , Latinized Antipater (* around 45 BC; † 4 BC ), was the eldest son of the Jewish king Herod the Great . He was from 7 to 4 BC The first-placed candidate for the heir to the throne, but was finally executed by his own father five days before his death as a punishment for his conspiratorial plans.

origin

Antipater (named after his grandfather from Idumea ) emerged from Herod's first marriage to the noble Jewess Doris, which was concluded at a time (47 BC) when Herod had no concrete prospects for dignity and office of a king.

As soon as Herod became engaged to the Hasmonean princess Mariamne , he disowned his wife Doris and her son Antipater. When Part Come fall in Judea brought (40 v. Chr.) Herod Although his fiancee Mariamne and her mother Alexandra in the fortress Masada safe, but let Doris and their son Antipater in besieged Jerusalem back.

King's son with no prospect of succession

After Herod in 40 BC Having received the title of king from the hands of the Roman triumvirs , he strove to increase the acceptance of his kingship, which many nationally minded Jews perceived as foreign rule, among the Jewish people. He now married Princess Mariamne from the royal house of the Hasmoneans, a granddaughter of the last Hasmonean ethnarch John Hyrcanus II.

The two sons that emerged from this marriage, Aristobulus and Alexandros, were considered the designated heirs to the throne in Jerusalem for many years. Antipater, the son of Doris, was completely neglected at this time and could not hope to ever achieve such a position. He was only allowed to appear at court from time to time. During this time, he had to live with the depressing idea that his biological father had been set back for reasons of power politics. Presumably his own, later unhesitating lust for power was shaped by this experience.

Mariamne was born in 29 BC. Executed by King Herod for alleged infidelity. 22 BC Their sons Alexander and Aristobulus were sent to Rome to prepare for their political tasks , where they received a careful education at the court of Emperor Augustus , but also became very aware of the history of their family, the murderous deeds of their father and their own position. When they 17 BC When they returned to Judea BC, they announced that they wanted to avenge their mother's death. In the period that followed, there were repeated tensions between them, the Idumean branch of the family, and their father Herod.

Ascent to the heir to the throne

14 BC In BC Herod (around 59 years old at the time) finally reacted to the estrangement from his Hasmonean sons by re-admitting his first wife Doris to his court. His son Antipater, who had previously been pushed back, was now - to the indignation of Alexander and Aristobulus - assigned a position as a possible heir to the throne. He was thus in sharp competition with his half-brothers, the Mariamne sons, which are very popular with the people.

The older King Herod got, the more urgent it became from the point of view of the various pretenders to be optimally positioned for the successor. In this game Antipater did his best to intrigue against his half-brothers. He was supported by his uncle Pheroras , a brother of Herod, and his aunt Salome , a sister of the king, who feared disadvantages and dangers for their own position from an succession to the throne of the Mariamne sons. The Jewish historian Flavius ​​Josephus reports that Antipater knew perfectly well how to ingratiate himself with his father Herod and at the same time hide his own ambition by often making himself an apparent advocate of his half-brothers. After the Mariamne sons because of alleged overturn plans in 7 BC When Herod had actually been accused and executed by Herod, Antipater had reached his goal: He was now about 38 years old and moved up to the first place of the possible heir to the throne.

He immediately urged his father to betroth him to Mariamne, the youngest (then not yet marriageable) daughter of the executed Prince Aristobulus, in whose veins the blood of the Hasmoneans also flowed. King Herod, who actually had other plans with Mariamne, consented, even if - as Flavius ​​Josephus reports - after an initially angry reaction, reluctantly to this plan and thus showed that he was ready to take into account the political ideas of his son Antipater in his deliberations to consider.

Execution by one's own father

4 v. However, the conspiratorial plans of Antipater, who had gone to Rome for camouflage, and his involvement in the intrigues that had led to the execution of the Mariamne sons were uncovered. King Herod mercilessly brought Antipater to court, sentenced him to death and only a few days before his own death in 4 BC. Execute. Antipater was buried on the orders of his father without any further ceremony in the cemetery of the fortress Hyrkania , which served as a showroom for killed political opponents. Herodes Archelaus and Herodes Antipas (both from their marriage to the Samaritan Malthake) took over his legacy as the main heirs . Mariamne, the fiancée of Antipater, became the wife of Herod Archelaus, who was recognized by the Emperor Augustus as the main heir and made ethnarch of Judea.

literature

• Ulrich Wilcken : Antipater 18 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume I, 2, Stuttgart 1894, Col. 2511 f.
• Linda-Marie Günther : Herod the Great . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2005, ISBN 3-534-15420-7 .
• Gerhard Prause : Herod the Great. The correction of a legend . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-421-06558-6 .
• Peter Richardson: Herod. King of the Jews and Friend of the Romans . T&T Clark Publisher, Edinburgh 1999, ISBN 0-8006-3164-1 .
• Julia Wilker: For Rome and Jerusalem. The Herodian dynasty in the 1st century AD. Verlag Antike, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-938032-12-1 , pp. 30, 54 f., 58 etc. (see register).

See also

• Herodians