Biblical villain King Herod killed his own children—and his wife
The Roman-backed ruler grew increasingly paranoid and murderous during his reign.
If there is a villain in the Nativity story it is surely Herod, the monarch who supposedly slaughtered thousands of infants and toddlers to exterminate his rival, the baby Jesus. He is reviled in Christian tradition as a cruel tyrant—but while his reputation for ruthlessness is deserved, he may not have slaughtered the children of Bethlehem.
A King Made by Rome
Herod the Great, who ruled Judea from 37 to 4 BCE, lived a life defined by political maneuvering and an unrelenting struggle to secure his power. Herod was not born into a long royal lineage, and he had no priestly background. He was an Idumaean, part of an ethnic group from an area of Southern Judea who were thought to be descendants of the Biblical patriarch Esau. As such, he was an outsider to the Hasmonean dynasties that had ruled Judea for a century before his reign. Adam Kolman Marshak, author of The Many Faces of Herod the Great, said that his religious credentials were equally tenuous: “His grandfather had converted, and thus many saw him as not fully Jewish. For an Idumaean courtier to become king of Judaea was quite a political feat and required significant luck and help from Rome.
What he lacked in pedigree, however, he more than made up for in political instinct. Through his father, Antipater, he cultivated Roman support during the civil wars that tore apart the eastern Mediterranean.
In 40 BCE, with Parthian armies threatening Roman holdings, the Roman Senate made a bold move. Mark Antony, soon joined by Octavian, convinced their colleagues to appoint Herod “King of the Jews.” In reality, Herod had to earn his crown. There already was a king of the Jews and so, over the next three years, Herod fought a brutal campaign against Antigonus, the last Hasmonean king from the older royal line. By 37 BCE, backed by Roman legions, Herod seized Jerusalem.
Ruling a Restless Kingdom
Herod’s reign was an exercise in constant balance. Rome demanded stability; different Judean constituencies demanded legitimacy rooted in local traditions. Herod’s Idumaean background and his close connections with Augustus meant that he was viewed with distrust as Roman stooge. To manage opposition, he built a sophisticated intelligence network and intervened decisively, and often violently, against real or imagined threats.
The historian Josephus, our principal ancient source for Herod’s life, portrays a ruler increasingly paranoid as the years passed, especially concerning rival Hasmonean claimants. Josephus writes that Herod executed several members of his own extended family, including his beloved Hasmonean wife Mariamne, three of his sons, and his wife’s mother and grandfather.
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Yet Herod was not merely a despot. He was a shrewd administrator whose economic policies boosted trade, agriculture, and urban development. Josephus, who was no admirer of Herod, tells us that during a famine Herod distributed food from the royal stores. He also scaled back taxes twice and maintained a largely peaceful kingdom in a region otherwise marred by instability.
Slaughter of the Innocents
Herod’s reputation for violence is largely derived from the Nativity story, in which he orders the slaughter of all male children under the age of two. The story parallels an episode in the book of Exodus when Pharoah attempted to eliminate the infant Moses by ordering the death of male Hebrew children. There are no other references to this event even among sources unfavorable to Herod. As Raymond Brown notes in his Birth of the Messiah, if this event was factual, it should have left some traces in Jewish historical record elsewhere.
Tim Whitmarsh, Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Cambridge, suggested that the story of the massacre of the infants “may have been borrowed from a similar story told about Gaius Octavius, the future Emperor Augustus.” Whitmarsh explained that “an ancient prophecy had said that a leader of the world would be born in Velitrae, and an omen just before his birth was interpreted to mean the time had come. The Senate, holding fast to the traditional republican idea of ‘no kings’, ordered all the town’s male offspring to be killed; Gaius was spared because his parents did not register his birth.” Stories like this may well have inspired the Biblical author.
“While most historians do not believe the historicity of the Nativity story,” said Marshak “I think it does speak to a certain kind of truth” about Herod’s reign. “In the Gospel of Matthew,” he explained, “Herod is incredibly paranoid and concerned about his legitimacy. Any threat to his hold on power is dealt with as ruthlessly and brutally as necessary. This brutality and willingness to kill anyone who is a threat (real or imagined) does speak to a historical truth about Herod. He knew that his hold on power was tenuous, and he was willing to do anything (even kill his own sons and wife) to maintain that hold.”
(How King Herod transformed the Holy Land)
Herod the Builder
If Herod is remembered positively for anything, it is surely the astonishing scale of his architectural vision. Across Judea and beyond, he left a trail of cities, fortresses, palaces, and monuments that rivaled the greatest achievements of his Roman patrons.
Herod’s renovation of the Jerusalem Temple was one of the most ambitious building projects of the ancient world. The Temple Mount platform was dramatically expanded with retaining walls of enormous limestone blocks, some weighing over 300 tons. Even the Talmud, which portrays Herod as a wicked tyrant, praises him for his renovation of the Temple. Bava Batra 4a reads that “Whoever has not seen Herod's Temple has not seen a beautiful building in his life.”
For Herod, the project served two purposes. It cemented his image as a pious ruler dedicated to the God of Israel, and it showcased his political alignment with the monumental style favored by Augustus.
Herod’s fortresses—Masada, Machaerus, Hyrcania, and Herodium—combined military strategy with royal grandeur. At Masada, he built a three-tiered palace stacked dramatically along the cliff face, complete with Roman bathhouses, storerooms, and mosaic-floored reception halls. Two thousand years later, it remains an example of architectural genius.
Perhaps Herod’s most innovative creation was Caesarea Maritima, a port city on the Mediterranean built in honor of Augustus. Here, he constructed the largest artificial harbor in the Greco-Roman world, using hydraulic Roman concrete to create massive breakwaters. The city boasted a theater, amphitheater, palace complex, and grid-planned streets. Herod envisioned Caesarea as a cosmopolitan showpiece: an unmistakably Roman city perched on Judean shores.
(King Herod's tomb was lost for centuries)
Death and Division
Herod’s final years were marked by illness, political unrest, and renewed succession chaos. Josephus provides a detailed, if at times sensationalized, description of the king’s final days. After Herod’s death in 4 BCE, Augustus divided his realm among three of his sons—Archelaus, Antipas, and Philip—ending the centralized Herodian monarchy. The new rulers lacked their father’s combination of ambition and political skill. Within a generation, Judea would fall under direct Roman control, setting the stage for the tensions that erupted in the First Jewish War (66-70 CE).
A Legacy Written in Stone
Herod’s legacy is complicated. In Jewish tradition, he appears as a usurper and murderer, but also as the one who rebuilt the Temple in unparalleled splendor. In Christian scripture, he is remembered as a villain. In Roman memory, he was an exemplary client king. For archaeologists and historians today, Herod is something else entirely: one of the most transformative figures of the ancient Near East. His architectural achievements remain among the most impressive in antiquity. Walk the streets of Jerusalem’s Old City, climb the ramparts of Masada, descend into the ruins of Herodium, or stand on the windswept stones of Caesarea’s ancient harbor: Herod is still there. The king who reshaped a kingdom left behind a world carved in stone, whose scale and ambition continue to astonish two millennia after his death.
