Judea by the Roman Senate in 39 BC. However, he came to power only two years later as the result of a bloody war in which his Roman forces massacred women, children and the aged, and nearly destroyed Jerusalem and its Temple.
This stamp of cruelty, the hallmark of Herod’s reign, gives authenticity to Matthew’s account of the Slaughter of the Innocent Children of Bethlehem, even though it is an event not mentioned in any other historical reference.
Paranoid, afraid of attack from both without and from within, Herod built a series of fortified palaces. In 20 BC he began work on Herodion, a twelve and a half acre project overlooking the Judean Desert on one side, and Bethlehem on the other.
Reached via 200 steps along an underground passageway, Herodion’s round fortress had three semi-circular towers, and one much taller circular one, all surrounding a palace with enclosed gardens, pools and colonnade. Despite the extensive archaeological excavations carried out, no traces of Herod’s grave have been found, either here or anywhere else
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Rising above the surrounding countryside, from the summit of the man-made hill of Herodion one can see the Dead Sea to the east, and Jerusalem to the north. |
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