Simply Irresistible: Augustus, Herod, and the Empire

Abstract

Recent scholarship has been arriving at increasingly appreciative evaluations of Great. A generation ago consensus about could be summed up with words and phrases like ruthless, little more than creature of cruelty, or one of most wicked of men . . . ignorant [and] insensitive . . . bent solely on affairs of this world.1 Although such views still persist - widely used introductory NT textbook describes as renowned for his ruthless exercise of power-more and more frequently we read that Herod was not monster, but rather leader whose actions, within their historical context, were reasonable.2 He can now be described as thoroughly in tune with cultural developments of his age, and as ruler who wished to convey to his people new self-confidence in spirit of age.3 Ehud Netzer expressed emerging new perspective well when he closed his magisterial book on with these words: He was practical and thorough man, with broad world view, outstanding organizational talent and improvisational ability (in best sense of term), able to adapt himself to his surroundings and to changing situations-a man who anticipated future and had his two feet planted firmly on ground.4 Great has been getting makeover. The improvement in Herod's reputation is based on two significant changes in status quaestionis. First, unprecedented amount of archaeological evidence can now be brought to bear on historical analysis of Great. Excavations at Caesarea Maritima, Herodium, Jericho, Jerusalem, Machaerus, Masada, and Sebaste have dramatically expanded scope of our database. Fifty years ago, Stewart Perowne's The Life and Times of Great devoted only fourteen pages to discussion of all archaeological sites just mentioned. In Netzer's book, analysis of those sites takes up 356 pages. The new and more positive assessment of rests on evidence that was still in ground when older, more pessimistic judgments were being written. Second, rehabilitated is considerably more Roman than his older counterpart. In new portrait of Herod, he faces west toward Rome and Augustus rather than east toward Hellenistic kingdoms, and he is described as a friend of Romans rather than as an Arab monarch.5 An earlier generation of scholars certainly knew that had traveled to Rome more than once and that he had maintained long and close relationship with Augustus, but this information did not figure prominently in their judgments. Arnaldo Momigliano expressed their collective sentiment when he wrote that had no deep understanding of spiritual values of Graeco-Roman civilization . . . [but] always retained suspicion and cruelty of Oriental prince.6 Recent scholarship, by contrast, situates within constellation of political, economic, social, and cultural changes designated by term Romanization.7 Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, for example, has recently characterized Roman Empire as the construction of new epistemological system, in which bodies of knowledge previously controlled by republican elites in city of Rome were transformed into diffused multiplicity of knowledges that were linked and interconnected around Mediterranean world.8 In addition, Ramsay MacMullen has described spread of Romanization as combination of push and pull, meaning that both compulsion and attraction helped motivate participation in empire. As MacMullen puts it, Baths and wine and so forth recommended themselves to senses without need of introduction. They felt or they looked good.9 From this perspective, seems to have been not petty eastern tyrant but rather influential purveyor of powerful and attractive new Roman forms of knowledge. In this article, I support ongoing reinterpretation of by offering two case studies in Herodian archaeology and Romanization. …