| 1 | 47 BC | ROME |
Caesar grants Antipater the Idumaean Roman citizenship, tax exemption and the procuratorship of Judaea, for service in the Alexandrian war. An enfranchised client takes his patron’s name: the house becomes, in law, Julii. The grant is reported by Josephus alone, with no external authority cited and no inscription recording it; the decrees Josephus quotes from the same period reward Hyrcanus the high priest and do not name Antipater. |
42.1.14 42.2.1.194 M4 §2 |
| 2 | late 40 BC | ROME |
The Senate, on Antony’s motion with Octavian supporting, declares Herod king of Judaea; the new king walks to the Capitol to sacrifice between the two of them. |
42.2.1.284 M4 §3 |
| 9 | 4 BC | ROME |
The heirs argue Herod’s will before Augustus in Rome; the kingdom is split three ways, subject to the emperor’s ruling. The Julian patron disposes of the client succession. |
42.1.17 M4 §3 |
| 10 | AD 6 | ROME |
Archelaus deposed by Augustus and banished to Vienne in Gaul; Judaea annexed as a province. |
42.1.17.342 11.1.55 M4 §4 |
| 11 | AD 36 | ROME |
Agrippa, grandson of Herod, imprisoned by Tiberius over an overheard wish for Caligula’s accession. |
42.1.18 M4 §5 |
| 12 | AD 37 | ROME |
Tiberius dead, Caligula frees his friend, gives him a gold chain the weight of his iron one, and makes him king of Philip’s former tetrarchy. |
42.1.18.237 M4 §5 |
| 13 | AD 39 | ROME |
Antipas — the Herod of the Gospels — asks for a royal title, is denounced by his nephew Agrippa, and is banished to Lugdunum in Gaul. |
42.1.18.252 M4 §4 |
| 14 | AD 41 | ROME |
Caligula assassinated. Josephus places Agrippa at the centre of the crisis, moving between the terrified Claudius and the Senate. Claudius becomes emperor owing a debt to a grandson of Herod. |
42.1.19 42.2.2.206 M4 §5 |
| 16 | c. AD 75 | ROME |
Berenice, great-granddaughter of Herod, lives with Titus on the Palatine — by Dio’s account a wife in everything but law. |
11.1.65 M4 §7 |
| 15 | AD 69 | ROME |
The Judaean command raises an emperor: Vespasian, campaigning in Judaea, is proclaimed by the eastern legions in July AD 69 — the Year of Four Emperors. He leaves the siege to Titus and goes to Rome. The war begun in the East against a Herodian-named house is what hands the Flavian dynasty its army, its legions’ loyalty, and its throne. Titus Julius Alexander, prefect of Egypt and brother of Berenice’s first husband, declares for Vespasian first. |
9.6.1 M4 §7 |
| 17 | AD 79 | ROME |
On his accession, under public pressure and the spoken memory of Cleopatra, Titus sends Berenice away finally — dimisit invitus invitam. |
9.5.7 M4 §7 |
| 18 | c. AD 116–17 | ROME |
Gaius Julius Alexander Berenicianus, by the standard prosopography a descendant of Herod, holds a suffect consulship of Rome under Trajan. The name is back in the fasti — carried by the enfranchised line. |
34.2 M4 §9 |
| 19 | 48–47 BC | THE EAST |
Caesar is pinned in Alexandria. The relief marches overland under Mithridates of Pergamum, and Antipater brings three thousand Jewish troops, having also secured the Arab chieftains and the rulers of Lebanon. He is first over the wall at Pelusium; he talks the Jews of the Onias district and of Memphis into letting the column through, carrying letters from the high priest Hyrcanus; and in the Delta battle he rescues Mithridates’s broken wing and takes the enemy camp, wounded doing it. For this campaign Josephus cites Strabo, and through him Asinius Pollio and Hypsicrates — named external authorities, though all reaching us through Josephus. |
42.1.14 M4 §2 |
| 20 | 37 BC | THE EAST |
Herod takes Jerusalem from the Parthian-backed rival; the reign begins in fact and runs thirty-three years. |
42.1.14.487 M4 §3 |
| 21 | 30 BC? (disputed) | THE EAST |
The “year 3” series is struck — the only dated coinage of the reign and its largest denomination: helmet with star and palm branches, tripod with ceremonial bowl, legend BASILEOS HERODOU, date LΓ and the monogram TP. Bronze only, as a client king’s rank required; no portrait and no territorial title. The mint (Jerusalem or Samaria), the domed device (helmet or incense burner), the monogram and the era are all disputed — the standard catalogues date this issue variously to 40, 38/37, 37 and 30/29 BC. On Marshak’s reading it postdates Actium and marks Octavian’s reconfirmation of the crown. |
61 62 M4 §16 |
| 3 | 30 BC | ROME |
After Actium, having backed Antony, Herod meets Octavian at Rhodes — by the account removing his diadem before speaking and arguing the case of a loyal client rather than denying the loyalty. He leaves with the crown restored and the kingdom enlarged. |
42.2.1.20 M4 §11 |
| 22 | 25 BC | EAST |
Famine in Judaea. Herod melts down the gold of his own household to buy Egyptian grain through Petronius, prefect of Egypt, and distributes it — the one relief operation of the reign that is dated and specific. |
42.2.15.9 M4 §11 |
| 23 | 22–10 BC | EAST |
Caesarea Maritima and the harbour of Sebastos: the largest artificial open-sea harbour of its age, built in hydraulic concrete using pozzolana shipped from the Bay of Naples. Dedicated 10 BC with games. |
42.2.15.9 HB |
| 24 | 20–19 BC | EAST |
The rebuilding of the Temple begins: the Mount doubled to a platform of some 144,000 square metres, on walls founded on bedrock. The outer works ran on for decades after the king’s death. |
42.2.15.11 HB |
| 4 | 15 BC | ROME |
Marcus Agrippa — Augustus’s deputy and the second man in the empire — visits Judaea as Herod’s guest, is shown the new Temple, sacrifices there, and feasts the people of Jerusalem. |
42.2.16.2 M4 §11 |
| 5 | 14 BC | ROME |
Herod takes a fleet north to help Agrippa on campaign at the Bosporus — Rhodes, Kos, Chios (where he pays to rebuild the ruined city portico), Mytilene, Byzantium — and catches him at Sinope in Pontus. Josephus says Herod was all in all to Agrippa in the management of the war and his counsellor in civil affairs. They travel home together through Asia Minor, and on the road Nicolaus of Damascus pleads the case of the Jews of Ionia before Agrippa, and wins it: Agrippa writes to the Ephesians confirming the right to send gifts to the Temple and to keep the Sabbath. Herod renames Anthedon Agrippias and puts Agrippa’s name on a gate of the Temple. |
42.2.16.2 5.2 M4 §11 |
| 7 | 12 BC | ROME |
Sailing to Rome, Herod stops at Olympia and finds the games in financial collapse. He competes in them, then settles permanent revenues on them in perpetuity. The Eleans make him agonothetes for life — perpetual president — a title Josephus says was recorded in their inscriptions. The endowment is credited with carrying the festival into the second century AD. |
42.1.16.149 M4 §13 |
| 8 | 12 BC | ROME |
Herod brings his quarrelling sons before Augustus at Aquileia; the emperor reconciles them — the first hearing, five years before the second condemned them. |
42.2.16.4 M4 §11 |
| 6 | c. 20s–10s BC | ROME |
Athens honours Herod with statue bases on the Acropolis, in the standard language of civic gratitude — styling him Philoromaios, friend of the Romans, on one, and Eusebes Philokaisar, the pious friend of Caesar, on the other. Kos honours him in a form read as attesting his Roman citizenship. At most six monuments to him are known in the world. |
52 55 M4 §11 |
| 25 | 4 BC | THE EAST |
Herod dies at Jericho. |
42.1.17.188 M4 §3 |
| 26 | c. AD 6 | THE EAST |
Tigranes V, grandson of Herod through the executed Alexander, placed on the throne of Armenia by Augustus. His nephew Tigranes VI is placed there again by Nero in AD 60. |
42.1.18.139 M4 §6 |
| 27 | AD 41 | THE EAST |
Claudius gives Agrippa the whole of his grandfather’s kingdom: Marcus Julius Agrippa, king of Judaea. |
42.1.19.274 M4 §5 |
| 28 | AD 44 | THE EAST |
Agrippa dies at Caesarea after five days of pain. Josephus and the Acts of the Apostles record the death independently, from opposite directions. |
42.1.19.343 45.1.12 M4 §5 |
| 29 | AD 54 | THE EAST |
Nero, in his first year, grants Armenia Minor to Aristobulus, great-grandson of Herod — a throne from the last of the adopted line to the enfranchised line. |
41.1.13.7 M4 §6 |
| 30 | AD 66 | THE EAST |
The Great Revolt: Judaea rises against Rome — the first month, the Roman garrison at Jerusalem is massacred; the legate of Syria, Cestius Gallus, brings four legions and is driven back at Beth-Horon with the loss of his eagle. Rome appoints Titus Flavius Vespasianus to subdue the province with three legions. Agrippa II argues against the war in the speech Josephus reproduces, and the house sides with Rome throughout — the war ends Herodian rule in fact if not in name. |
42.2.2 M4 §8 |
| 31 | AD 70 | THE EAST |
Jerusalem falls; the Temple Herod rebuilt burns. |
42.2.6 M4 §8 |
| 32 | after AD 60 | EAST |
The Berytus architrave: Agrippa II and Berenice restore a building “which King Herod their great-grandfather had built” — the king’s titles at its head reading rex magnus Agrippa Philocaesar. The name of Caesar carried as a Latin title by the last king of the house. |
53 55 M4 §11 |
| 33 | AD 79 | THE EAST |
The son of Drusilla — Agrippa I’s daughter — and the procurator Felix dies, with his wife, in the eruption of Vesuvius. A great-great-grandson of Herod among the dead of the catastrophe. |
42.1.20.144 M4 §8 |
| 34 | c. AD 92–100 | THE EAST |
Agrippa II — Marcus Julius Agrippa on his coins — dies, the last king of the house. The date is disputed: c. 92 by the common dating, c. 100 by the tradition Photius preserved from Justus of Tiberias. |
42.1.20 M4 §8 |