10. Herod the Great… the Great Necrophiliac
Herod the Great (74 BC – circa 1 AD) is best known from the Christian Gospels as the king who ordered the Massacre of the Innocents when Jesus was born. He rose to power after marrying into the ruling Jewish Hasmonean Dynasty, tying the knot with princess Mariamne, a stunning beauty and one of the last Hasmonean heirs. He then killed her relatives, and got Judea’s Roman overlords to make him king of the Jews. Herod was crazy about Mariamne, being both passionately in love with her, and insanely jealous. However, Herod’s father had killed Mariamne’s father and embalmed him in a tub of honey, while Herod had killed her brother and uncle, so she did not love him back, even as she bore him five children.
Mariamne hated Herod, and their children grew up hating him as well. So Herod eventually had Mariamne executed, as well as his two older sons. He was grief stricken afterwards, broke into uncontrollable fits of weeping, went into a deep depression, and was unable to let her go – literally. According to the Talmud, Herod had his wife’s corpse preserved in honey, and kept making love to her body for seven whole years. The Talmud described it as Herod “fulfilling his animalistic desires” with the corpse.
