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40 Things About The Outlandish Math Cult Leader, and Other Unusual Facts From the Ancient World

Khalid Elhassan May 22, 2020 33 min

Democritus and Protagoras - Odysseus and Nausicaa (Ulysses and Nausicaa) — 'Pythagoras and the Fishermen', by Salvatore Rosa. Wikimedia

22. King Herod Kills His Kin

herod the great accuses his sons alexander and aristobulus of treason — Herod the Great accuses his sons, Alexander and Aristobulus, of treason. c.1700. Meister Drucke

In 29 BC, Herod suspected Mariamne of plotting against him, so he had her executed. Unsurprisingly, her children resented that, and grew up with a fractious relationship with their father. Two, in particular, Alexander and Aristobulus, did a poor job of hiding their resentment of their father. That led Herod to suspect them of plotting against him to avenge the execution of their mother.

So Herod imprisoned Alexander in 10 BC, and three years later, had him and his brother Aristobulus were charged with treason. Both were convicted, and Herod ordered his sons strangled to death in 7 BC, giving rise to Augustus’ quip that it was better to be Herod’s pig than his son.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.