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Powerful Historic Family Dynasties that Are Rotten to the Core

Khalid Elhassan June 8, 2022 38 min

The Koch brothers, Charles, left, and David. Competition Policy International

23. A Great King’s Great Problems at Home

Dynasty Facts - Detail from 'Herod and Mariamne', by Luca Ferrari — Detail from ‘Herod and Mariamne’, by Luca Ferrari. Magnolia Box

Mariamne was a stunning beauty, and Herod was crazy about her – but not in a good way. On the one hand, he was passionately in love with her. On the other hand, he was also crazy jealous. While Herod loved Mariamne, she did not feel the same. It was probably understandable since Herod had eliminated her brother and uncle. Also, Herod’s father had ended Mariamne’s father, then embalmed him in a tub of honey. Nonetheless, Herod had five children with her – two girls and three boys.

Herod might have been crazy in love with Mariamne, but considering how many of her relatives Herod had disposed of, she could not bring herself to love him back. Eventually, after she gave birth to their fifth child, Mariamne stopped having intimate relations with him. That fueled his suspicions that she was cheating on him. Herod’s mother and sister fanned those suspicions and added to the accusations that Mariamne planned to poison him. Eventually, Herod ordered Mariamne executed in 29 BC. That was bad enough, but things soon went from bad to grotesque.

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.