Pheroras’ Wife
Pheroras’ Loyalty to His Wife and Her Family
17.34–35
Pheroras was greatly enslaved to his wife, her mother, and her sister, notwithstanding the hatred he bore them for the indignities they had offered to his virgin daughters. Yet he tolerated them, and nothing was to be done without the women, who had gotten this man into their circle and continued to assist each other in all things, so that Antipater was entirely addicted to them, both by himself and by his mother. For these four women all said one and the same thing, but Pheroras and Antipater had different opinions on some inconsequential matters. [ . . . ]
Pheroras’ Wife Supports the Pharisees
17.40–43, 46–51, 58
They are those belonging to the sect of the Pharisees, who had the ability to defy kings. They were a cunning sect and soon reached the point of open fighting and mischief. Accordingly, when all the Jews gave assurance of their goodwill to Caesar and to the king’s government, these men, of whom there were more than six thousand, did not swear loyalty, and when the king imposed a fine on them, Pheroras’ wife paid it. To pay her back for her kindness, since they were believed to have the foreknowledge of things to come by divine inspiration, they foretold that God had decreed that Herod’s government would come to an end and that his descendants would not retain it, but that the kingdom would come to her and Pheroras and to their children. [ . . . ]
After Herod punished the Pharisees who were convicted of the aforementioned crimes, he gathered his friends together and accused Pheroras’ wife, and, attributing the abuses of the virgins to her impudence, brought an accusation against her for the dishonor she had brought on them: that she had, like one presiding over the games, incited a quarrel between him and his brother, and that by her bad temper she had brought them into a state of war by both her words and actions, and that the fines that he had exacted [from the Pharisees] had not been paid and the offenders had escaped punishment with her assistance, and that nothing that had recently occurred had been done without her. “For which reason,” [he continued,] “Pheroras would do well—on his own accord and his own command, and not at my request or in following my opinion—to send this woman away on the grounds that she will still be a cause of war between you and me. And now, Pheroras, if you value your relations with me, disown this wife of yours, for by this means you will continue to be a brother to me and will abide in your love to me.”
Then Pheroras, although moved by the merit of these words, said that he would neither unjustly renounce his fraternal kinship with him nor give up his affection for his wife, and that he would rather die than live without a wife who was so dear to him. Herod overcame his anger at Pheroras over these words, although he himself would have exacted a very severe punishment. However, he prohibited Antipater and his mother from having any conversation with Pheroras and ordered them to be careful to avoid the women’s gatherings. They promised to do so but still got together when occasion served, and both Pheroras and Antipater had their own parties. A rumor also circulated that Antipater had been consorting with Pheroras’ wife and that they had been brought together by Antipater’s mother. [ . . . ]
At this time Herod commanded Pheroras that, since he was so obstinate in his affection for his wife, he should retire to his own tetrarchy, which he did very willingly, swearing many oaths that he would not return until he heard that Herod was dead. [ . . . ]
Pheroras’ Wife Is Accused of Murdering Him
17.61–65, 68
As soon as Pheroras was dead and his funeral was over, two of his freedmen, who had been much esteemed by him, came to Herod and entreated him not to leave the murder of his brother unavenged but to conduct an investigation into this unexpected and unfortunate death. When he was moved by these words, for they seemed to him to be right, they said that Pheroras had dined with his wife the day before he fell ill and that a certain potion was brought to him in a kind of food that he was not used to eating, and he ate it and died. They said that the potion was brought by a woman from Arabia under the pretense of being a love potion but in reality the aim was to kill Pheroras. For Arabian women are skillful in making such poisons, and the woman they were accusing was in fact an intimate friend of one of Sylleus’ mistresses. [They said] that both the mother and the sister of Pheroras’ wife had been at the places where she lived and had persuaded her to sell them this potion, and had come back and brought it with them the day before his supper. Then the king was provoked and had the women slaves tortured along with some of the freedwomen. The matter remained concealed, because none of them would confess to it. Finally, one of them, under the most extreme agony, said only that she prayed that God would afflict similar agonies on Antipater’s mother, who had been the cause of these miseries for all of them. This prayer induced Herod to increase the women’s torture until everything was revealed: their parties, their secret assemblies, and the disclosing to Pheroras’ women what he had said to his son alone. [ . . . ]
These confessions aligned with what his sister had told him and tended to strongly corroborate her testimony and to free her from the suspicion of her unfaithfulness to him. So the king, satisfied that Doris, Antipater’s mother, as well as [Antipater] himself, had taken part in the evil against him, took away all her fine ornaments, which were worth many talents, and then sent her away and entered into friendship with Pheroras’ women.
Translated by William Whiston, adapted by Aaron Samuels.
Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 2: Emerging Judaism.
