Herod's Impossible Fortress

Herod the Great was afraid of everyone. As King of Judea from 37 to 4 BCE -- a title granted not by his own people but by the Roman Senate, enforced not by Jewish consent but by Roman legions -- he lived in a state of perpetual terror that was, in fairness, entirely rational. His own subjects despised him. He was an Idumean, an Edomite, from a family forcibly converted to Judaism only a generation earlier. The Hasmonean dynasty he had displaced still commanded fierce loyalty, and whispers of restoration never ceased. His marriage to the Hasmonean princess Mariamne I was meant to shore up his legitimacy, but it only deepened the web of court intrigue; he would eventually execute her, along with her mother, her grandfather, and two of his own sons by her. Beyond his own borders, Cleopatra VII of Egypt coveted his kingdom with an appetite that was political, territorial, and deeply personal. She had already persuaded her lover Mark Antony to strip Herod of the lucrative balsam groves of Jericho and transfer them to her. She wanted all of Judea. If Antony granted her wish -- and Antony, besotted, seemed capable of granting her anything -- Herod would need somewhere to run. Somewhere unreachable, unassailable, where no army could follow and no assassin could find him. He looked south, toward the Dead Sea, and he found a rock.