How to read this family tree of Herod
Read the family tree of Herod from the top down, one generation to a row. Every year here is BC or AD, so the years are written in each title. The six portraits come from later paintings.
The double ring is Herod the Great
King of Judaea from 37 to 4 BC.
A long couple line crosses a row
Herodias and Salome married men a generation above them.
Which Herod is which
The Gospels and Acts give the name Herod to three different rulers and name two more of the family. The family tree of Herod gives each a separate name, and the table matches each to his verses.
| On the chart | Title and years | Where the Gospels or Acts name him |
|---|---|---|
| Herod the Great | King of Judaea, 37 to 4 BC | Herod the king, Matthew 2:1-19 |
| Archelaus | Ethnarch of Judaea, 4 BC to AD 6 | Archelaus, Matthew 2:22 |
| Herod Antipas | Tetrarch of Galilee, 4 BC to AD 39 | Herod the tetrarch, Matthew 14 and Luke 3:1 |
| Herod II | Son of Mariamne II, no office | Philip, the brother whose wife was Herodias, Mark 6:17 |
| Agrippa I | King of Judaea, AD 41 to 44 | Herod the king, Acts 12 |
| Agrippa II | King, AD 48 to about 100 | King Agrippa, Acts 25 and 26 |
Antipater the Idumaean and his children
The family tree of Herod begins in Idumaea. Antipater married Cypros, whom Josephus describes as a woman of an eminent family among the Arabians, and they had four sons, Phasael, Herod, Joseph and Pheroras, and a daughter, Salome.1 Antipater was poisoned through a plot of Malichus in 43 BC.1 The daughter of Salome married into the main line.
Herod the Great, his wives and his sons
Herod was born about 73 BC. Josephus counts his reign from 40 BC, when he was declared king, or from 37 BC, when his rival Antigonus died.267 Josephus lists nine wives living at one time, and Mariamne, already dead, makes ten marriages in all.165 Doris, of a lower family of his own nation, bore his eldest son Antipater. Mariamne, granddaughter of the high priest Hyrcanus, bore three sons and two daughters.2
The family tree of Herod draws five of the wives. Mariamne, daughter of Simon the high priest, bore a son named Herod. Malthace the Samaritan bore Archelaus and Antipas. Cleopatra of Jerusalem bore Philip.16 Pallas, Phaedra and Elpis, and two wives who were a niece and a cousin, are left off the chart.5
Herod had three of his sons killed. Mariamne was tried and executed in 29 or 28 BC.333 Her sons Alexander and Aristobulus were strangled at Sebaste in 7 BC on their father’s order.433 Antipater, son of Doris, was killed five days before Herod himself died at Jericho, in 4 BC by the dating of the Jewish Encyclopedia.6726
The kingdom divided among three sons
Herod’s last will left the kingdom to Archelaus, Galilee and Peraea to Antipas, and Gaulonitis, Trachonitis and Paneas to Philip.7 Augustus did not make Archelaus king. He named him ethnarch of half the kingdom, Judaea, Samaria and Idumaea, made Antipas tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea, and gave Batanea, Trachonitis and Auranitis to Philip.8
Archelaus lasted ten years by the Antiquities, or nine by the Wars, before Augustus banished him to Vienne in Gaul.91727 Antipas ruled Galilee until AD 39, when the emperor Caius banished him. The Antiquities send him to Lyons and the Wars to Spain.111828 Philip ruled his tetrarchy from 4 BC to AD 34 and died childless.2910
Herodias, Salome and the names in the Gospels
Herodias was a daughter of Aristobulus and Berenice, the daughter of Salome, and a sister of Agrippa.16 She married her uncle Herod, the son of Mariamne II, and had a daughter, Salome. Josephus says she divorced herself from her husband while he was alive and married his half-brother Antipas.10 The family tree of Herod draws both marriages, with the first one ended.
Mark 6:17 and Matthew 14:3 call Herodias the wife of Philip, the brother of Antipas.2120 Josephus calls him Herod, and the Jewish Encyclopedia notes that he was Herod, not Philip.1030 Whiston adds Philip in brackets beside Herod, and the chart follows Josephus with the name Herod II.
The Gospels tell of a daughter of Herodias who danced before Antipas and asked for the head of John the Baptist, without giving her name.2120 Josephus, the main source of the family tree of Herod, names the daughter Salome, and records that Herod slew John, who was called the Baptist.10
Agrippa I, Agrippa II and their sisters
Agrippa I, a grandson of Herod and Mariamne, was king of Judaea from AD 41 and died at Caesarea in 44, in the fifty-fourth year of his age and the seventh of his reign.341331 Acts 12 tells of his death in other words.23 His brother Herod was made king of Chalcis at his request.12
At his death Agrippa I left a son of seventeen, Agrippa, and three daughters, Bernice, then sixteen, Mariamne, ten, and Drusilla, six.14 Bernice married Marcus, son of the alabarch Alexander, then her uncle Herod of Chalcis, and later Polemo, king of Cilicia.1215 Drusilla left Azizus, king of Emesa, to marry the governor Felix, and Acts 24:24 shows them together.1524
Agrippa II heard Paul at Caesarea with Bernice beside him.25 The Jewish Encyclopedia gives AD 100 for his death, from the writer Photius, and calls the date not uncontradicted. Livius gives the same year and notes that his rule may have ended after 93.3235 He died childless, and the family tree of Herod ends with him and his sisters.
Questions about the family tree of Herod
How many Herods the family had
Four men on the family tree of Herod are named Herod, and Acts also calls Agrippa I Herod the king.
Who the Herod of the death of John the Baptist was
Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee and a son of Herod the Great by Malthace.
People and sources
A page of its own lists all 25 people on the chart, each with a short note and the sources for it, and the 35 numbered sources this article cites. It also gives the credits of the portraits and this page as a reference in the APA, MLA, Chicago and Harvard styles, ready to copy.