native princes, as to diminish Salome's hate. They could scarcely have arrived at Jerusalem, ere the calumnies and suspicions against them commenced, not indeed, as yet conveyed to Herod by his sister; but reports raised abroad, that they had been heard to speak reproachfully against their father as their mother's murderer, and boldly to assert their own belief in her innocence and virtue. These rumours of course reached Herod's ear, and reviving all the thoughts and tortures of previous years, shook the affection he was beginning to feel towards his sons, and his naturally jealous and suspicious temper regained ascendancy.

Still, though shaken, he pursued his more kindly intention towards his sons, marrying both with great splendour, to wives of their own rank: Alexander, to Glaphyra, daughter of Archelaus, king of Cappadocia, a union which, if approved of by the people, clearly demonstrates how completely the Laws of Moses were put aside, or observed, according to the caprice of the king, and how little that power can be supposed to realise the promises of the prophets; Aristobulus to Berenice, the daughter of Salome. That she should consent to give her daughter to a man she hated, and whose destruction she had resolved to compass, may excite some surprise, but is fully explained by the issue. Whether the princess Berenice's affections were excited towards her husband, or not, we know not; but even had they been, Salome herself was too completely void of any human or womanly feeling, to permit such affection to interfere with her designs, or care for the suffering which in that case she inflicted on her child. She permitted, nay, probably proposed the union, to obtain a

spy on Aristobulus' most private moments, and most unguarded words; and that Berenice could be persuaded as Josephus tells us, into "ill-nature" against her husband, and to "gratify her mother," forge the most improbable tales concerning her husband's private speeches, argues but too painfully, that the character of Salome found its reflection in her daughter; and Berenice married Aristobulus not from affection, but only to aid her mother's plans.

We have no space, nor is this the work to dilate on all the fearful machinations pursued by Salome and her party, against these ill-fated young men. The unsuspicious candour, the open independence, and courageous assertion of their mother's honour, against all who purposely assailed it, were no match for the fiendish subtlety which marked every word and movement of Salome. They actually regarded her as their best friend, at the very period, that her every energy was used in maddening the king against them, till he himself urged on their destruction with the violence and hatred of a demon. The Law of Moses totally disregarded in the condemnation of Mariamne, and the marriage of Alexander with a heathen, was now used by the infatuated father, as a reason for his demanding the execution of his sons.* For five or seven years these machinations worked, ere their end was accomplished by the actual destruction of the victims; and during that interval, the most awful state of suspicion from one man to another, obtained possession not of the court alone, but of the whole population. Executions were constantly occurring. Men accused, however innocent, and tortured into confessions of guilt, which included many Josephus, Antiquities, book xvi, chap. xi.

*

others-dark doubts of friend against friend-brother against brother-till all of nature itself and human affections appeared to succumb beneath the baleful influence of suspicion and distrust; and all this was a woman's work, and originated in a woman's hate, called forth by the petty feelings of jealousy and envy.

In Josephus we find an elaborate, in Milman, a clear succinct, account of this fearful period of Herod's reign. To these we refer our readers: suffice it here to state, that Salome's hate was gratified. The gifted and accomplished sons of Mariamne shared their mother's fate: and though the dark deed recoiled with horror and murder on many of its perpetrators, Salome herself remained uninjured by the shock, spared to work out her own destiny, and in another world receive its recompense.

But let it not be imagined that hate and its concomitant desire of injury were the only characteristics of Salome: her life was one continued course of intrigue, alike political and personal. We do not linger on them; for there can be neither profit nor pleasure in so doing. Her treatment of Costabarus we already know; and before she was married to Alexas, some years afterwards, her conduct had been such as to excite the shame and abhorrence of even those licentious times. Her third husband was Alexas, one of Herod's favourites, and with him she appears to have lived more peacefully and honourably than with his predecessors. That, with all her fearful deeds and thoughts, she was a woman of masculine intellect and immense capability, is proved by the consummate skill and talent with which she always contrived and carried out her nefarious plans.

Often in danger, but never out-witted, she repeatedly saw her companions in iniquity fall victims to their own arts against others, while she herself remained untouched and unsuspected. None but a clever woman could so have intrigued, and kept up such a continued course of fraud, deceit, and falsehood, without ever injuring herself. But how fearfully do those very talents and capabilities increase her responsibility and her guilt.

The only act recorded of her of a somewhat superior nature to those we have touched upon, was her releasing from the Hippodrome all those Jewish nobles and elders whom Herod had collected there, commanding them to be slain the moment of his own death, that there might be a general mourning in Judæa. Before the king's death was publicly known, Salome and Alexas gave them freedom, desiring them, in Herod's name, to return to their own lands. Remembering the character of Salome, we must believe this action, like all the rest, had its origin in policy, not in goodness. Had obedience to Herod's command been equally politic, we should undoubtedly have read of their execution instead of their release.

So skilfully had she contrived to retain her brother's affections, that, though it was to her machinations alone he actually owed all his domestic, and consequent mental misery, Herod remembered her largely in his will, leaving her the cities of Jamnia, Ashdod, and Phasaelis, with five hundred thousand drachmæ in silver. To her too was entrusted his letter to the soldiery, thanking them for their fidelity to himself, and exhorting them to grant the same to his son, Archelaus, whom he had appointed king. Salome read it herself to the soldiery,

whom her commands had mustered in the amphitheatre, and the appointment was received with acclamations.

But her intrigues were not yet over. A sedition in Jerusalem, soon after the accession of Archelaus, though subdued and punished, urged the young monarch to journey to Rome, there to defend his conduct, and obtain the confirmation of his father's will. Thither Salome and her whole family accompanied him, ostensibly, to use her influence with Augustus in his favour, secretly, to work against him, by encouraging Antipas, another of Herod's sons, to come to Rome, and promising him her aid with the emperor to displace his brother. False charges were accordingly brought against Archelaus by a son of Salome, as subtle and intriguing as his mother; and, after a variety of delays and pleadings, Archelaus was appointed by the emperor ethnarch over half the territory left him by Herod (a poor substitute for the title and power of king), and the remainder divided between two of his brothers, Philip and Antipas. Here again we trace the workings of Salome's intrigues, paving the way for the complete reduction to a Roman province of that beautiful land which her brother had so strenuously sought to denationalise. With herself, all prospered. Besides confirming to her the legacy of her brother, Augustus conferred the royal residence of Askelon; and alternately here and at Rome she seems to have passed the remaining years of her existence.

As we do not read any further record of her interference in the government, we are to suppose that she confined her subtilty to more private life. She lived long enough to behold the transient kingdom of Herod swallowed up in the dominion of the Romans: her