him, to be administered by the Romans themselves
through their procurators, of whom Pilate was one. Galilee and Peraea
were given to another son, Antipas; and a region more to the north to a
third, Philip. Our present Herod is Antipas.

He was a man of some ability and at the outset of his career gave
promise of ruling well. Like his father, he had a passion for
architecture, and among his achievements in this line was the building
of the city of Tiberias, well known in connection with modern missions.
But he took a step which proved fatal when he entered into an intrigue
with Herodias, the wife of his own brother Philip. She left her
husband to come to him, and he sent away his own wife, the daughter of
Aretas, the king of Arabia Petraea. Herodias was a much stronger
character than he; and she remained at his side through life as his
evil genius. Better aspirations were not, however, wholly extinguished
in him even by this fall. When the Baptist began to fire the country,
he took an interest in his preaching, and invited him to the palace,
where he heard him gladly, till John said, "It is not lawful for thee
to have her." For this the great preacher was cast into prison; but
even then Herod frequently sent for him. Manifestly he was under
religious impression. He admired the character and the teaching of
John. It is said "he did many things." Only he could not and would
not do the one thing needful: Herodias still retained her place.
Naturally she feared and hated the man of God, who was seeking to
remove her; and she plotted against him with implacable malignity. She
was only too successful, making use of her own daughter--not Antipas',
but her first husband's--for her purpose. On the king's birthday
Salome danced before Herod and so intoxicated him with her skill and
beauty, that, heated and overcome, he promised--the promise showing the
man--to give her whatever she might ask, even to the half of his
kingdom; and when the young witch, well drilled by her mother in the
craft of hell, asked the head of the man of God, she was not refused.

This awful crime filled his subjects with horror, and when, soon
afterwards, King Aretas, the father of his discarded wife, invaded the
country, to revenge his daughter's wrong, and inflicted on him an
ignominious defeat, this reverse was popularly regarded as a divine
punishment for what he had done. His own mind was haunted by the
spectres of remorse, as we learn