ABSTRACT
Prior to the age of Rousseau, biography as a genre was practically nonexistent, and this is true in Jewish history, with two outstanding exceptions in the ancient world: Herod, king of Judaea, and Josephus, priest turned historian. The biographies of Herod and Josephus are the best-documented and most controversial in ancient Jewish history. Josephus seems often to have copied his sources, friendly and unfriendly, verbatim, perpetuating a mixture of myth and reality, truth and fiction, inaccuracy and exaggeration. The charges against Herod are formidable. Herod came to power with Roman aid against the will of the people. Herod’s chief aim as client-king was to Hellenize his subjects, assimilate them into the Roman empire, and accustom them to Roman administration. Herod carried out his ambitious program of the Hellenization of Palestine through ruthless taxation.
