Since the Accounting: A Chronicle of the Roman Khanate

Chapter 633 Jewish Weightlifting Champion
After leaving the city, Tuo Huan called everyone together and held a meeting to reiterate the mission objectives. Because the Gaza region is the boundary between the Palestinian province and the Egyptian province. After passing this place, they will truly enter the target of this operation.

This border was originally set by Augustus. So, although it had not ruled here for a long time and the boundaries of the local power were unclear, in theory, the Purple Tent Khanate still used this division method.

Taking this opportunity, Guo Kang also told everyone the origin of this division, hoping to remind everyone.

Guo Kang said that at that time, it was the Kingdom of Judea under King Herod that controlled the area around Jerusalem. Due to the successful alignment of two generations of father and son, by the time of King Herod, the Kingdom of Judea had become an important ally of Rome and had the support of Caesar. After Caesar was assassinated, Antony took over the eastern provinces of Rome.

Rome had not been in the Eastern Mediterranean for long at this time, and its rule in the East was still weak, relying heavily on the support of various local forces. For Antony, within his sphere of influence, there were three main support points: Queen Cleopatra of Egypt, King Archelaos of Cappadocia, and the third was King Herod.

These vassal states all had their own tasks, and the Romans also gave them rewards and support. The Kingdom of Cappadocia needed to resist the Parthians who had just expanded here and were still in full force, and also had to monitor the Armenian and Pontic forces who were not honest. For this reason, the Romans gave them the entire Cappadocia region and let them take charge of the mining areas of Galatia; the Kingdom of Judah also had to deal with Parthia and cover the flank of Rome in the core area of ​​the eastern Mediterranean, that is, the Syrian region. For this reason, the Romans also gave the east bank of the Jordan River to the Kingdom of Judah and let them stand on the front line. As for Egypt, it got even more.

But there were conflicts among these allies. Caesar gave Cyprus to Egypt, and Antony gave the distant Crete and Cyrenaica. But Cleopatra was ambitious and always wanted more territory. Her thinking was the same as that of the Egyptian rulers before and after her. She first thought of going north along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean. The Kingdom of Judah was the first to bear the brunt of the attack.

To this end, Cleopatra tried many times to seize Herod's territory, intervene in the court struggles of the Kingdom of Judea, and even tried more than once to use conspiracy to kill Herod through assassination or Hongmen Banquet. Fortunately, Herod was an equally heavyweight conspirator, so she did not succeed.

Although both were important friends, Cleopatra was obviously more important to Antony in every aspect. Under Antony's order, Lebanon was ceded to Egypt. The most valuable property in Herod's hands, the balsam tree garden and apple orchard in Jericho, was also given to Cleopatra as a gift by Antony. As a result, although these properties were in his own territory, King Herod had to pay rent to Cleopatra in order to operate them.

The same was true of his other businesses. King Herod was originally running a copper mine in Cyprus, but the mine owner somehow became Cleopatra. As a king, he was naturally very dissatisfied with being turned into a contractor.

The conflict broke out when Cleopatra and Herod fought over Gaza. Antony came out to arbitrate, and as expected, Gaza was also taken by Cleopatra. Even the sinister Herod was defeated...

The Herod family had always been loyal to Rome. Herod's father, Antipater, was a minister of King Hyrcanus of Judea at the time. When Caesar was besieged in Alexandria, Antipater told his men, "We have to save ourselves," and then led 3,000 soldiers to Egypt for reinforcements. He also persuaded the Jews in Alexandria to support Caesar. After escaping danger, Caesar transferred Hyrcanus to the position of Jewish high priest and made Antipater the governor and ruler, sidelining the former. This is how their family gained power.

Antipater appointed his eldest son Phasael to govern Jerusalem and his youngest son Herod to govern Galilee. Herod was only a teenager at the time and had already begun serving the Romans.

There were many deep valleys and caves in the mountains of Galilee. The extremist Jews who opposed the Romans often hid in the caves and were difficult to catch. So Herod invented a "helicopter box" that was suspended in the air by a mechanical device. The soldiers in the box would use a long hook to hook the Jews out of the caves and then throw them to the bottom of the valley to die. In this way, the enemy was quickly eliminated.

Later, Caesar was assassinated, Antipater lost his support and was poisoned by his political enemies. The Jews colluded with the Parthians, entered Jerusalem, and massacred the Romans. Herod's brother Phasael was also killed. Only then did Herod really step forward and take on the important task.

When Antony marched to Jerusalem, he was attacked by the Parthian army and the Jewish guides. Herod, who was unstable and had only a few soldiers, personally led his men to rescue and saved the Roman baggage train, which won Antony's recognition. Later, when Antony went on an expedition to Parthia, Herod also personally led his army to follow him, and basically did everything he could.

Herod believed that the most difficult people in Rome were the Jews, and the most difficult people outside of Rome were the Parthians. He had to rush to the front line and shoulder both of these thorny difficulties. Among all the friends in Rome, no one was under more pressure than him.

Moreover, this is when he has many internal troubles that are about to explode at any time.

Herod's family was a Hellenized Edomite, a branch of the Phoenicians who lived south of the Dead Sea. Later, the Edomites were conquered by the Jews and forced to accept Judaism, but the Jews still treated them as slaves and inferiors and looked down on them. In order to avoid the Jews from being too resistant to him, Herod married a daughter of the Maccabee family, who was of orthodox priestly descent and had been a king, and was considered the most authentic Jew.

As a result, Herod's family combined the cunning and treachery of the Greeks and the neurosis of the Jews: his son Alexander, his brother-in-law Jonathan, his uncle Joseph and others were all ambitious politicians; his wife Miriam, his mother-in-law Alexandra, and his sister Salome were all well-known lunatics.

Compared with these people, the cruel and indifferent Herod was relatively normal - as a Jew, he even used his own gold to buy food for disaster relief when faced with famine. He also provided assistance to the Greeks who were suffering from the disaster, so much so that he was elected as the chairman of the Olympic Games by the grateful Greeks.

Of course, this malicious act of buying people's hearts was recorded by the priests, and was criticized as a villain in the following two thousand years.

Living in such a heavyweight family, Herod's mental pressure can be imagined. He was considered to be relatively resilient as he did not go crazy directly. However, Antony did not help him consolidate his position and suppress these neurotic relatives. Instead, he allowed Cleopatra to stir up trouble and used these people to cause trouble for him, in order to increase internal friction and costs. If things continued like this, the front line would be left without military supplies and the Parthians would invade. Everyone would have to fight together. Egypt has expanded a lot during this period, and the small Gaza is actually insignificant. But Herod's territory is not large, and it would be more uncomfortable to lose this piece. And this is the hub leading to Edom. After losing it, Herod would not even be able to control his hometown.

At this time, Antony was going to march east again, summoning his vassals to attack Armenia. Herod also led his troops to follow him again. However, after conquering Armenia, Antony suddenly announced that he would give all of Rome's eastern territories to Cleopatra and her children. This move was called the "Donation of Alexandria."

In this dedication, Cleopatra received the title of "Queen of Kings", and her children were also given titles. Her youngest son with Antony, who was only three years old at the time, was given the Greek name "Ptolemy Philadelphus" and was also crowned king of Syria, Phoenicia and Cilicia.

This behavior caused an uproar in Rome. After the monarchy, the word "king" had become politically incorrect in Rome. Moreover, Antony was only one of the rulers, but he gave away the Romans' land everywhere, which was a big taboo. After all, since ancient times, there have been endless cases of gold coins being exploded for marriage, but it was the first time that half of the entire Rome was exploded in one go because of marrying a foreign woman.

King Herod seemed unable to accept this. Originally, they were all vassals of Rome, but then his old enemy Cleopatra rode on his head. Not only did he go from being a "friend of the Roman people" to being a vassal of a three-year-old child...

Therefore, when Antony gathered his army to Actium for a decisive battle with Octavian, the kings of Egypt, Cappadocia, Pontus, and Armenia all led their troops to fight, but Herod obviously did not want to participate. At this time, an earthquake happened near Jerusalem, so Herod went to fight the earthquake and disaster relief, and only sent a general to deal with Antony. As a result, Antony was unexpectedly defeated in this battle, and Herod escaped.

After the war, Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide one after another. After Octavian stabilized the situation, he summoned various vassals and interrogated them about their movements. During the interrogation, Herod placed the crown at Octavian's feet, and then directly admitted that he was Antony's friend and had provided him with support. At the same time, he earnestly asked Octavian not to consider who he had been a friend of, but what kind of friend he was. This straightforward and rational attitude was recognized by Octavian.

Afterwards, Octavian did not pursue the matter. Instead, he assigned part of Lebanon, Syria, and the Gaza region that originally belonged to Egypt to Herod's management and incorporated them into the Kingdom of Judea.

After Herod's death, his children fought endlessly, and finally, under the mediation of Rome, the kingdom was divided into four parts and ruled together. One of his sons, Herod Antipater, was the king who participated in the arrest of his brother in the scriptures.

At that time, the Roman governor Pilate arrested Tianxiong in Jerusalem, but he didn't want to take on this troublesome matter, so he threw it to Antipater on the grounds that this person's activities were mainly in Antipater's jurisdiction, asking him to take care of it. But Antipater couldn't stand the harassment of the Jewish priests, and insisted that you are the governor, the matter is of great importance, so you should do it, and kicked Tianxiong back to Pilate... After that, there were things like trials in the scriptures.

When the great-grandson of King Herod came to power, the Jews rebelled again, and the king could no longer suppress them, so he had to flee to Rome, and the dynasty ended. However, this administrative division continued after the Romans abolished the Kingdom of Judea and existed as a provincial boundary.

Guo Kang said that until now, there are still a large number of vassal states on the border of Rome. How to "manage" these forces is still an important issue that the Romans need to pay attention to.

The ancient Romans left behind a lot of experience, but there may be more lessons. First of all, when dealing with vassal states, we cannot simply follow domestic thinking. There are many grievances and hatreds between them, and the relationship between enemies and friends is not necessarily constant, just like the messy forces around King Herod;
Secondly, the interests and needs of the agents in the vassal state may not be consistent with all the forces in the country. Even the best agents may not be the biggest local tyrants. The Jewish priests were obviously uncooperative. On the contrary, tyrants like King Herod were easy to deal with.

Finally, when dealing with these things, the fit of interests is much more important than emotions, identity, and even religious beliefs. King Herod had multiple identities. Josephus, a later Jewish historian, said that Herod was a Phoenician in terms of blood, a Greek in terms of culture, an Idumean in terms of birthplace, a Jew in terms of religion, a Jerusalemite in terms of residence, and a Roman in terms of citizenship. Which identity to choose is actually to see which one is more useful. Although it sounds bad, this kind of person is actually a qualified agent.

The Jews themselves obviously would not like this example. In their view, the people of the Herod dynasty were all running dogs of Rome, slaves who turned against the gods and rode on the heads of orthodox Jews, and traitors who betrayed their fellow believers. But the greatest achievement of the Jewish regime was achieved by them.

Later, the Jews had an ambitious "Greater Israel Plan" to expand. However, the funny thing is that throughout history, the Herod dynasty was the one that went the furthest in all directions.

Through flexible diplomacy and constant marriages, King Herod's descendants took control of small kingdoms from Cilicia in the north to Gaza in the south, and even the Kingdom of Armenia. King Herod's army crossed the Jordan River and the Golan Heights to the east, firmly controlling the Hauran Plain further east; to the south, they defeated the more powerful Nabataean Kingdom and invaded the Arabian Peninsula. They achieved a record that would be difficult for Jews in later generations to achieve even with the help of the whole world.

Even so, the Jews still called him a bastard, believing that he was not worthy of being considered a Jew, and did not recognize his achievements. It can be seen that a nation that does not know how to respect heroes is obviously pathetic. A group of people who cannot distinguish right from wrong, regardless of their morals, cannot accomplish anything great. Heavenly Father will not sympathize with such people, and they are destined to encounter the tragic fate they brought upon themselves.

Guo Kang warned that although this was just a story about a small country that had long since perished, since they had visited it once, they still needed to remember the lessons. After all, being in such a mess was a perfect negative example. In the future, the situations that everyone needed to deal with would definitely become more and more complicated, so they had to use their brains more.

(End of this chapter)