ruler that she is she says, okay, i ll play nice. i will go up and visit herod the great and i will show you how we can spend time together. so, cleopatra travels to jerusalem, and publicly declares that this is a peace journey. that, she is going to make peace with herod. but what she secretly wants is for herod to die. herod has a wide network of spies, and he quickly discovers the truth of cleopatra s intentions. so of course, herod the great now knows that cleopatra is out to get him. cleopatra and herod are very deadly frenemies.
jerusalem. and sets himself up on the throne of david. he understands that that the key to the crown of judaea, to the throne of jerusalem, is rome. the romans want to control the entire mediterranean. and they need an ally. they need a client king in jerusalem. herod. his classmates were the students who later on grew to be the caesars. so, he really was very well aversed in political intrigue and his alliances helped advance his position and his career. and the romans are extremely arrogant and they think they can appoint anyone they like king of anywhere. um, not unlike certain other great powers today.
the palestinian-israeli conflict that we are experiencing today. you ever seen it experienced in jerusalem for thousands of years. for the jews, jerusalem is where solomon built the holy temple. for christians, this is a place where jesus was crucified. for muslims, jerusalem is where the prophet muhammad made the night journey. people are said to have conquered the world that have swept through this city. no other individual changed the landscape in the way that herod the great did. solomon was determined to take on the christians. at a time of ottoman islam rule, the british badly wanted to control the holy land. against british government policy in palestine.
with the help of a plant. the sun is setting. it s beautiful. jerusalem is the universal city. the chosen city. the holy city. that s its blessing but it also gives it its danger and its ugliness, too. because it means that people believe that they must possess it absolutely.
reconfirm herod as king of judaea but he actually increases the size of his kingdom. when herod the great gets back to jerusalem, one would think that, wow, he s avoided this major disaster with octavian. maybe everything would be better when he gets home. but that s certainly not the case. because when he gets back to jerusalem, everything is all the worse.