The Romans were regarded in quite
a different light from that in which the Persians and the Greeks
had been viewed, and Herod was only the client of the Romans.
His greatest danger seemed to arise from the still surviving
members of the Hasmonaean family, to whom, as is easily
understood, the national hopes clung. In the course of the earlier
years of his reign he removed every one of them from his path,
beginning with his youthful brother-in-law Aristobulus (35), after
whom came his old patron Hyrcanus II. (30), then Mariamne his wife
(29), and finally his stepmother Alexandra (28), the daughter of
Hyrcanus and the widow of Alexander Aristobuli. Subsequently,
in 25, he caused Costobarus and the sons of Babas to be executed.
While thus occupied with domestic affairs, Herod had constant
trouble also in his external relations, and each new phase in his
political position immediately made itself felt at home. In the
first instance he had much to suffer from Cleopatra, who would
willingly have seen Palestine reduced under Egyptian domination
once more, and who actually succeeded in inducing Antony to take
from Herod several fair and valuable provinces of his realm.
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