But just as the acme of his splendour had been reached, he himself
became the instrument of a terrible vengeance for the crimes by
which his previous years had been stained; as executioner of all
the Hasmonaeans, he was now constrained to be the executioner of
his own children also. His suspicious temper had been aroused
against his now grown-up sons by Mariamne, whose claims through
their mother to the throne were superior to his own; his brother
Pheroras and his sister Salome made it their special business to
fan his jealousy into flame. To show the two somewhat arrogant
youths that the succession was not so absolutely secure in their
favour as they were supposing, the father summoned to his court
Antipater, the exiled son of a former marriage. Antipater, under
the mask of friendship, immediately began to carry on infamous
intrigues against his half brothers, in which Pheroras and Salome
unconsciously played into his hands. For years he persevered
alike in favouring and unfavouring circumstances with his part,
until at last, by the machinations of a Lacedemonian, Eurycles,
who had been bribed, Herod was induced to condemn the sons of
Mariamne at Berytus, and cause them to be strangled (Samaria, 7-6
B.
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