After the death of Herod the Great, Augustus confirmed the testament of the dead king by making Antipas tetrarch of Galilee and Perea, a region he ruled for 42 years. The two territories were separated by the region of the
Decapolis, with Galilee to the north and Perea to the south. Threats to stability in both areas would have been clear to Antipas when he took office. While he had been making his case to Augustus in Rome, dissidents had attacked the palace of
Sepphoris in Galilee, seizing money as well as weapons which they used to terrorize the area. In a counterattack ordered by
Quinctilius Varus, Roman governor of
Syria, Sepphoris was destroyed by fire and its inhabitants sold as slaves. Perea, meanwhile, bordered on the
Kingdom of Nabatea, which had long had uneasy relations with Romans and Jews. Part of Antipas' solution was to follow in his father's footsteps as a builder. He rebuilt and fortified Sepphoris, while also adding a wall to
Betharamphtha in Perea. The latter city was renamed Livias after Augustus' wife
Livia, and later Julias after
his daughter. However, the tetrarch's most noted construction was his capital on the western shore of the
Sea of Galilee,
Tiberias, so named to honour his patron
Tiberius, who had succeeded Augustus as emperor in 14 AD. Residents could bathe nearby at the warm springs of
Emmaus, and by the time of the
First Jewish-Roman War the city's buildings included a stadium, a royal palace, and a sanctuary for prayer. It gave its name to the sea and later became a centre of
rabbinic learning after the
Jewish-Roman wars. However, pious Jews at first refused to live in it because it was built atop a graveyard and therefore a source of
ritual impurity. Antipas had to colonize it with a mixture of foreigners,
forced migrants, poor people, and freed slaves. At other times Antipas was more sensitive to Jewish tradition. His coins carried no images, which would have violated Jewish prescriptions against
idolatry. When
Pontius Pilate, governor of Judea from 26 to 36, caused offence by placing votive shields in the Antonia palace at
Jerusalem, Antipas and his brothers successfully petitioned for their removal.
John the Baptist and Jesus , 1509
Marriage to Herodias Early in his reign, Antipas had married
Phasa'el, the daughter of King
Aretas IV of Nabatea. However, on a visit to Rome he stayed with his half-brother
Herod II and there he fell in love with his wife,
Herodias, granddaughter of Herod the Great and
Mariamne I, and the two agreed to marry after Herod Antipas had divorced his wife. Phasa'el learned of the plan and asked permission to travel to the frontier fortress of
Machaerus, whence Nabatean forces escorted her to her father. With his daughter safe in his custody, Aretas declared war on Herod.
Josephus states that Aretas was joined in this war by "fugitives from the tetrarchy of Phillip", whereas
Moses of Chorene states that Aretas was joined by the
Edessan army. It is said that the joint Petra-Edessan army prevailed over the forces of Herod Antipas. It is generally agreed that the war, in which Herod was defeated, occurred in 36, a year before the death of Tiberius. A point of contention today is how long before Fis early 30s (as indicated by the Gospel of Luke).
John's ministry and execution Antipas faced more immediate problems in his own tetrarchy after
John the Baptist (in 28/29 according to the
Gospel of Luke or 27, if the co-regency of Augustus and Tiberius is included in Luke's reckoning of time, for which there is some evidence) began a ministry of preaching and
baptism by the
Jordan River, which marked the western edge of Antipas' territory of Perea. The
Gospels state that John attacked the tetrarch's marriage as contrary to Jewish law (it was incestuous, as Herodias was also Antipas' niece, but also John criticized the fact that she was his brother's wife (), lending credence to the belief that Antipas and Herodias married while Herod II was still alive), while Josephus says that John's public influence made Antipas fearful of rebellion. John was imprisoned in
Machaerus and
later executed by beheading. According to
Matthew and
Mark, Herod was reluctant to order John's death. However, during his birthday banquet, he had been so pleased by the dancing of Herodias' daughter (unnamed in the text but named by Josephus as
Salome), he had sworn an oath and promised to grant whatever she asked. Her mother then prompted her to ask for John's head on a platter. Compelled not to violate his oath to the girl or the guests, Antipas ordered John beheaded.
Jesus' ministry and trial Among those baptized by John was
Jesus of Nazareth, who began his own ministry in Galilee, causing Antipas, according to Matthew and Mark, to fear that John had been
raised from the dead.
Luke states that a group of
Pharisees warn Jesus to flee because Antipas was plotting his death, whereupon Jesus denounces the tetrarch as a "fox" and declares that he, Jesus, would not fall victim to such a plot to run from heading towards Jerusalem because "it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem". Luke also credits the tetrarch with a role in Jesus' trial. According to Luke, Pilate, on learning that Jesus was a Galilean and therefore under Herod's jurisdiction, sent him to Antipas, who was also in Jerusalem at the time. Initially, Antipas was pleased to see Jesus, hoping to see him perform a
miracle, but when Jesus remained silent in the face of questioning, Antipas mocked him and sent him back to Pilate. Luke states that these events improved relations between Pilate and Herod despite their earlier enmity. The reason for Antipas' involvement has been debated.
Theodor Mommsen argues that the normal legal procedure of the early Roman Empire was for defendants to be tried by the authorities of their home provinces.
A. N. Sherwin-White re-examined the relevant legal texts and concluded that trials were generally based on the location of the alleged crimes, but that there was a possibility of referral to a province of origin in special cases. If Pilate was not required to send Jesus to Antipas, he may have been making a show of courtesy to the tetrarch and
trying to avoid the need to deal with the Jewish authorities himself. When Jesus was sent back, Pilate could still have represented Antipas' failure to convict as support for his own view (according to Luke) that Jesus was not guilty of a capital offence, thus allowing him to avoid responsibility for Jesus' crucifixion. With the lack of historical evidence, it has been suggested that Jesus' trial by Antipas is unhistorical. English historian
Robin Lane Fox alleges that the story was invented based on
Psalm 2, in which "the kings of the earth" are described as opposing the Lord's "
anointed", and also served to show that the authorities failed to find grounds for convicting Jesus.
Later reign , in the
Brooklyn Museum Between 34 and 36 the conflict with
Aretas of
Nabatea—caused by Antipas' divorce from Aretas' daughter and the rulers' disagreement over territory—developed into open war. Antipas' army suffered a devastating defeat after fugitives from the former tetrarchy of
Philip sided with the Nabateans, and Antipas was forced to appeal to Tiberius for help. The emperor ordered
Lucius Vitellius, governor of Syria, to march against Aretas and ensure that he was captured or killed. Vitellius obediently mobilized two
legions, sending them on a detour around Judea while he joined Antipas in attending a festival at Jerusalem. While staying there he learned of the death of Tiberius (16 March 37), concluded he lacked the authority to go to war, and recalled his troops. Josephus implies that Vitellius was unwilling to cooperate with the tetrarch because of a grudge he bore from an earlier incident. According to his account, Antipas provided hospitality at a conference on the
Euphrates between Vitellius and King
Artabanus III of Parthia, and after Vitellius' diplomatic success anticipated the governor in sending a report to Tiberius. However, other sources place the meeting between Vitellius and Artabanus under Tiberius' successor
Caligula, leading some historians to think that Josephus misdated it to the reign of Tiberius or conflated it with an earlier diplomatic meeting involving Antipas and Vitellius. ==Fall from Grace==