Pheroras

Also known as: Pheroas · Family: Jewish · Role: son of Antipater · First appears: Book I, Chapter 8

In Book I, Chapter 8, Pheroras was one of the four sons born to Antipater and Cypros, alongside Phasaelus, Herod, and Joseph, with Salome as their sister. In Chapter 17, he offered fifty talents to redeem Joseph, but Antigonus beheaded him despite the offer.

By Chapter 24, Antipater had made Pheroras an enemy of Alexander and Aristobulus. Pheroras refused to consummate a royal marriage because of his affection for a maidservant, so Herod gave the intended bride to Joseph; accusations against Pheroras and Salome were later sustained, though Herod pardoned them. Alexander then accused Pheroras and Salome of joining a plot, and Pheroras confessed the accusations against him and begged Herod’s pardon. After Archelaus defended him, Herod’s anger was mollified. Pheroras was also made guardian to the children of Alexander through the betrothal of his daughter, though Herod later changed the marriages, pairing Aristobulus’s daughter with Antipater and his own son with Pheroras’s daughter.

In Chapter 29, after Pheroras refused to forsake his wife, Herod ordered Antipater to cut off contact with them and eventually expelled Pheroras and his wife from the kingdom. Pheroras went to his tetrarchy in Perea beyond Jordan and swore that “there should be but one end put to his flight, and that should be Herod's death.” After he fell sick, Herod visited and cared for him, but Pheroras died soon afterward. His death was linked to suspected poison and to a plot in which Antipater had poison delivered through Theudio and others for Pheroras to use against Herod; while dying, Pheroras confessed the plot and ordered the remaining poison burned. A second poison was later supplied for Pheroras and his wife, but his death at Tarentum disrupted the plan. Antipater’s tears for Pheroras were afterward discussed in connection with the failed plot.