Chapter Twenty-Three
W
hat would my father have done? Antipas tried to comfort himself with thoughts of his father, Herod the Great. He would have slain the Baptist long before I did. He would have never listened to him in the first place. But Antipas had listened to John and had responded to his message. He might even have been baptized by John, had it not been for his position as Tetrarch of Galilee. Power does terrible things to a man’s heart. It causes him to become calloused to such things. . . or does it? Something had touched him. Had it not been for that infernal woman he had married. He sat on the side of his bed, his face buried in his hands. He had drunk too much tonight. But it was too late now. John was dead.
“The Black Fortress it” was called. Machaerus was a fortified city on the eastern shores of the great salt sea, eighteen miles south of the place where the rich Jordan flowed into it and died – as everything did. A forlorn place it was and a good place for a prison. There, because of the incessant nagging of his wife, Herodias, Antipas had John arrested and manacled. There also, he had listened to the prophet, at first out of curiosity. He had come to have a kind of respect for John and his message and was of a mind to release him. But instead, that very night, he had murdered this unlikely friend.
The town had another face. Owing to the hot springs in the hills above the sea, that area had become somewhat of a resort, a place that attracted the rich and noble from “Dan to Beersheba,” all of it rebuilt by his father, Herod the Great, after it had been demolished by Gabinius in his war with Aristobulus. The hot mineral baths had a magnificent view of the salt sea 3,860 feet below. It was in these hot baths that he entertained his friends. It was his birthday. He had a right to enjoy himself with his friends. Herodias had come to Machaerus as well, to celebrate as most thought, her husband’s birthday. She had something else in mind.
He had made the unfortunate mistake of marrying this woman, his brother Philip’s wife. John had told him on more than one occasion “Your brother is still living. It is not lawful for you to just take his wife.” This annoyed and embarrassed Antipas, but owing to his curious respect for John, he ignored the remarks. Herodias, however, was outraged that her husband had given this uncouth man such influence or that he could utter such words with impunity. That is why Antipas had John imprisoned here, to keep him safe, to protect him from the priests, away from the political and religious arena, and her. Except for now.
