He had 14 children. He was the son of a man from Idumea; and although Antipater had been a pious man who had worshipped the Jewish God sincerely, the Jews had always looked down upon the Idumeans as racially impure. And because of Herod's financial assistance, "the organizers of the ancient games elected Herod perpetual Olympic president and recorded it in inscriptions.
At the base? During a civil war in the Empire, Herod won the favor of Octavian, who later became the Roman emperor Augustus Caesar. He arranged for spring water to be brought three and a half miles via an aqueduct, relocated the district capital to Herodium with all the staff that such a move implied and surrounded himself with 10 to 20 trustworthy families.
Moreover, Netzer and others argue that entombment in the tower would have been unthinkable, because Jewish law proscribed burial within a living space.
On top of the gate of the new Temple, a golden eagle was erected, a symbol of Roman power in the heart of the holy city resented by all pious believers. Herod returned to Judea and, by 37 B. Crowning Achievements Herod carefully cultivated his image as a sophisticate steeped in Greco-Roman culture.
Officials were given the titles and functions of royal ministers elsewhere, and non-Jews were given many of the highest posts.