Note 164 — Chapter XI · JUDAEA AND THE JEWS.

Antipater began his career as governor (στρατηγός) of Idumaea (Josephus, Arch. xiv. 1, 3), and is there called administrator of the Jewish kingdom ὁ τῶν Ἰουδαίων ἐπιμελητής (Joseph. Arch. xiv. 8, 1), that is, nearly first minister. More is not implied in the narrative of Josephus coloured with flattery towards Rome as towards Herod (Arch. xiv. 8, 5; Bell. Jud. i. 10, 3), that Caesar had left to Antipater the option of himself determining his position of power (δυναστεία), and, when the latter left the decision with him, had appointed him administrator (ἐπίτροπος) of Judaea. This is not, as Marquardt, Staatsalth. v. 1, 408, would have it, the (at that time not yet existing) Roman procuratorship of the imperial period, but an office formally conferred by the Jewish ethnarch, an ἐπιτροπή, like that mentioned by Josephus, Bell. Jud. ii. 18, 6. In the official documents of Caesar’s time the high priest and ethnarch Hyrcanus alone represents the Jews; Caesar gave to Antipater what could be granted to the subjects of a dependent state, Roman burgess-rights and personal immunity (Josephus, Arch. xiv. 8, 3; Bell. Jud. i. 9, 5), but he did not make him an official of Rome. That Herod, driven out of Judaea, obtained from the Romans a Roman officer’s post possibly in Samaria, is credible; but the designations στρατηγὸς τῆς Κοίλης Συρίας (Josephus, Arch. xiv. 9, 5, c. 11, 4), or στρατηγὸς Κοίλης Συρίας καὶ Σαμαρείας (Bell. Jud. i. 10, 8) are at least misleading, and with as much incorrectness the same author names Herod subsequently, for the reason that he is to serve as counsellor τοῖς ἐπιτροπεύουσι τῆς Συρίας (Arch. xv. 10, 3), even Συρίας ὅλης ἐπίτροπον (Bell. Jud. i. 20, 4), where Marquardt’s change, Staatsalth. v. i. 408, Κοίλης destroys the sense.