Herodian

King Herod knew where he wanted to spend eternity: at Herodium, a mountain in the wilderness where he won a battle with the Parthian (Iranian) army in 40 B.C.E. After his victory, Herod fled to Rome where he was crowned King of Israel. With the help of the Roman army, he took complete control of the country three years later.

Fortunately for the king, when the end came in 4 B.C.E. after a debilitating illness, his son Archelaus carried out his father’s wishes. At the funeral he “omitted nothing of magnificence. . . there was a bier all of gold, embroidered with precious stones, and a purple bed of various contexture, with the dead body upon it, covered with purple; and a diadem was put upon his head, and a crown of gold above it . . the body was carried two hundred furlongs, to Herodium, where he had given order to be buried,” as Josephus Flavius — Jewish warrior turned Roman historian during the Great Revolt of 66-73 C.E. — wrote in Wars of the Jews.

Today, Herod’s Herodium is located inside Herodian National Park.