HEROD 



2784 



HERON 



divorced her to marry Herodias, the wife of 

 his half-brother, Herod Philip. This brought 

 on a war with Aretas, in which Antipas was 

 routed, for he lacked his father's ability in war 

 and also his diplomacy. Herodias made a tool 

 of him; urged by her, he went to Rome and 

 demanded of Caligula that he be made king, 

 as had Agrippa I. Instead, he was confronted 

 by false charges from Agrippa himself and 

 banished to Lyons in Gaul, in A. D. 39, where 

 he soon died. He is the Herod most fre- 

 quently mentioned in the Bible, for it was to 

 him that Pilate sent Jesus just before the Cru- 

 cifixion (Luke XXIII, 7). 



Herod Agrippa I (10 B. C.-A.D. 44), the ambi- 

 tious king of Judea who obtained control of 

 the entire territory over which his grandfather, 

 Herod the Great, had ruled. He caused the 

 death of Saint James (Acts XII, 2), and had 

 Saint Peter imprisoned to please the Jews, 

 with whom his rule was very popular. As 

 the son of Aristobulus, he was educated at 

 Rome with Drusus, the son of Emperor Tibe- 

 rius, where he cultivated very luxurious tastes. 

 For rash words spoken in favor of Caligula 

 he was imprisoned by Tiberius, but six months 

 later, on the accession of Caligula to the 

 throne, he was given the provinces which had 

 belonged to Philip and Lysanias. When Herod 

 Antipas was banished, Galilee was included in 

 Agrippa's territory and in A. D. 41 Claudius, who 

 had just become emperor, aaded Judea and 

 Samaria to his kingdom, which now equaled 

 that of Herod the Great. His sudden death is 

 described in Acts XII, 20-23. 



Herod Agrippa II (A.D. 27-100), the king over 

 the provinces of Philip, Lysanias and Varus, 

 before whom Paul was brought by Festus, 

 where he entirely cleared himself of charges 

 on the eve of being taken to Rome (Acts 

 XXV, 12; XXVI, 32). At the death of the 

 father, Agrippa I, Claudius, who was then em- 

 peror, was persuaded not to give the kingdom 

 to the son Agrippa II on account of his ex- 

 treme youth, for he was only seventeen; so 

 all of Palestine passed under direct Roman 

 rule, with a procurator placed over each of the 

 provinces. In A.D. 50 he was made king of 

 Chalcis, at the death of an uncle who had ruled 

 the territory, but later he surrendered it for 

 the provinces which he afterward ruled. He 

 possessed the family passion for building gor- 

 geous cities, but was unlike his father, who 

 was much interested in the Jews and their wel- 

 fare. When the troubles which ended in the 

 Jewish war against Rome began, Agrippa II 



tried to prevent the Jews from making armed 

 resistance, but as it was useless he remained 

 loyal to the emperor by fighting with Vespa- 

 sian. Later he was made praetor. E.C. 



HERODOTUS , he rod ' o tus (about 484 - about 

 424 B.C.), a Greek historian of antiquity, the 

 first writer of historic narrative which was 

 artistic and unified. He therefore deserves the 

 title, "Father of History," conferred upon him 

 by Cicero. He was born at Halicarnassus, a 

 famous city of Asia Minor. During the early 

 years of his manhood he traveled far and wide, 

 visiting the shores of the Hellespont and of 

 the Euxine, Scythia, Syria, Palestine, Baby- 

 lon, Egypt and the Greek colonies on the 

 northern coast of Africa. Everywhere he 

 studied the manners, customs and religion of 

 the people, the history of the country and 

 the productions of the soil, and his imperish- 

 able History is based on what he saw and 

 what he was told in these travels. About 

 447 B.C. he visited Athens, then at the height 

 of its intellectual glory, and three years later 

 joined the colony which was being founded 

 by Pericles in Southern Italy. Of the rest of 

 his life nothing is known, but, according to 

 tradition, he died and was buried at Thurii. 



The great historical work on which the fame 

 of Herodotus rests consists of nine books. In 

 these he tells the story of the rise of the free 

 states of Greece and their struggle with the 

 invading hosts of the kings of Persia. His 

 pages are alive with human interest and 

 brightened with innumerable stories and anec- 

 dotes, not all of which he himself believed, 

 however. His simple, unaffected style has been 

 the delight of critics from his own time down 

 to the present. 



HERON, hehr'un, a quiet, solemn, wading 

 bird, found chiefly in tropical and subtropical 

 swamps and shallow rivers, but also seen in 

 temperate zones. About seventy-five species 

 are known. One species, the blue heron, is 

 pictured on the screens, fans and pottery of 

 Japanese artists. Other species, known as 

 egrets (which see), are known principally 

 through the greed of plume hunters, for they 

 are to-day practically extinct in many of their 

 former haunts. The characteristics of all are 

 the same, the chief differences being in size 

 and plumage. 



Characteristics. These graceful birds are 

 easily distinguished by their long, sharply- 

 pointed bills, which seem to 'extend into the 

 eyes; by narrow heads and long, slender necks, 

 and by their naked, storklike legs and mod- 



