Herod the Great

Herod I ruled the Herodian kingdom of Judea as a Roman Jewish client king from roughly 72 BCE until his death in 4 or 1 BCE. He forged a new aristocracy and launched colossal building projects, most famously the rebuilding of the Second Temple in Jerusalem and the expansion of its base — the Western Wall stands as part of that work. The crucial details of his reign come down through the 1st century CE historian Josephus, who documented both the scale of Herod's achievements and the tyrannical edge various historians have since assigned to his rule. The Christian Bible names him as the coordina…