COSTOBARUS, an Idumæan descended from one of the most illustrious Families of the Country, whose Ancestors had been Priests of the God Chosen, who was worshipped by the Idumæans, before they were subdued by John Hircanus, and by him compell’d to receive Circumcision1. Herod the Great, to whom Costobarus had been very serviceable, gave him his Sister Salome in Marriage. But Costobarus, pushed on by an unmeasurable ambition, intended to persuade the Idumæans to shake off the Jewish Yoke, and wrote to Queen Cleopatra, desiring her to ask this Kingdom of Mark Antony, imagining that this Princess would set the Crown upon his Head. Herod, upon a discovery of this Conspiracy, determined to put Costabarus to death: But Salome his Sister, and Costobarus’s Wife, obtained his Pardon, and preserved his Life.
Sometime after, Costobarus having quarrelled with Salome, she separated from him, and accused him afterwards to Herod, of being concerned in the Conspiracy, which Antipater, Lysimachus, and Dositheus were engaged in, and of saving and receiving into one of his Castles the Children of Babas, whom Herod had commanded to be executed, when he took Jerusalem. These Accusations upon enquiry proving true, Herod put Costobarus to death2, in the year of the World 3978. before the vulgar Æra 26.
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