PHERORAS, the fourth Son of Antipater, and Brother of Herod the Great. He is not much known in the History of the Jews, but only by his wicked Artifices, and the Confusion he occasioned in the Royal Family of his Brother. He was the chief Cause of the Death of Mariamne, the Wife of Herod, and also of his two Sons Alexander and Aristobulus. He refused to marry his Niece Salampso, his Brother’s Daughter, because he was in Antiq. l. 16. c. 11.love with a Servant Maid that he kept. However, afterwards he married Cypros, another of his Brother’s Daughters, and join’d in the Conspiracy of Antipater against Herod. He withdrew from Jerusalem beyond Jordan, and resolved never more to see his Brother.1 He kept his Word, and would never come to Jerusalem, though sent for by Herod, when he fell ill of a dangerous Fit of Sickness. But Herod did not do the same by him; for in Pheroras’s last Sickness he went to see him, and shew’d him all the Tokens of brotherly Affection. Pheroras being about to die, caus’d a Box of Poison to be burnt, which Antipater had provided, and which was intended for Herod.2 Herod made a magnificent Funeral for him, and knew not ‘till after his Death the secret Measures concerted between him and Antipater, to take him out of the World by Poison. This Discovery was the Beginning of Antipater’s Misfortunes.
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