Herodias

Herodias was a daughter of Aristobulus, one of the sons of Herod the Great, and a sister of the later king Herod Agrippa I. Josephus says that she was first married to a son of Herod the Great, also named Herod, and had by him a daughter, Salome. She then left him to marry his half-brother Herod Antipas, which Josephus calls a breach of the ancestral laws (Josephus, Antiquities 18.109–110, 136–137). Mark names her first husband Philip (Mark 6:17); the “Philip” that stands in brackets in the linked translation of Josephus was added by the translator.

In Mark and Matthew, John the Baptist tells Antipas that the marriage is unlawful. Herodias holds a grudge against him, and when her daughter’s dancing wins a promise from the tetrarch she tells the girl to ask for John’s head (Mark 6:17–28) (Matthew 14:3–11); see the Execution of John the Baptist. Josephus’s account of John’s death does not mention her (Josephus, Antiquities 18.116–119). He relates that she later pressed Antipas to seek the title of king from the emperor Gaius, and that when Antipas was banished instead she refused the emperor’s offer to spare her and went into exile with her husband (Josephus, Antiquities 18.240–255).