In the foremost ranks of classic claimants may be placed the false
Alexander, who claimed the Jewish crown under the pretence of being a
son of Herod Antipas. Herod, although tributary to the Roman empire,
raised the Jewish kingdom to a higher pitch of grandeur than it had
reached since the days of Solomon. Great, however, as were his
military successes, and extraordinary the pomp and magnificence of his
court, his tyranny and cruelty render the annals of his lengthy reign
almost unreadable. The record of his crimes, as detailed by Josephus,
equals in enormity the worst page of Roman history.
Amongst the relatives whom he singled out to inflict death upon were
three of his own sons. Having accused his two sons by his second wife,
the beautiful Marianne, of having plotted against his crown, he had
them both arrested and condemned to death. After the barbarous
execution of an old soldier, Tero, who had nobly pleaded the cause of
the imprisoned princes, he sent them both--Alexander and
Aristobulus--to Sebaste, a city in the vicinity of Caesarea, and caused
them to be there strangled. After the execution of his sons, whose
lives Herod had so embittered that, guilty or not of the terrible
accusation made against them, their fate was deplored by many of their
countrymen, he had their dead bodies brought to Alexandrium, and buried
by the side of their maternal grandfather, Alexander.
About twelve years after the tragic death of the princely brothers, and
when Herod himself had died in the horrible manner described by
Josephus, the Hebrew nation, subdivided by its Roman lord, and infested
by hordes of robbers, afforded a good opening for a royal claimant; and
accordingly one appeared.
A Jew resident in Sidon, greatly resembling Alexander, the elder of the
deceased brothers, in features, was persuaded by a Roman freedman, with
whom he had been brought up, to personate the late prince. Before
airing his pretensions, the claimant obtained the assistance of a
countryman of his who was well versed in the affairs of the kingdom,
and under his instructions the pseudo Alexander came forth from his
obscurity with a plausible story of how the persons commissioned to
execute him and his brother Aristobulus had compassion upon them, and
putting dead bodies in their place, had allowed them to escape. As
usual, a credulous multitude believed in the impostor, and from the
Cretan Jews he and his fellow plotters reaped a rich harvest.
Furnished with money, he next sailed to Mitylene, where he obtained a
further supply of cash, and persuaded some of the believers in his
identity to accompany him to Rome, where he probably expected the
Emperor Augustus would assist him to obtain possession of the kingdom
of Judea; although Josephus strangely asserts that he went to Rome in
hopes of avoiding detection.
On landing at Pozzuoli, near Naples, he was received by the Jews
resident there in truly regal manner, and treated in every respect as
if he were really the legitimate son and successor of Herod. Many
persons who had been personally acquainted with Prince Alexander
positively asserted his identity with the claimant. Accompanied by a
large concourse of people, and bearing with him his accumulated costly
gifts, the impostor entered Rome in regal state, the whole of the Jews
in the city going out in a body to welcome him.
Augustus Caesar would appear to have suspected the deceit from the
first, but allowing the common belief to have some weight with him, he
sent Celadus, to whom Alexander had been well known, to bring the
pseudo prince to him. "Directly the emperor saw the claimant," says
Josephus, "he discerned a difference in his countenance; and when he
had discovered that his whole body was of a more robust texture and
like that of a slave, he understood the whole was a contrivance." The
emperor, however, in order to thoroughly sift the strange matter,
cross-questioned the pseudo prince, asking him what had become of his
brother Aristobulus, who, he had stated, was saved also, and why they
did not appear together. The impudent impostor replied that his
brother had been left in the Isle of Cyprus, for fear of treachery, as,
if separated, it would be more difficult for their enemies to make away
with both of them.
Augustus, getting weary of the conspiracy, took the claimant aside, and
said to him privately: "Do not think to abuse my credulity as you have
done with so many. I am not deceived. Frankly confess the whole
truth, and I give you my word to spare your life. Tell me who you are,
and what prompted you to engage in this plot, for this is too
considerable a piece of villany for one of your age to have undertaken
alone."
Seeing that there was no chance of escape, the pretender discovered the
whole affair to the emperor, pointing out to him the Jew who, noticing
his likeness to the murdered prince, had persuaded him to engage in the
daring undertaking; whose object in the contrivance of the plot, says
our principal authority, being only to get money, in which respect he
had so far succeeded that "he had received more presents in every city
than ever Alexander did when he was alive."
Augustus could not forbear laughing at the man's story; but, for all
his merriment, did not restrain his anger. He had promised the
pretender his life, and, therefore, spared it; but he put him amongst
his rowers, doubtless deeming him fitter to wield an oar than a
sceptre. The contriver of the plot, however, had to expiate his
cleverness with his life, and was crucified,--a usual method, in those
days, of executing important criminals.