SALOME and HERODIAS, A Curious Mother’s Day Story, Part 1 of 2 Parts

Author: Barbara Nell, Source: articleage.com

First, a disclaimer:
This commodity requires advice about John the Baptist, whose activity and works and words are holy, alluringly inspired, to Christians. The sources I’ve accessed are religious, historical, literary, exegetic, and anecdotal. In adjustment to abstain boldness for the asceticism of the words and concepts with which Christians authority The Gospels and with which Jews authority The Torah, I’ve renamed both ‘translated redactions.’ I aswell use the euphemism, monotheistic god, to abstain any boldness to any celestial and religion. This is an article advised to absorb and acquaint you, Dear Reader, not to could could cause any religious altercation or foment.
Second, a acknowledge you:
To acquaintance Pam and acquaintance Vanessa, both of whom got my analysis juices traveling on Salome, whom, I believed, was trivial, too atomic even for our newsletter. It above down to “Who did she do the abdomen ball for?” I hadn’t a clue, because I didn’t anticipate she was real. They both assured me she was a absolute person. I arrested it out. Yup, she was absolute and…
…she may accept danced or may not accept danced. But, if she did dance, it wasn’t a abdomen ball that she did, nor was it a tap, the tango, or the quick step. The abdomen ball aspect was absurd in the backward 19th aeon by some aesthetic guy, and we’ll get there, later, if it’s timely. She did perform, that abundant is true, and she performed for the host, her stepfather, at the account of the hostess, her mother, and their feast guests.
It was an ball interlude, and it occurred about the 1st aeon AD in a alcazar amid in breadth alleged The Galilee. She may accept performed in a play about some Greek fabulous appearance or she may accept been the one non-Bedouin ( a guest) in a troop of Bedouin entertainers who did folk dances that non-Bedouins enjoyed seeing. If it was the former, the anatomy of the play was rigid: it was a pantomime, with stringed instrumentals to accumulate the adventure band going, mime actors of both genders, all adults, and adolescent accouchement acrobatics of both genders. Anybody was masked. This was a troop of able entertainers on the amount of biggies, not a traveling accumulation (a blazon not yet invented). They were allegedly on the amount of her stepfather and she had time to convenance with them afore the banquet.
If it was the latter, it was a dance, one with a lot of addled and arch tossing, by females in abundant dejected apparel with cowls, and there was a canal accompaniment. The aggregation did not reside in The Galilee, but were nomads from the arid amid The Galilee and Arabia, who had appear by appeal of the biggie. It is absurd that Bedouin dancers were complex in this banquet, for they had to airing a accomplished band in their arid migrations, acreage that abutted both The Galilee and Arabia. at that time There was bad claret amid Aretas IV King of Arabia and Antipas, stepfather of Salome, Tetrarch of The Galilee, the abode breadth the feast and the ball took abode and the abode breadth Salome lived. And, Salome would not accept had time to convenance the addled and arch casting afore the banquet.
So, it was a Roman appearance play about Greek belief that was allegedly performed as the average accident amid courses or the closing accident of a chic banquet. The host, her stepfather, was a Herod we’ll alarm Antipas, (not as top as a King) and the hostess, her mother, was alleged Herodias (a above Queen, afar from her 1st husband, Phillip, a King, and now affiliated to a simple Tetrarch, authoritative her a Tetrarchess, I guess). The bedfellow account contained: nobles visiting from Rome, Roman nobles stationed in The Galilee by Rome, aristocrats from The Galilee and maybe Judea, and Antipas’ Steward, Chuza. Some sources say the feast was befuddled by Herodias because it was Antipas’ birthday, an accidental embellishment, to my way of thinking. A lot of sources are bashful about the acumen for the banquet, so I tend to go with a lot of if it’s a actuality such as this kind. Any feast takes preparation, whether you’re a Queen, a Tetrarchess, or abandoned the wife of a mope. So, forth with the aliment and basement plan, Herodias able for the ball and absitively that Salome’s accord in the ball would be the activity to do afore the feast took place. Herodias is declared as a adeptness affectionate of gal by the amiable tellers of the account (she’s vilified by most) and Salome was her abandoned adolescent (by Phillip), so she allegedly fabricated time to watch Salome rehearse. A lot was benumbed on Salome getting absolute absolute good. Nothing anywhere says whether Salome capital to be a allotment of the ball or was afraid to be a allotment of the entertainment.
Herodias planned a staid, Roman affair. It could not accept been a bacchanal blazon feast (similar to the present Wild On’s on E!), as some sources suggest. There were acrimonious Roman rules about blue-blooded women and what they can appear and do in while in attendance. Herodias was top built-in and from Judea. (Antipas, her additional husband, was not as top born, advancing from an Idumean ancestor and possibly a Samarian mother.)
Salome was just a kid at the time of the banquet. Some sources say she was a teenager, but they accept to in adjustment for added locations of the fable to fit. (We’ll get to the added locations later.) I agnosticism if she was a conjugal teenager. She was royalty, a Princess, in fact, with actual acceptable claret on her mother’s side, Maccabean blood, which was admired even by Rome, who, by the way, had baffled Judea (and The Galilee) continued afore this time and fabricated this breadth a allotment of their Empire. Modesty and abstemiousness were appropriate for this blazon changeable from a Roman standpoint and a Maccabean standpoint (her bloodline was matriarchal). She had to be dutiful, respectful, and apprentice at her mother’s knee, an important custom amidst the Maccabean women. She was a acceptable kid. So, she couldn’t accept been a jailbait and accustomed to perform. It would abate her approaching amount in the alliance market, Roman or otherwise, and it would accept been a sin. I would admonish she had to be beneath than Nadia Comaneci’s age if she blew abroad the Olympic board in 1976, but she was allegedly just as agile.
It’s apparent that Herodias accustomed her daughter’s activity continued afore the banquet, for kids accept a addiction to affectation what they’re acceptable at continued afore there’s a use for the tendency. It could accept been a abiogenetic bequest to the time afore the Maccabees were answer to highborn, the time if the men were just about the best blackmailer fighters in Judea and begin the aerial regions about Judea accomplished breadth to attract their foes into combat. She was allegedly appreciative of this addiction and adeptness abundant to see a appliance for her own good. This aswell pre-supposes that Herodias ability accept had added acquaintance in Salome’s accomplishments than Roman blue-blooded mothers or that there was a lot of acquaintance amid blue-blooded mothers and their daughters at that time. In either case, Herodias planned the feast and the ball and included her active babe in the entertainment, authoritative abiding Salome apposite and would do a acceptable job in the acrobatic kid allotment of the troop…a multi-tasking woman for sure.
Protocol at chic and academic banquets breadth Roman blurred mucks were arrive was stringent. This would accept been actual important to Antipas, also. He had been aloft in Rome (maybe even a earnest child) and the acreage he administered at the time of the feast had been ancestral to him by Rome. Augustus (of the Cleopatra story) had handled the appointment of Antipas’ father’s astronomic acreage if he, accepted as Herod The Great, died. Antipas was not blessed with the way Poppa’s acreage was apportioned, acquainted he had gotten the abbreviate stick amidst his four brothers. (He had.) He would accept been very, actual Roman at this Roman feast in adjustment to accomplish nice and accept this get aback to Rome.
The men would accept reclined on the agnate of 1st aeon Barco-Loungers and ate admirable things and drank admirable wine moderately, while trading agreeable belief and quips and affable amidst anniversary other. I’m not abiding just what affable is, but I am abiding they bantered. They would accept been abiding in a ambit pattern. The women guests and their hostess would accept sat on chairs and I couldn’t amount out breadth the chairs were placed, aural the ambit in a band or alfresco the ambit in a line. But in any case, they would accept sat on fancy, but harder backed, chairs in a band and would not accept eaten, bashed wine, but I advance they may accept bantered. Their job was to just sit, all gussied up and smellin’ good. (They would eat and drink, later, if they got home or if the guests left, depending on your perspective.)
Salome could not accept been invited. If she had been invited, she would accept larboard her fancy, hard-backed armchair abandoned in adjustment to get into apparel and perform. Antipas would accept noticed the abandoned armchair and accept asked someone, “Where did the kid go?” And, anyone would accept said, “She’s traveling to perform.” That would accept taken the ball out of this next allotment of the story. Let’s agree; she was not arrive to the banquet.
At the able time, the play was performed, and the admirers clapped afterwards it was over. Antipas complimented the performers, again singled one out. Because it was Salome that was singled out, I accept she was one of the masked acrobats. It abandoned makes sense. Antipas allegedly didn’t admit the stepdaughter he had aloft aback adolescence as the accomplished acrobat in the play. Rather, he anticipation her one of the professionals, for if he had accustomed her, he wouldn’t accept offered the giftreward. He just would accept said, “Good job, sweetie. Go get washed. You’ll bolt cold.” Therefore, because he didn’t admit her, he fabricated a magnanimous action (It’s not absurd that he was assuming off for the guests, for Antipas was a doodle-head, didn’t anticipate things through. We’ll get to that, later.), and he offered the acrobat-Salome annihilation she acclimatized as a allowance from him for her accomplished performance. This is absolutely what Herodias had planned to happen. She knew her guy appealing able-bodied and she knew her little babe absolute well. The amiable tellers were right: she was a adeptness gal.
Since all sources aspect what comes next as engendered by Herodias, the acrobat-Salome had to accept asked him to delay a minute and had to accept gone to the armchair line, breadth her mother and the added women were sitting, contrarily Herodias would not accept been associated with what comes next. (It would accept been abandoned Salome who would accept been associated with what comes next.). So, the mother and babe had to accept conferred quietly, while Antipas (and the guests) watched. Perhaps, Salome said, “Euwww,” as kids do if they apprehend something revolting; or perhaps, not. She was a 1st aeon kid and they may accept been altered from 21st aeon kids. I anticipate not. Kids are kids. She said “Euwww.” Dutifully, she listened carefully to what her mother told her and she allegedly again it aback to Herodias, so that she got it appropriate and straight. Then, she, the acrobat-Salome, came aback to Antipas with the allowance idea: the arch of the continued time captive John (who afterwards became John the Baptist, but who was abandoned the captive John at this time) on a bowl (which was allegedly not a platter, but a charger).
It’s accessible that he accustomed Salome at this point. It doesn’t absolutely matter. I do apperceive he knew he had been set up by his wife, Herodias, via this acrobat-Salome, if he heard the achievement reward. And he was abashed and ashamed and in a accessible quandary. It’s accessible he questioned the acrobat-Salome with an ‘are you kidding? affectionate of question, while searching in Herodias’ direction, who either shrugged her amateur or nodded ‘yes.’ From a acknowledged standpoint, he did not accept to account this acrobat-Salome’s request, for it wasn’t hers. It was Herodias.’ But that’s not how it went down.
Everyone at the feast knew there had been a big mad amid Herodias and Antipas apropos John for a long, continued time. She had capital him asleep absolute for talking generally and abominably about her and her alliance to Antipas to anybody and anyone who would accept to him. John had labeled it incestuous and it was, affectionate of, but by abandoned a technicality, like the baby book in a big continued contract. Herodias’ aboriginal husband, the Herod we’re calling Phillip, was Antipas’ bisected brother. They aggregate the aforementioned father, Herod The Great, but had altered mothers. Phillip was still active in Judea breadth he was King (Rome gave him a ample allocation of his father’s estate, beyond than Antipas..) and as continued as Phillip lived, Herodias and Antipas had an incestuous marriage. As anon as he died, it would be an accept marriage. But, he hadn’t died, yet.
Although it was the account that agitated Herodias (A acceptable circuit doctor would accept helped, but they were 2000 years down the alley in development.), it was the religious aberration John put on the abstruse incest that agitated Antipas. John attributed all the being that had gone amiss in The Galilee aback they affiliated (and being had gone wrong, for Antipas was a doodle-head) to the marriage. And, John said that the monotheistic god was affronted with her, added than Antipas, because of her acceptable Maccabean claret (a mix of Idumean and Samarian claret after-effects in a getting that the monotheistic god doesn’t apprehend abundant from), and would break affronted with her and get added so, so the acrimony would discharge over to the accomplished of The Galilee, until she and Antipas breach (or, I guess, until Phillip died, a agency that was out of her hands).
People listened to that affectionate of being at that time and in that abode and they got absolute scared. A monotheistic god’s acrimony was a abhorrent thing. Famine, drought, disease, pestilence, flood, invasion, even concealment – annihilation could appear if a monotheistic god was angry. While there hadn’t been famine, drought, disease, pestilence, flood, invasion, or even an concealment in The Galilee, Antipas had absent a war, his first, with Nabatea, their acquaintance in Arabia.
Herodias could accept been a accessible position should important humans accept listened to John’s predictions. Luckily for her, the important humans had added things on their mind. Antipas said ‘no’ to killing John and ‘yes’ to imprisoning him, assertive that would shut John up. Some sources said Antipas had a activity that John’s predictions were true; others said he had a feel for the monotheistic deity. Still others say he was abandoned acting like a political animal, notably, a fox. At any rate, John was not killed, but imprisoned, and he had been admiring in the bastille for abounding years at the time of the banquet.
Now, killing a bounded captive was no big accord anywhere in the 1st aeon apple of the Roman Empire and accepting a captive asleep to accolade an active acrobat was addition the accolade idea, but… it could work. The activity is that the arch on a plattercharger was the agenda that fabricated it a bigger deal. This blow was a gruesome, absolutely barbaric, affecting activity and would could could cause a aspersion and account all over Judea and in Rome, what Antipas did not charge if he were to anytime get any added acreage from his asleep father’s acreage from Rome. (And it did, for Flavius Josephus in his book, “Antiquities,” autograph to and for Rome about 100 years afterwards the accident ,included the accident for it was still so juicy. This, by the way, is how we apperceive about some locations of it.) (An important catechism occurs to me and that is this: How and breadth did Herodias get this notion? The actual best I can appear up with is the Greek allegory of Perseus and Medusa and their action to death. Perseus won. He decapitated Medusa and coiled her arch about and took it a agglomeration of places as a talisman. It accept to accept been abominable afterwards a time. Maybe that’s breadth she got it, for she was able-bodied educated. Perhaps, she again pragmatically acclimatized it to the appropriate bearings at hand. Beheading was a accepted blazon of afterlife and an atonement blazon of beheading for abyss and warriors amidst the Romans and the Maccabees and the Arabians. This, I discovered, from plunking about on the Internet to some actual awe-inspiring websites. I don’t acclaim you analysis this out for yourself. Truthfully, I cannot brainstorm breadth she got this embellishment. One of these awe-inspiring websites calls her talented.)
The doodle-head complied.
A agent was beatific to the breastwork alleged Macharerus (now alleged Mukawir) in an breadth alleged The Perea (now allotment of Amman, Jordan) breadth John was imprisoned. A nameless bouncer cut off his head, and got a agent to back it to the alcazar about in The Galilee, breadth the feast guests were waiting, the males still affable with one another, I guess, to canyon the time; the females still sitting agilely on their harder chairs, smellin’ good. The acrobat-Salome allegedly went off about to bath and change clothes, again alternate to the feast allowance to angle next to her (talented) Momma or angle with the performers. The guards put the headless physique somewhere, waited for added orders.
I couldn’t acquisition out how far abroad the breadth The Parea was from The Galilee, for I couldn’t pin down absolutely what city-limits the alcazar was amid in the breadth accepted as The Galilee, then, the breadth breadth the feast occurred. Let’s accept it wasn’t awfully far, so the agent carrying the arch could get from there to there quick. He accustomed and a kitchen assistant brought a plattercharger (No one knows if it was a bowl fabricated out of silver, gold, porcelain, or stoneware. In fact, no one cared. Furthermore, it may not accept been a platter, but a charger, which is beyond than a bowl and abate than a bowl and adequate beneath a bowl at a table account and was generally of adored metal. Aback it’s a Roman banquet, humans took morsels of this and that from servant-held chargers, didn’t accept a table account at all. They were reclining.) breadth the arch was placed. Addition servant, a confined type, brought the arch to the feast anteroom and stood in foreground of Antipas. It’s accessible he directed the assistant to acrobat-Salome, who took the plattercharger and gave it to her Mother. One redactor antecedent makes Herodias even added abominable stating: she got a brand and stabbed the tongue. This is an adornment that even Flavius Josephus didn’t believe, so he doesn’t acknowledgment it. What she absolutely did with it, I don’t know. (People who anticipation John had a absolute band to the monotheistic god requested his physique and his arch from Antipas, who appear both locations to them. They took it to an breadth alleged Samaria, which was abutting to The Perea, and active it.)
What happened afterwards this allotment of the feast took place, I don’t know. I brainstorm some guy yawned and said, “It’s been absolutely an evening. I anticipate it’s time to get going.” And the guests all went to their lodgings. It’s apparent that Antipas and Herodias had a continued conversation, afterwards the guests left. If they were abandoned in their clandestine rooms, he allegedly opened the chat with: “We never allocution anymore, Herodias. Tell me what’s traveling on with you.” Salome, who had been up continued accomplished her accustomed bedtime, was allegedly overtired and went to beddy-bye or was put to beddy-bye immediately.
And there you accept it. Salome didn’t dance, didn’t abrasion veils, and had a able band with her Mother.
End of Allotment 1
Barbara Nell, administrator of The Perspicacious Woman OnLine (C), a bi-monthly appearance annual now in its 10th year of publication, has been a closet bug on history all her life.