Archelaus

Herod's son by his wife Malthrace, Archelaus inherited and became king of Judea upon his father's death in 4 BC. Unfortunately, he had all of his father's defects but none of his strengths, and was deposed and exile in 6 AD. He is mentioned only once in the NT (Matt 2:22-23).

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Herod's last will skipped over the two eldest surviving sons and left his kingdom to Antipas. Archelaus decided to challenge his father's decision and took the case to Caesar for arbitration. Caesar divided Herod's kingdom among the three sons. He refused Archelaus the title of 'king,' but made him "ethnarch" of Judea, Edom and Samaria, with the promise of appointing him "king" if he ruled well. Archaelaus, whose name means "ruler of the people" (which basically means the same thing as "ethnarch"; one wonders if Augustus saw through Archelaus' character and was being subtly sarcastic in so naming the office thus!), never made the grade.

In a land in which religious sensibilities was particularly delicate, Archelaus gave great offence by marrying Glaphyra, the wife of his half-brother. The custom of levirate marriage would have excused him for the act but levirate marriage applied only to the widow of a brother who had not bored any sons. Glaphyra, however, was a mother several times over. Worse than that, however, was the tyranny of his rule. Such were things with Archelaus that Matthew—in the only reference to Archelaus in the Bible—reports that when Joseph, father of Jesus, thought of resettling in Judea after his sojourn in Egypt and heard that "Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets: 'He will be called a Nazarene'" (Mt 2:22-23).

Things came to a head when two embassies—one from Judea and the other from Samaria—arrived in Rome and provided quite unanimous reports of Archelaus' tyranny. To forestall the possibility of a revolt by the people, the Emperor deposed Archelaus, and exiled him to Vienne in the Rhone Valley. Judea was then reorganized as a Roman province under the control of a prefect or "procurator" appointed directly by the Emperor; probably the most famous, at least for most Christians, was Pontius Pilate.