Mariamne

Grand-daughter of Hyrcanus II, and second wife of Herod the Great. She bore Herod two sons and two daughters. Herod seemed genuinely, and jealously, to have loved her. She, by all accounts, seemed to have taken great pleasure, together with her grand-mother (Alexandra) and Cleopatra (wife of Mark Antony), in making life as miserable as they could for him. (That Herod's mother and sister, Salome, made an opposite party helped ensure complicating things for the king.) She came to a tragic end when—in a fit of jealous anger whipped up by his sister, Salome—he had her executed. Regreting it too late, Josephus tells us, he went on calling for her long afterwards. It has been suggested that Herod's later marriage to Mariamne II (daughter of Simon the high priest) was meant to fill the void he felt from her death.