For the king there were three great perils: the people, Caesar, and his own family.

The descendant of old John Hyrcanus of Idumaea--a Jew only by compulsion--had no understanding of the children of Moses.

He tripped every day on the barriers of ancient law, and often his generosity was taken for defiance.

Caesar was not so hard to please.
He had vanity and laws not wholly inflexible.

Herod's family, with its evil sister, its profligate sons, its voluptuous daughters, its wives, of whom it is enough to say they were nine, its intrigues and jealousies, gave him greater trouble than either the kingdom or the emperor.