Extremes of temperament were in these two. The Roman was
cold, calm, of unfailing prudence; the Jew hot-blooded, reckless, and
warmed by a word into startling and frank ferocity. The one was keen
and delicate, the other blunt and robust. The emperor was a fox, the
king a lion. Herod and his people were now worried with mutual
distrust. He had no faith in any man, and no man--not even the emperor
by whose sufferance he held the crown--had any faith in him. The king
feared the people and the people feared the king.
Herod began his career with good purposes. An erect, powerful, and
handsome youth of Arabic and Idumaean blood, brave with lance and
charger, he raided the bandit chieftain Hezekias and slew him, with all
his followers. The Sanhedrim thought not of his valor but only of the
ancient law he had broken. They put him on trial for usurping the
power of life and death. In the midst of his peril he escaped, taking
with him the seed of those dark revenges which, when he got the crown,
destroyed all save a single member of the old court of justice and the
confidence of his people.
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