Augustus-like Diocletian likewise had a trustworthy right-hand, second self
by
Augustus’s right-hand man de-luxe,
his virtual ‘second self’, was Marcus Agrippa. Perplexed historians wonder why [Agrippa]
did not seize the kingdom for himself.
Introduction
Several tyrannical rulers, who I have argued to
have been just the one mighty emperor, have in common a most trusted right-hand
man, in some cases even given the signet, whose power and influence seemed to
be almost on a par with those of the emperor – yet without any apparent
intention of rebellion or usurpation.
Such amounted to a most formidable, iron-clad partnership.
In my article:
Herod, the emperor’s
signet right-hand man
(5) Herod, the
emperor's signet right-hand man
I considered
Antiochus ‘Epiphanes’; Augustus Caesar; and Hadrian; names
that I had merged into just the one powerful emperor – {a Seleucid Greek at the
time of the Infancy of Jesus Christ} – most notably in my article:
Time
to consider Hadrian, that ‘mirror-image’ of Antiochus Epiphanes, as also the
census emperor Augustus
The
right-hand man (Part One)
-
In
the case of Antiochus ‘Epiphanes’, the highly trusted official was undoubtedly Philip,
a barbaric Phrygian.
-
In
the case of Augustus, the highly trusted official was Marcus Agrippa.
-
In
the case of Hadrian, it was (less impressively, as we know less about him) Herodes
Atticus.
Philip
We read that
the dying king Antiochus ‘Epiphanes’, who had formerly appointed Philip as
ruler over Jerusalem (2 Maccabees 5:22), now bestowed upon him the following
outstanding further promotion (1 Maccabees 6:14-16):
Then
[king Antiochus] called for Philip, one of his Friends, and made him ruler over
all his kingdom. He gave him the crown and his robe and the signet, so that he
might guide his son Antiochus and bring him up to be king. Thus King Antiochus
died there in the one hundred forty-ninth year.
Philip
was now virtually a second emperor.
Marcus Agrippa
Augustus’s
right-hand man de-luxe, his virtual ‘second self’, was Marcus Agrippa.
Perplexed historians wonder why this powerful man did not seize the kingdom for
himself. For example:
https://www.amazon.com.au/Marcus-Agrippa-Right-hand-Caesar-Augustus-ebook/dp/B00TOXQLDY
When Gaius
Octavius became the first emperor of Rome, Marcus Agrippa was by his side. As
the emperor’s loyal deputy, he waged wars, pacified provinces, beautified Rome,
and played a crucial role in establishing the Pax Romana—but he always served
knowing that he would never rule in his own name. Why he did so, and never
grasped power for himself, has perplexed historians for centuries. ….
Well,
actually the king’s second-in-command did
seize power – if but for a brief period of time, in his guise as Philip (I
Maccabees 6:55-56, 63):
Then
Lysias heard that Philip, whom King Antiochus while still living had appointed
to bring up his son Antiochus to be king, had returned from Persia and Media
with the forces that had gone with the king, and that he was trying to seize
control of the government. ….
Then [Antiochus Eupator]
set off in haste and returned to Antioch. He found Philip in control of the
city, but he fought against him, and took the city by force.
In the next
piece: https://prabook.com/web/marcus.agrippa/3739878 we learn two intriguing things: the Census
(cf. Luke 2:1-2) was the dual work of the emperor Augustus and Marcus Agrippa;
and, the latter was given the signet ring when the emperor was ill, “to be
designated the emperor’s successor” (I do not accept the dates):
Agrippa
and Octavian jointly conducted a census and carried out a purge of the Senate;
in 28 and 27 Agrippa held the consulate again, both times with Octavian (from
27, Augustus) as his colleague. In 23, a year of constitutional crisis,
Augustus fell ill and presented his signet ring to Agrippa, who seemed thus to
be designated the emperor’s successor. ….
Philip
likewise, as we read, had been given the signet ring when the emperor was ill
(and dying). But, whereas in the true, Maccabean version, the emperor will
actually die and his second-in-command will continue on, in the
pseudo-historical version, the emperor will rally, and will live to bury his
second-in-command, Marcus Agrippa.
Herodes Atticus
Now
we turn to the emperor Hadrian, whom I have identified as a further extension, alter ego, of Antiochus-Augustus.
Hadrian,
too, then, ought to have had an influential Philip-Agrippa type friend.
Hadrian,
who left a massive impression upon antiquity, is, strangely, poorly sourced. Anthony
Everitt writes of this in his book, Hadrian
and the Triumph of Rome (Random House, 2009): “The most serious problem has
been the ancient literary sources of which a mere handful survive, mangled and
mutilated”.
With
a garbled Hadrian we would likely get, as well, a garbled and semi-fictitious
partner. Indeed, Hadrian did have such a close friend serving him in Asia:
Herodes Atticus (ignore the dates below):
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Herodes-Atticus
…. Herodes was born
into an immensely wealthy Athenian family that had received Roman citizenship
during the reign of the emperor Claudius (41–54). He was
befriended by Hadrian (emperor 117–138),
who employed him as a commissioner in charge of eliminating corruption in the
free cities of the province of Asia. Herodes became consul in 143 and later
contributed to the education of Hadrian’s destined successors, Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus.
We recall that Philip
was entrusted by Antiochus ‘Epiphanes’ with the instruction of the king’s son.
Under his direction numerous buildings were constructed throughout
Greece, including an odeum (called the Odeum of Herodes Atticus) at Athens.
Marcus
Agrippa likewise built an Odeum: https://www.britannica.com/place/Athens/Hellenistic-and-Roman-times
Of his voluminous
output of speeches and other writings, nothing nquestionably authentic survives
….
Haven’t we
read that sort of thing before!’
Tying
all of this together is another name, who, too, surprisingly, may be regarded
as having been a right-hand man of the emperor Augustus.
He
is Herod ‘the Great’.
King
Herod
The
name, Herod, immediately ties in with that of Hadrian’s Herodes (or Herod)
Atticus.
Now
this gains extra meaning when we learn that Marcus Agrippa, our Herod and
right-hand man for the emperor Augustus (see above), had married an “Atticus”.
Thus
we read of “… the marriage of [Marcus] Agrippa to the daughter of Titus Atticus”: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marcus-Vipsanius-Agrippa
Herod
Atticus much resembles our composite Herod ‘the Great’ (= Philip/Marcus
Agrippa) in his Greek-ness; he was filthy rich; had Greco-Roman connections;
his friendship with the emperor; his activities in Asia; his buildings on a
massive scale.
But,
above all, Herodes Atticus (like Philip, like Herod) had “served as a governor
of Judaea”:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/367689?seq=1
Undoubtedly,
King Herod is in need of a major alter ego, or more, given that one
bearing his impressive epithet, ‘the Great’, appears to have left no
significant depiction of himself, qua Herod, prompting my surprised
article:
What, no statuary
of Herod ‘the Great’?
(10) What, no
statuary of Herod ‘the Great’? | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
With
the Maccabean era now collapsed into New Testament times, as e.g. in my
article:
King Herod ‘the Great’
and
with the Phrygian ‘Philip’ of Maccabees 1-2 now identified there as King Herod
himself, it needs to be shown that Herod had been exalted above all the others -
just like this Philip had been in the case of king Antiochus ‘Epiphanes’ - by
the emperor Caesar Augustus.
It
may, indeed, be possible to show that Herod ‘the Great’ was thus (as Philip)
exalted.
Richard
Carrier has written an article, entitled “Herod the Procurator: Was Herod the Great a Roman Governor of Syria?”
https://www.academia.edu/1203990/Herod_the_Procurator_Was_Herod_the_Great_a_Roman_Governor_of_Syria
At the
beginning of the article we learn this intriguing detail (I do not accept the
dates):
In 20 B.C. Augustus toured the East,
settling various affairs, finally landing in Syria, where he acquitted Herod of
charges against him brought by the Gadarenes, and attached the territories of
the recently-deceased tetrarch Zenodorus to Herod’s own growing kingdom. Then
Josephus reports something quite astonishing: Augustus “mixed him in with those
who were procurating Syria, ordering them to do everything in accordance with
his judgement,” or indeed, “he appointed him procurator of all Syria, so the procurators
could manage nothing against his advice.”
“… the procurators could manage nothing against
[Herod’s] advice”.
Wow!
And, just as
king Antiochus ‘Epiphanes’ had highly appointed Philip at the end of the king’s
campaign presumably (though not actually) to the East, so here we read that
Augustus himself had just “toured the East” when he gave Herod ‘the Great’ such
over-arching power.
Now
Philip, now Herod, thus made leading man in the kingdom, the king’s right-hand
man.
The
right-hand man (Part Two)
If
the emperor Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletian is to be added to the terminally
terrible and tyrannical ‘triumvirate’ of Antiochus-Augustus-Hadrian, as at
least hinted at in my latest article (14th February, 2026):
Diocletian
repeating Augustus?
(6) Diocletian
repeating Augustus?
then
he, too, would presumably need to ‘pay his dues’ in this connection by yielding
his right-hand man, his loyal and trusted servant.
Well,
we do not need to go far to find him in the faithful Maximian (ignore the
dates):
Maximian
| Military leader, Tetrarchy, Co-Augustus | Britannica
Maximian (born c. ad 250
… was a Roman emperor with Diocletian from ad 286 to 305.
….
Marcus
Aurelius Valerius Maximianus [Comment: A Marcus, like Agrippa].
….
Born
of humble parents, Maximian rose in the army, on the basis of his military
skill [Comment: Like Marcus Agrippa], to become a trusted officer
and friend of the emperor Diocletian, who made him caesar July 21, 285, and
augustus April 1, 286.
Maximian
thus became in theory the colleague of Diocletian, but his role was
always subordinate. [Comment: Like Philip,
like Marcus Agrippa, like Herod].
Assigned
the government of the West, Maximian defeated native revolts and a German
invasion in Gaul, but he failed to suppress the revolt of Carausius in Gaul and
Britain; after the institution of the tetrarch system (i.e., two augusti, each
with one caesar under him), Constantius Chlorus, appointed caesar under Maximian in 293,
took charge of these areas while Maximian continued to govern Italy, Spain, and Africa.
Although
long viewed by Christians as a persecutor of their religion [Comment:
Persecutor of Jews and Christians, like Philip, like Herod], Maximian seems
to have done no more than obediently execute in his part of the empire the
first edict of Diocletian [Comment: Edict, like Antiochus, like
Augustus], which ordered the burning of the Scriptures and the closing of the
churches. On May 1, 305, the same day that Diocletian abdicated at Nicomedia, Maximian abdicated,
evidently reluctantly, at Mediolanum (modern Milan). As the new
tetrarchy that succeeded them began to break down, Maximian reclaimed the
throne to support his son Maxentius (307).
Persuaded
to abdicate once more by Diocletian in 308, he
lived at the court of Constantine [sic], who had recently married his
daughter Fausta. Maximian committed suicide shortly after the suppression of a
revolt raised by him against Constantine. ….
Comments