herod the tastemaker. near eastern archaeology 77.2 (2014), pp. 108-119

Andrea M. Berlin

108 NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 77:2 (2014)

HEROD THE TASTEMAKER

Reconstruction of the painted interior of the Reception room, Level 3, Northern Palace, Masada. Pl. 11 from Foerster, G. Masada V. The Yigael Yadin Excavations 1963–1965. Final Reports. Art and Architecture. Jerusalem, Israel Exploration Society (1995). Courtesy of the Israel Exploration Society.

luxuria incubuit …Luxury has settled down …

Juvenal, Satires 6.294

For the final four decades of the first century b.c.e. every-body who lived in the southernmost Levant lived under the direct rule or in the long shadow of Herod, the Roman-

appointed king of Judea. Herod was many things: political tyrant, architectural visionary, regional power broker, ruthless parent, and self-indulgent lover of imported luxuries. It is the effect of this last point that I would like to consider. My question is simple: was Herod a style-setter?

This is not as shallow a question as it might sound. The trans-mission of style allows us to see the cultural market in action, that realm by which people distinguish themselves and compete for status (Bourdieu 1984: 251–52; Gartman 2002: 257–58). By definition, style is specific and status is scarce: if anybody can ac-quire some thing, that thing can not be stylish and therefore can not confer status. And, since what is “in” is directly connected to who is in (as reified a thousand fold in modern popular culture; fig. 1), studying the transmission of style and the cultural capital it confers reveals who matters, and to whom, in a given time and place (Bourdieu 1993: 37–43; Gartman 2002: 259).

In the case of Herod, answering the question has large im-plications. The consensus of historians ancient and modern is that Herod was feared and reviled by those over whom he ruled. I contend that the era’s material remains reveal another facet to the relationship between ruler and ruled. By examining the archaeological evidence – not according to archaeological taxonomies but as personal possessions, social signifiers that people chose for use and display – we can observe the signifi-cant but archaeologically flimsy subjects of taste, fashion, style, and status in action. This vantage point affords an interesting double view: on the one hand, of Herod as a status-setter and, on the other hand, of some contemporary residents of Jerusa-lem as, briefly, status-seekers – a short efflorescence of celebrity and its aura.

I begin with the results from Nahman Avigad’s excavations in Jerusalem from 1969 to 1982. Many of us have become inured to the sensational character of these discoveries, forgetting what a surprising and unexpected view they afforded of the lifestyles of the city’s elites from the time of Herod until the Revolt. It’s useful to return to Avigad’s description of this period’s remains:

The Upper City was densely built up, so that the houses are close to each other, but the spaciousness of the individual dwellings lent them the character of luxurious villas. The

NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 77:2 (2014) 109

houses were decorated with wall frescoes and with stucco modeled in relief and were paved with colorful mosaics; they were equipped with…elaborate bathing installations; they contained stone furniture, luxury goods, ornaments, and the like, indicating a high standard of living…(Avigad 1989: 10).

From the thorough final reports now being published, we can admire in detail the array of luxurious domestic items with which Jerusalem’s aristocrats lived:

• shiny, gold-hued brass finger rings and expensive signets and gems of carnelian, agate, and rock crystal, artfully carved with figures such as Hermes and Fortuna (fig. 2), deities familiar to Mediterranean cosmopolites (Gutfeld and Nenner-Soriano 2006: 274–75, M10–18; Hershkovitz 2003: 297–99; Ponting 2006: 291–92);

• flashy drink service of copper-alloy, including decanters and ladles with elaborately decorated handles (fig. 3; Gut-feld and Nenner-Soriano 2006: Nenner-Soriano 2010: 253, M37–M41; Ponting 2006);

• Mediterranean transport amphoras that held expensive wine and other coveted commodities. The origins of identi-fied jars include various Aegean islands, North Africa, and Italy (Finkielsztejn 2006; Geva 2010a: 123, pl. 4.2:12, 13);

• the latest fashion in blown glass vessels, including both cast and blown decanters, bowls, and goblets, as well as small bottles for scented oil (fig. 4; Gorin-Rosen 2003: 382; Gorin-Rosen 2006a: 250–57; Israeli 2010);

• plates and bowls of terra sigillata, the finest ceramic table-ware available, deriving from Cyprus, Antioch, and Italy (fig. 5). The vessels’ thick, bright, glossy red slip sent a vivid message of Mediterranean refinement (Hayes 1985: 184–84; Rosenthal-Heginbottom 2006: 194–95, 198–99, 204);

• elaborate assemblages of stone vessels for serving and dis-play, including many whose contours are precise evoca-tions of the latest styles of sigillata (fig. 6; Geva 2010b: 209, pl. XIII.1);

• stone furnishings, crafted in emulation of Greco-Roman decorative styles (fig. 6; Geva 2006: 227–28);

• and of course the mosaics and marvelous wall paintings, evoking colored marble (fig. 8) and alabaster panels and adorned with Greek-style moldings (Rozenberg 2003: passim and especially 313–14; Rozenberg 2008: 367–75; Rozenberg 2009: 251–61).

The variety and richness fully support Professor Avigad’s characterization of the city’s aristocrats as people who “could have imagined themselves sitting amidst their luxury in a vil-la at Pompeii or Herculaneum, were it not for the fine view of Mount Moriah through the window, rather than of Mount Ve-suvius” (Avigad 1983: 120). And indeed, for every category and type of luxury good found in Jerusalem, readily comparable versions abounded in the elite houses of Italy, especially around the Bay of Naples. An upper-crust Italian arriving to Jerusalem would have considered the city’s inhabitants quite au courant, noting with approval the fine furnishings, painted walls in the latest styles, glass bottles for scented oils, and – when seated for a meal – elegant table settings and an array of imported vintages to drink (D’Arms 1970; Deiss 1985: 40–97; Zanker 1998: 135–203,

esp.192–203; Berry 2007: 154–85; Clarke 2007: 114–31; Evans 2011: 1–2). This was the world in which the first century c.e. Roman satirist Juvenal noted that luxuria incubuit (luxury has settled down: Satires 6.294). Had Juvenal visited Jerusalem, he could have said the same.

There is, however, an important difference between the re-mains from Jerusalem and Italy. Though they are contemporary, they have very different back-stories. In Jerusalem, such goods are brand new. In Italy, as everywhere else in the eastern Medi-terranean, they were but the latest manifestation of luxury living. The wall paintings, mosaic floors, furnishings, gems, glass, metal and slipped table vessels, and fine wines all represent current versions of art, craft, and goods developed over several hundred years and broadly attested, first in the courts of Near Eastern and Hellenistic kings, then among the well-connected and affluent residents of the Hellenistic east, and from the mid-second centu-ry b.c.e. onwards also in the homes of increasingly well-off and interested Romans. Of course there were more and less elaborate versions of everything. Depending on your host’s wealth and so-cial pretensions, as a guest at a dinner party, you might swirl your

Figure 1a. President Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy, 1963, www.tumblr.com/tagged/jacky%20kennedy.

Figure 1b (inset). A modern admirer of Jacqueline Kennedy, www.edelweisspatterns.com/blog/?p=3785.jpg).


vintage in a cup of silver, cast glass, or shiny slipped earthenware (fig. 9). But the very fact that the objets which allowed a refined standard of living existed at several price points reveals just how broadly accepted that standard was. For 250 years in the east-ern Mediterranean, the mode was consumption and the manner conspicuous.

Conspicuous consumption was the mode in most of the Le-vant as well, via the same types of goods described above. At Marisa in Idumea, residents adorned house interiors with paint-

ed plaster and stucco pilasters (fig. 10a and b), ate off tables with legs formed as Ionic columns (fig. 10c), drank wine from Rhodes, Kos, and Knidos in the Aegean, Pamphylia in Anatolia, Brindisi in the Adriatic Sea, and North Africa; filled vessels of painted faience (fig. 11) and cast glass, as well as some fancy clay rhyta; and entertained with dishes made locally but imitating finer for-eign models (Berlin 2013: 160–63; Kloner 2008: 1919–22; Levine 2003: 74–92, 98–100, 106–8, 131, 134; Jackson-Tal 2005; Erlich and Kloner 2008: 73–77).

Figure 2a–2b (top left and bottom right). Brass rings and gemstones from the Upper City excavations. M12 and M13. Gutfeld, O. and R. Nenner-Soriano 2006, pl. 12.1. Figure 2c–2d (top right). Brass rings and gemstones from the Upper City excavations. Hershkovitz 2003, photographs 10.1 and 10.2.

Figure 2e (bottom right). Stone artifact from the Upper City excavations. Geva 2010b, pl. XV.5. Reproduced courtesy of the Israel Exploration Society.


The picture from Marisa is repeated throughout the south-ernmost Levant: along the coast at Ashkelon, Ashdod, Dor, and ‘Akko, and inland at sites large, such as Samaria, and small, such as Tel Anafa. In all these locales, residents were used to the finer things in life: mosaic floors, painted walls (fig. 12a), elaborated furnishings (fig. 12b and c), fancy dishes for dining (fig. 12d), and an impressive variety of imported wine from Kourion on Cyprus, Rhodes, Kos, Knidos, Chios, Paros, and Thasos in the Aegean, and even Sinope on the Black Sea (Berlin 1997: 5–8, 13–15, 22–

27, 29–30; Berlin 2013: 163–65; Berlin 2012: 77–85; Stewart and Martin 2003; Talgam and Peleg 2006; Rozenberg 2008: 283–308; Rozenberg 2009: 249–50; Merker 2012: 240–41). Peoples of the southern Levant enjoyed the cosmopolitan lifestyle, one predi-cated on the latest fashions in table settings, furnishings, room décor, personal adornments – a general pool of Mediterranean style available to all who were connected and aspirational.

The existence in these environs of a wide array of luxury goods goes hand-in-hand with an active monetized economy.

Figure 3 (top left). Copper-alloy decanter handle, Upper City excavations. M37. Nenner-Soriano 2010, pl. 8.2. Figure 4a–b (top right). Glassware, Upper City excavations. G27 and G48. Israeli (2010), pl. 6.2 and pl. 6.3.

Figure 5 (below). Sigillata table ware, Upper City excavations. Rosenthal-Heginbottom (2006), Pl. VIII.1. Reproduced courtesy of the Israel Exploration Society.


Figure 6 (top left). Stone dishes, Upper City excavations. Geva 2010b, Pl. XV.2. Figure 7 (top right). Stone table leg, Upper City excavations. Geva 2010b, Pl. 5.18.1.

Figure 8a (middle left). Painted plaster fragments, Upper City excavations. Rozenberg 2003, Pl. 11.3.9. Figure 8b (bottom left). Painted plaster fragments, Upper City excavations. Rozenberg 2008, Ill. 442, p. 372.

Figure 8c (bottom right). Painted plaster fragments, Upper City excavations. Avigad 1976, photograph, p. 40. Reproduced courtesy of the Israel Exploration Society.


Throughout the third and sec-ond centuries b.c.e. imperial and city coinages circulated throughout the Levant. By 100 b.c.e. Hasmonean coins existed by the thousands; in fact more coins of the Hasmo-nean king Alexander Jannae-us alone have been found in Israel than the combined total of coins of all the Seleucid and Ptolemaic kings together with the newly independent Phoe-nician cities. At the single rural site of Gamla, in Gaula-nitis, almost 4000 coins of John Hyrcanus and his sons were found (Syon 1992–93: 34–36). The coin profile is not merely local. A hoard found at Ashkelon dating to about 100 b.c.e. includes 46 bronze issues from cities along the Asia Minor coast, Cyprus, and the northern and central Levant, likely a reflection of the far-flung supply lines for the residents (Gitler and Ka-hanov 2002).

The pipeline of money, both silver and small change, coupled with the availability of luxury items throughout the region, renders the ab-sence of those items in Jeru-salem meaningful. Since it is evident that the city’s resi-dents participated fully in the wider monetary economy, they must have deliberately refrained from buying in to the wider world of Mediter-ranean goods. The charac-ter of this moment in time is nicely reified in the words of two men who knew this time and place well. The first is a Jew whom Josephus called Aristeas, who likely came from Egypt. Aristeas described Palestine as “well situated, with harbors…that supply its needs, at Ascalon and Joppa, and Gaza as well as Ptolemais, founded by the king” (Letter of Aristeas 115). The second comment comes from Josephus himself: “Ours

Figure 9a (top center). A glass bowl from Tel Anafa. Courtesy of the author. Figure 9b (center). A red-slipped (ESA) bowl from Tel Kedesh. Courtesy of the author.

Figure 10a (bottom left). Painted plaster, Marisa. Rozenberg 2008, Ill. 273, p. 305. Reproduced courtesy of the Israel Exploration Society. Figure 10b (bottom center). A stucco pilaster Ionic column, Marisa. Kloner 1996, photograph, p. 21. Reproduced courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

Figure 10c (bottom right). A stone table leg fashioned as Ionic column, Marisa. Kooner 1996, drawing, p. 21. Reproduced courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority.


is not a maritime country; neither commerce nor the in-tercourse which it promotes with the outside world has any attractions for us” (Con-tra Apionem 160).

Eyal Regev’s recent analy-sis of Hasmonean royal ide-ology, as refracted through the material remains found at their palaces at Jericho, provides further support for the narrow assessment of Jo-sephus. Regev concludes that, though knowledgeable and fi-nancially able, John Hyrcanus and his successors adopted little in the way of Hellenis-tic-style monumental archi-

tecture and art, that their domestic buildings had few features built to impress, that their table settings were de-liberately plain, and that they worked to inject their royal position with common trap-pings (Regev 2011: 45–50, 66–68). Compared to con-temporary rulers and high elites, the Hasmonean pro-jection of status and author-ity was intentionally muted.

Herod changed all of that. Every type of luxury item discovered in the excavations of the Upper City of Jerusa-lem first appeared in a Hero-dian palace:

Figure 11 (above). Faience drinking cup, Marisa. Levine 2003, fig. 6.19.1, p. 125. Reproduced courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority. Figure 12a (top left) Painted plaster, Tel Anafa. Rozenberg 2008, Ill. 271, p. 302. Reproduced courtesy of the Israel Exploration Society.

Figure 12b–c (bottom right and top right). Bronze appliques, Tel Anafa. Courtesy of the author. Figure 12d (bottom right). Sigillata dishes (ESA), Tel Anafa. Courtesy of the author.


• The most up-to-the-minute and elaborate wall paintings (fig. 13a–d; Rozenberg 2008: 1–246, 425–74);

• Complexly designed mosaic floors (Foerster 1995: 13–79, 140–61; Talgam and Peleg 2006);

• Fashionable gemstones (Hershkovitz and Amorai-Stark 2007; Ben-Tor 2009: 235–36);

• Wine and exotic foodstuffs imported from the wider Med-iterranean (fig. 14; Cotton and Geiger 1997; Ben-Tor 2009: 129–30, 140–41);

• Matching sets of red-slipped ceramic table wares (fig. 15; Bar-Nathan 2006: 307–66; Tsafrir 1997: 5).

As Avigad’s excavations revealed, Jerusalem’s upper classes followed suit almost immediately. The social currents shifted. Mediterranean style was suddenly in. Fine goods and interior décor had cultural cachet. The new style driver appears to be Herod himself. He is the great…tastemaker.1

From the point of view of status and cultural capital, this is a wholly unsurprising observation. That members of the upper classes emulate the ruling class is the most logical of behaviors. Ancient, medieval, modern: history is rife with examples of the well-connected, the beholden, and the striving adopting what

they can. What is important is not so much the basic fact of this matter but rather two further aspects that attend the process wher-ever it occurs. First, observers must be able to connect the style choices of the adopter with those of the ruler. Otherwise the pro-cess is meaningless – and people do not make style choices without intending to convey meaning. Second, emulators must have at least some positive feeling for those whom they are emulating. In other words, those being emulated must be held in some regard, whether flagrant or sneaking. Otherwise, intended audiences would take away a very different meaning than that which the adopters hope to convey. Indeed, the emulation itself defines the regard.

Josephus had something to say regarding the attitude that Herod’s subjects had towards him:

Since he was involved in expenses greater than his means, he was compelled to be harsh towards his subjects….And though he was aware of being hated because of the wrongs that he had done…he decided that it would not be easy to mend his evil ways—that would have been unprofitable in re-spect to revenue – and instead, countered their opposition by seizing upon their ill will as an opportunity of satisfying his wants (Ant. 16.154–55).

Figure 13a–b (top left and right). Painted plaster fragments, Masada and Jericho. Foerster 1995, pls. VI.c and VIII.a.

Figure 13c–d (bottom left and right). Painted plaster fragments, Masada and Jericho. Rozenberg 2008, ills. 562 and 563, p. 447. Reproduced courtesy of the

Israel Exploration Society.


Though he wrote retrospectively and with little sympathy, Josephus’ words have rung true to modern scholars. Herod has generally been characterized as brutal, wholly un-admired, in-deed despised. And yet the specific similarities in luxury goods shared between Herod and Jerusalem’s upper crust coupled with the chronological dependency of the latter on the former suggest that during his life time and immediately afterward, Jerusalem’s elites held Herod in sufficient regard that they chose to spend money on the markers of his lifestyle. Naturally neither the ma-terial remains nor the written testimony read as black-and-white; objects and words are still only shadow conveyers of social nu-

ance. But I submit that the material remains stand for more than themselves: they have something to tell us, or, more correctly, show us. They illustrate a greater regard for Herod among the Jewish elite than we might infer from the account of Josephus.

What about the rest of the country? In the late first centu-ry b.c.e. and beginning of the first century c.e., high style and luxury goods appear only in the Upper City of Jerusalem and at a few other spots around the country, for example in the large and well-appointed compound at Ramat Ha-Nadiv, near Cae-sarea (Hirschfeld 2000: 684–709). The inhabitants of these sites must have comprised a very small percentage of the population.

Meanwhile everybody else, the other 99%, lived far more simply, in small houses, with plain walls and floors, and only essential household items, locally made and undecorated, without im-ported goods (fig. 16; Berlin 2005; Berlin 2012).

We may glean one final point from the articulation of this brief episode of Herodian celebrity and style-setting, pertinent to the two generations following Herod’s death. For the most part dur-ing those years Jerusalem’s elites maintained their luxurious life styles: painted walls, lovely dishes, fine wine, mosaic floors. But political circumstances changed, with attendant social repercus-sions. The cachet associated with the Herodian house dissolved,

and Mediterranean styles started to send the wrong message.Some elites adapted, as two striking pieces of evidence from

the Upper City excavations reveal. The first is from the so-called Palatial Mansion, whose occupants must have been some of the city’s wealthiest residents. At the heart of this enormous urban villa was a huge reception room. Originally its walls carried elab-orate Third Style paintings similar to those from Herod’s Third Palace at Jericho. Probably close to the middle of the first century c.e., the owner decided to replace these with rigorously simple white plaster, finished to resemble smooth ashlar blocks (fig. 17; Rozenberg 2008: 370–73). This dramatic statement has to be seen

Figure 14 (top left) Imported amphoras, Masada. Cotton and Geiger 1997, photograph, p. 76. Reproduced courtesy of the Israel Exploration Society. Figure 15 (top right). Set of matching sigillata dishes, Masada. Tsafrir 1997 photograph, p. 5. Reproduced courtesy of the Israel Exploration Society.

Figure 16a (bottom left). View inside first century C.E. house. Gamla, Area G. Berlin 2006, fig. 1.3. Courtesy of Israel Antiquities Authority. Figure 16b (bottom right). Household goods of the first century C.E. Gamla, Area R. From L. 5003 and 5007. Berlin 2006, fig. 4.9. Courtesy of Israel Antiquities Authority.


as a refutation of the previous style and so, by extension, a refu-tation of the inspiration for that style, meaning Herod himself.

A second, more subtle reflection of elites responding to shift-ing social currents comes from the specific formulas used for copper-alloy household goods and personal objects. In the time of Herod himself, a sig-nificant percentage of these items were made of brass, a golden-colored metal whose glittery shine evoked glamor-ous Mediterranean fashion (as the ring shown in fig. 3; Ponting 2006: 291–92). Two generations on, however, Je-rusalem’s elites spurned such showy goods. In the assem-blage of metal objects from the Burnt House, brass does not appear – this despite evi-dence of its wide availability in the southern Levant. Brass is also missing from Jewish sites in the north, e.g., Yodefat and Gamla – but not from gentile sites, e.g., Tel Anafa (Ponting 2002; Ponting 2010: 266; Pon-ting 2012: 292–95). Metals, whether displayed or worn, are potent status messengers. It appears that in the years immediately before the Revolt, at least some of Jerusalem’s elites used metal objects to downplay their positions, to convey solidarity with villagers – if not in resources, at least in fashion.

The gestures towards a kind of “common-man” style did not, apparently, convince the common man. Jerusalem’s aristocrats continued to live large, their fashionable urban villas floating above the surrounding hills. That situation – a small elite living in the sort of luxury that Herod inspired, over and above the many who could not or would not follow suit – went on for about two generations, until 66 c.e., when internal tensions boiled over and the lid came off (Rhoads 1976; Goodman 1990; Berlin 2005; Trampedach 2013).

The material remains of the wealthy are documents and signi-fiers. In Jerusalem in the later first century b.c.e., Herod’s style was high style; cultural capital accrued to those elites who adopt-ed it. After Herod’s death, Jerusalem’s elites largely maintained that style, with little sense that it had started to send the wrong message. Two generations on, that message turned toxic. Listen to Josephus:

The prospect of irreparable disaster brought together the leading citizens, the chief priests, and the most prominent Pharisees to…appeal to the insurgents…. But [these] oppo-nents rushed in and burnt down the house of Ananias the High Priest and the palace of Agrippa and Berenice…. [Then] the insurgents went after their foes – [but] some of the leading

citizens and chief priests plunged into the sewers and disap-peared from view... (War 2.408–425).

There they remained, until archaeologists of the twentieth cen-tury brought them back into our sights.2

Notes1. This phase, which was particularly volatile politically and therefore

socially, has inspired an enormous literature, whose primary theme is the vagaries of what is termed Romanization (e.g., Richardson 1996: 191–96; MacMullen 2000; Lee 2003; Netzer 2006: 288–94; Li-chtenberger 2009). Every scholar who has written about Herod the Great has engaged the theme, most recently Eyal Regev, who quite sensibly notes that Romanization “is a convenient term for [a] com-plex of cultural changes [whose] causes and manifestations were various” (2010: 200). While I agree that Romanization is an apt term for Herod’s cultural predilections, I have avoided invoking it (or its boon companion Hellenization) as too blunt an instrument for deal-ing with this targeted set of interactions.

2. Certainly one of the greatest of those archaeologists was Ehud Netzer, who made the life and times of Herod his own life’s work. In Ehud’s memory, I offer this brief article. Every word is indebted to his work.

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Glass Vessels, Lamps, Objects of Metal, and Groundstone and Other

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Andrea M. Berlin is the James R. Wiseman Chair in Classical Archaeology at Boston University. She has been excavating in the eastern Mediterranean for over thirty years, working on projects from Troy in Turkey to Coptos in southern Egypt to Paestum, in Italy. Her specialty is the Near East from the time of Alexander the Great through the Roman era, about which she has written four books and over forty articles. She is especially interested in studying the realities of daily life, and in exploring the intersection of politics and cultural change in antiquity.


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