Endnote 8 – Herod’s Horrid Death

The attempt by D.J. Ladouceur (“The Death of Herod the Great,” Classical Philology 76 [1981], pp. 25–34) to show that Herod’s final illness is based solely on Thucydides’ account of the Athenian plague (History of the Peloponnesian War 2.49–50) is not convincing, and it still tampers with the Greek text. G. Mader (Josephus and the Politics of Historiography [Leiden: Brill, 2000], p. 56) supports Ladouceur but offers no evidence. We must recognize that the Greek literary assistants employed by Josephus in the War did not rely heavily on Thucydides (unlike Antiquities)—see H. St. J. Thackeray, Josephus the Man and the Historian (repr. New York: Ktav, 1967), pp. 104–106; T. Rajak, Josephus the Historian and his Society (London: Duckworth, 1983), pp. 233–236; S. Schwartz, Josephus and Judaean Politics (Leiden: Brill, 1990), pp. 24, 38.