Herod Magnum

A Historical Drama Series by Moshe Zonder

“Herod Magnum” is a drama series that follows the dramatic and tragic life of Herod the Great, the Roman client king of Judea, who was born in the year 73 BC and died in 4 BC, as told by Flavius Josephus.

Was he a brave King with boundless ambition who managed to achieve whatever his heart desired, or a paranoid man that saw enemies everywhere and believed everyone was out to get him?

After succeeding due to his charisma to persuade the Roman Emperor and senate to appoint him King of Judah, he besieged Jerusalem, conquered it, and was declared King.

Now he can do as he pleases. But then, the 30-year-old King falls deeply in love with Mariamme, a beautiful girl from an elite family, but an 11-year-old girl. He believes and hopes that this matchmaking with the Jewish nobility will grant him social status in the eyes of his Jewish people, who see him as a foreign ruler even after he expands and builds The Second Temple and makes it the most beautiful in the ancient world.

In the end, beleaguered by his character, he executes his wife Mariamme and their two sons and becomes miserable and tormented for the rest of his life, searching in vain for ways to bring her back to life.

In the New Testament Herod is mentioned as having ordered the killing of all babies born in Bethlehem, including his son, after astrologers envisioned Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem.

Flavius Josephus, the Narrator of the series, was a Jewish commander who was captured by the Romans. When he accurately prophesied that Vespasian, the commander of the Roman forces, would become Emperor, he acquired his freedom and became a historian.

As we follow Flavius Josephus writings and his life in Rome, he will tell us in the next seasons  the story of the birth, life and death of Jesus Christ and the story of the Great Revolt of the Jews against the Romans which ended with the termination of the Jewish kingdom.