Within a month of the burning alive of the Pharisee rabbinics, Herod himself would die of his various physical afflictions. But not before he had his son Antipater executed for conspiring to poison Herod himself.   For Herod’s funeral procession, his body lay on a golden bier, and was covered with a purple cloak embroidered with precious stones. A gold crown was on Herod’s head.   A procession of notables accompanied him on his last journey to his tomb at the fortress–palace Herodium, whose construction Herod himself had conceived and overseen. Located twelve miles southeast of Jerusalem, between Bethlehem and the Dead Sea, Arab inhabitants call Herodium Jabal al–Foundis or ‘Mountain of Paradise.’   According to lore, many denizens of Judea wept the week following the death of Herod, but primarily because Herod had prearranged for the execution of a group of Jewish notables to take place immediately upon his death. The megalomaniac Herod had wanted to be absolutely, positively sure that Judea was in mourning, one way or another, the week following his death. And so it was.   source: William Klingaman, The First Century. New York: HarpersCollins Publishers, 1990, p. 12

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