(It is of terrible loss to posterity that Sharlappius's account of Antipater's later years and Herod's early years is lost to us entirely. Sharlappius's Tales of Classical Perversion was discovered only due to a sack of Palmyra by early Muslims attempting to levy the destruction of the Temple of Baalshamin. Again, it is thought that this is a mere volume of a much larger work encompassing similar tales of classical Greece, Rome, Byzantium, Egypt, Carthage, and Persia. By cutting into one of the stone columns an unnamed Islamic personage discovered a pristinely preserved text within its marble. There are, however, various sections obscured by various cuts and stains of blood; implying that whomever initially carried the text out from the city was gravely wounded.
It is highly probable that these missing tales of the volume in question deal with lessons of statesmanship imparted by Antipater to his son, Herod the Great; with Herod's trial before the Sanhedrin for which he appeared with armed escort, of dealings between Herod and his Roman patron: Sextus Julius - uncle of Caesar, Herod's betrothal to Mariam - granddaughter to yet another Hyrcanus Hasmonean who had usurped Antipater, and Herod's subsequent poisoning and usurpasion of said Hyrcanus after Hyrcanus poisoned his brother and mutilated his ears so that should he escape he could not be Herod's high priest.
As stated in the forward to this volume, it is highly probable that Sharlappius is a portmanteau of ancient texts, collated into a larger wisdom volume; perhaps a group of writers writing simultaneously in conjunction with one another. Some texts were of a writer aspiring to the sublimity of classical epic, others by a particularly mediocre classical dramatist, derivative of previous texts to point of plagiarism, all the aggregated writers exaggerating the historical record for dramatic license, and none of particularly distinguished aesthetic quality nor historical value; but of some historiographic value as document of how particularly mediocre writers of their day approached historical subjects.
- Dr. Richard Westenbach - Free University Berlin, 1952)
4. It was in the general worldview of Julius Caesar that he saw open liberality as of great benefit to his autocratic aims. It is to be doubted that he had any specific opinion of Jews, but he welcomed Jews to his court as he did all peoples whom he saw of use, and treated those Jews of detriment with the ruthless vengeance to which he meted every person of impedimence. The consistency of his approach, the open embrace of allies and pitiless retaliation to enemies was to his great benefit against Pompey's unpredictable caprice; which, in turn, was of great benefit to Rome, as the virtue of Caesarean imperitration saved their Empire from fortune's ever repositioning chaos, even as it was to the detriment of the continually more sombered peoples subsumed within Rome's ever expanding borders.
5. As a young man, displaced from power, his father dead, defeated after yet another battle with Hasmoneans; Herod the Great, penurious and derelict, fleeing yet another capture, contemplating suicide in the desert; a desert vision spoke directly unto him:
'Herod. Herod the Great. I am the Lord your God. The God of Lot, the God of Ishmael, and the God of Esau. Go unto Egypt, speak with Cleopatra, receive her benefaction, and avenge all brothers of disfavor.'
In contemplative response to his vision, thus spake Herod:
"It is this fate of the world which I solemnly welcome in ajar forelimbs, to make final reckoning unto the Judean peoples to ignominious providence, consigning them in their wrathful duplicity to beyond Sheol's lychgates. Were Idumea to die one thousand million deaths, it would be fate more merciful than endurance of Israel one generation more. The God of Israel is the God of death, and death shall die from Palestine's vengeance."
6. And Herod visited Cleopatra in Alexandria, and Cleopatra offered Herod generalship in a war against the Partheans, who supported the claim of a third Antigonus, whom with Parthean help handed Herod opprobrious defeat.
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