Herod (The Great) lived from 73BC to 4BC. he was a king of Judea (part of Israel), but his power was limited because Judea was part of the Roman Empire. It suited the Romans to have the local kings do most of their work for them.

He was a person who rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem on top of the temple of Solomon which had been destroyed. But he was also an extremely evil person, who was ready to murder anyone to stay in power.

When he died, the kingdom was split among his three sons.

Herod the Great is a famous figure in the Gospel according to Matthew – an event known as the Massacre of the Innocents. In this Gospel, Matthew writes that after the birth of Jesus, wise men (Magi) from the East visited Herod to ask where the one having been born king of the Jews could be found, because they had seen his star in the east and therefore wanted to pay him homage. Herod, as King of the Jews, was alarmed by this possible threat, and when he was told that the scriptures foretold Jesus would be born in Bethlehem, he planned to kill Jesus. Joseph had been warned of this by an angel, so he and his family fled to Egypt. Herod gave orders to kill all boys of the age of two and under in Bethlehem. As Bethlehem was just a village, this massacre would not have meant many deaths, however. But the nastiness of the event was what mattered. Joseph and his family stayed in Egypt until Herod's death, then moved to Nazareth in Galilee.