Professor Benedict Eckhardt

And Hyrcanus is apparently completely flabbergasted by this.

He obviously hadn't expected this to happen.

And he asks, by whose command was this done?

Who has done this?

And he is given the answer, Cassius'.

And so he then has to backtrack and essentially say, oh, then a great favour has been done for me.

Even though this was obviously unexpected, it was obviously something that he did not want.

and it exposes his own position and the insecurity of his own position as well.

This is completely unsuccessful.

There are good reasons why Herod might have thought that this would work.

He has familiar relations in part with certain Nabataean elite members and so on.

So there could be reasons why he would have thought that he would get help from the Nabataeans.

Doesn't work.

So he has to go elsewhere.

And elsewhere is Rome.

He needs a harbour for that.

There is a rather interesting encounter where Cleopatra is apparently delighted to receive Herod and suggests that he leads an expedition for her that she is planning.

We don't know what this is, what she is intending and so on, but it's an interesting detail about what she might be doing in the region at this time and her own plans.

He says no and he moves on.

He has a fairly eventful trip to Rome.