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Josephus’s Herod narratives provide valuable information about friendly kings along the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire and their interactions with their patrons. Herod the Great’s official status in the empire was rex sociusque et amicus (“king, ally, and friend”). Originally, Herod was a commoner who took over the power from a well-established local royal dynasty, as King Polemon of Pontus, King Amyntas of Galatia, and King Archelaus of Cappadocia did. Mark Antony must have supported them because of their outstanding qualities as leaders and organizers, as Herod’s early career suggests (BJ 1.203–285; AJ 14.158–184, 268–305, 324–390; Buchheim 1960: 51–53, 56, 58–59). Herod was successful as king because he had a good and mutually beneficial relationship with his Roman patrons: first with Mark Antony, who settled the Roman affairs in the East, and then, after the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE, with Octavian, later named Augustus. Josephus indicates in both The War and The Antiquities that Herod was a “friend” of his first patron Mark Antony (e.g. BJ 1.386, 390; AJ 15.131, 162, 183, 189, 195, 409), and afterwards of Augustus (e.g. BJ 1.394; AJ 15.193, 195, 199). During Augustus’s reign a third Roman high official, Marcus Agrippa, acted as go-between for Herod and the emperor. In War 1.400 Josephus suggests that Herod had a close relationship with Agrippa as well as with Augustus himself: “but what was greater than all this in Herod’s eyes was that next after Agrippa, he enjoyed Caesar’s [i.e. Augustus’] special favor, and next after Caesar, he enjoyed Agrippa’s [special favor].” That Herod actually was a close friend of Augustus and Agrippa is less plausible for Augustus – who met Herod only a few times – than for Agrippa, who is described as Herod’s “friend and companion” in Antiquities 15.350 (see also AJ 15.318, 361, and 16.12–15; Richardson 1996: 226–234).