Mariamne. Antipater, the son of Doris, had inherited all the malice, craft and cruelty of the Idumæans, and he spared neither his father nor his brothers. The three, Salome, Pheroras, and Antipater, although they hated one another mortally, were united in hatred against the sons of Mariamne. The more these princes were indulged by their father, and the more they were beloved by the people as descendants from the Hasmonæans on their mother's side, the more did their bitter foes fear and detest them. Antipater accused Alexander and Aristobulus of wishing to avenge the death of their mother upon the person of their father. Imprudent expressions, hastily uttered in moments of irritation, may have given some show of reason to these accusations. Herod's suspicions dwelt eagerly upon this calumny. He began to hate his sons, and, as a mark of displeasure towards them, led Antipater to believe that he should share in their rights of succession. This determination of the king served to embitter the Hasmonæan princes still more, and drove them to the most unwise outbursts of anger against their father. Antipater succeeded at the same time in laying proofs of an attempted conspiracy of the two brothers against Herod before him. Their friends and their servants were, by the king's commands, put to the torture, and upon the strength of their confession, wrung from them under agony, Alexander and Aristobulus were condemned to death by a council numbering one hundred and fifty of Herod's friends. Herod himself hastened the execution, and ordered the two princes to be torn from Jerusalem and hurried to Samaria, and there, where thirty years previously their unnatural father had celebrated his marriage with their mother, her two sons were mercilessly beheaded. However, the conspiracies against Herod's life did not cease with their death, but, on the contrary, acquired fresh vigor. Antipater, not feeling at all sure of his succession so long as his father was alive, actually conspired with Pheroras against the life of that father and benefactor. But his fiendish design came to light, and it was discovered that Antipater had undoubtedly intended poisoning his father. This disclosure was a terrible blow for Herod. The turmoil of his outraged feelings cannot be described, and yet he had to control himself, and even to pretend great affection for Antipater, in order to induce that prince to leave Rome and return to Jerusalem. Upon Antipater's arrival, his father loaded him with reproaches, and accused him before a tribunal, which was under the presidency of the Roman governor Quintilius Varus, of fratricide and attempted parricide. Vainly did the prince plead innocence; Herod's friend, Nicolaus of Damascus, appeared as his merciless accuser. His death sentence was passed, and Herod begged of Augustus to ratify it.