Alexandra was not so stupid as to fail to take in the situation. Through Cleopatra she again succeeded in forcing Herod upon the defensive. Being summoned to appear before Antony, Herod succeeded, however, in again ingratiating himself with the Roman, and he returned as strong as ever to Jerusalem. But his return was not altogether happy; for on his departure, he had given command that should his interview with Antony be ill-fated, Mariamne, his Jewish wife, should be slain, that no other man might have her for wife. The secret leaked out, and came to Mariamne's ears. She violently resented the treatment of Herod and on his return reproached him for his cruelty; but the insanely jealous and wily Herod was not to be changed by reproaches. On his absence from home on the occasion when he went to meet Octavius, the new star which arose on Antony's downfall, Herod again commanded that both Mariamne and Alexandra be put to death should he not return alive. Mariamne on his return received him with cold resentment. With the help of Herod's mother and sister the estrangement became more and more bitter. The king's cupbearer was bribed by them to declare that Mariamne had attempted to poison her husband. The jury, as well as the evidence, being well-arranged before-hand, the unfortunate Mariamne was led away to execution in B.C. 29, to be followed next year by Alexandra, who had watched her opportunity and, taking advantage of an illness of Herod, had attempted to gain possession of Jerusalem and overthrow the reign of Herod. It was a bold stroke for a woman. It failed, and she was executed. With her death the line of Asmonean claimants to the throne was ended. But the end of this chapter in which womanly hate and intrigue played so prominent a part was not yet. When Herod's sister, Salome, who had taken so large a part in the death of Mariamne, saw Herod's sons return from their studies in Rome, with the looks and royal bearing of their mother, Mariamne; when she perceived the people's joy at their likeness to the late Jewish queen who had been so cruelly murdered, her jealousy became most bitter, and she began to plot against them as she had against their mother. Herod for a time seemed unmoved and married one of them to Berenice, Salome's own daughter. This only intensified Salome's hate; and step after step of domestic hatred and unhappiness led at length to the order by Herod that the two sons of his Jewish wife, Alexander and Aristobulus, should be strangled at Sebaste, where years before their mother Mariamne had become his bride. No wonder Augustus Cæsar could utter his famous pun in the Greek language which may be reproduced in the words: "I would rather be Herod's _swine_ than his _son_!"