Cultural depictions of Herod the Great

This page lists cultural depictions of Herod the Great, grouped by order and arranged by date.

Literature

Plays

• Herod appears in some cycles of the Mystery Plays, played as an over the top villain. Such portrayals were still in folk memory in William Shakespeare's time, for Hamlet instructs the players not to "out-Herod Herod" (Act 3, Scene 2).

• Herod the Great is a central character in Elizabeth Cary's The Tragedy of Mariam, the Fair Queen of Jewry (1613). The play is a work of historical fiction, set in 29 B.C., revolving around Herod's second wife, Mariam, and their families, when Herod is believed to have been killed by Octavian (later Caesar Augustus).

Print media

• "Jennings was to orthodoxy what King Herod was to child-minding" - Former England cricket captain-turned-journalist Mike Atherton reviews the year 2005 and mentions Ray Jennings' less-than-standard method of coaching [1]

Performing arts

Film, radio and television

Film

• Cleopatra (1934), played by Joseph Schildkraut
• Erode il grande (1958), played by Edmund Purdom
• King of Kings (1961), played by Gregoire Aslan
• The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), played by Claude Rains
• The 3 Kings (2000), played by Ron Moody
• The Nativity Story (2006), played by Ciarán Hinds

Radio

• He appears in the first play of Dorothy L. Sayers' radio play cycle The Man Born to be King.

Television

• Jesus of Nazareth (1977), played by Peter Ustinov
• The Nativity (1978), played by Leo McKern
• The Real Herod (2006), played by Selva Rasilingham
• Rome (2007, episode 19, Death Mask), played by Rene Zagger

External links

• Herod the Great at the Internet Movie Database