Herod’s birthday. — Some critics have looked on the feast as one commemorating Herod’s accession — his birth-day as a ruler; but there seems no reason for not accepting the word in its simple natural sense. Such feasts were common enough in the imperial life at Rome, and that of Herod’s birthday had become proverbial even there (Persius, Sat. v., i. 180).
The daughter of Herodias danced before them. — Dances in filmy garments that but half concealed the form, commonly of an impure or voluptuous nature, were common enough both at Eastern and Roman banquets, the guests being simply spectators. But the dancers were for the most part women who made it their calling, like the nautch-girls of India; and it was a new thing, at which every decent Jew would shudder, for the daughter of a kingly house to come-thus into a shameless publicity and expose herself to the gaze of the banqueters, including as they did the chief captains and chiliarchs of the Roman legions, as well as Herod’s own courtiers and the chief men of the province (Mark 6:21). But Herodias, it would seem, knew the tetrarch’s weak point as well as Madame du Barry knew that of Louis XV. of France, and sought to bend him to her will, even though it were by the sacrifice of her daughter’s modesty. She danced before them — literally, in the midst of them — as they reclined on their couches indolently gazing. Her name is given by Josephus (Ant. xviii. 5, § 4) as Salome.