Who was the wife of Herod Antipas who wanted John the Baptist beheaded? Herodias was the wife of Herod Antipas who, in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, sought John the Baptist’s execution. John had publicly criticized Antipas’s marriage to Herodias, who had previously been married to Antipas’s half-brother Herod II.
During a birthday banquet for Antipas, Herodias’s daughter danced before the guests. Pleased, Antipas promised to grant her request. At her mother’s prompting, she asked for John’s head on a platter. Although Antipas was reluctant, he ordered the beheading to preserve his oath and avoid embarrassment before the assembled guests.
The girl is commonly called Salome, but Matthew and Mark do not name her; the historian Josephus identifies Salome as Herodias’s daughter. This is why quizzes sometimes blur the roles of Herodias and Salome. Herodias wanted John punished, while Salome delivered the request at the banquet.
Josephus independently reports that Antipas executed John, though he gives a political motive: Antipas feared John’s influence over the crowds. The execution is traditionally placed at Machaerus, a fortress east of the Dead Sea.