# Herodias — Short Fiction character guide

> Herodias in Short Fiction by Gustave Flaubert.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** the real Herodias

**First appearance:** 0011-herodias

## Snapshot

Herod Antipas's proud and calculating wife, advancing through torchlit halls like an empress, her grievances sharpened by years of thwarted ambition.

## Who they are

Herodias enters the banquet with eunuchs and perfumed torches, greeting the proconsul and pointedly remarking that Agrippa can no longer harm Tiberius, a remark Vitellius finds dangerous. Spurned by her husband's coldness, she gazes at him morosely, her love long dead and her will very much alive. Her hunger for position and her smoldering resentment against those she blames for her losses make her a quiet engine of the story's mounting peril.

## In the story

### [The Dance of Death](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_22_se/chapters/the-dance-of-death)

Not present in this chapter.

### [I: The Curse](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_22_se/chapters/i-the-curse)

Not present in this chapter.

### [II: The Crime](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_22_se/chapters/ii-the-crime)

Not present in this chapter.

### [III: The Reparation](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_22_se/chapters/iii-the-reparation)

Not present in this chapter.

### [Herodias](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_22_se/chapters/herodias)

Herod's wife, who harbors a bitter grudge against John the Baptist and plots his execution.

### [I: The Palace](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_22_se/chapters/i-the-palace)

Antipas's wife, exultant over Agrippa's imprisonment, recounts her political intrigues, attempts to seduce Antipas, and later jealously observes his interest in a young girl.

### [II: The Voice](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_22_se/chapters/ii-the-voice)

Appears with imperial air, listens with fear and hatred to Iaokanann's curses.

### [III: The Banquet](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_22_se/chapters/iii-the-banquet)

Appears dramatically at the balcony with a patera, leading a tribute to Caesar, and later is mirrored by Salome's dance.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_22_se/characters/herodias
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_22_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_22_se/characters