The Apostolic Age · AD 4–70 · External witness
Salome, daughter of Herodias
c. AD 14 – c. AD 62 (dates uncertain) · Herodian princess · Danced before Herod Antipas · Galilee → Chalcis
External witness
Who Salome, daughter of Herodias was
**She is not named in Scripture.** Mark and Matthew call her only the daughter of Herodias; the name Salome comes from Josephus. That is worth stating first, because she is one of the best-known names in the Gospels and the name is not in them.
What the Gospels give her is one act and one sentence. She danced at Antipas’s birthday feast and pleased him, he swore to give her whatever she asked to the half of his kingdom, and she went out to ask her mother what to ask for. Mark then has her return **“with haste”** and add a detail of her own — that she wanted the head **“by and by in a charger”**, at once, on a dish. The request was Herodias’s; the urgency and the dish were hers.
Josephus supplies the name and the marriages: to **Philip the Tetrarch**, her great-uncle, and after his death to Aristobulus of Chalcis.
**Four different Salomes should be kept apart**, and this archive keeps them so: this princess; **Salome the Myrrh-bearer** of Mark 15:40, a disciple; the midwife of the *Protoevangelium of James*; and the fellow-traveller into Egypt of the *History of Joseph the Carpenter*. The name was common, and the conflation of the dancer with the disciple is a real and recurring error.
Also listed in non-christian witnesses and women.
Common questions
When did Salome, daughter live?
Salome, daughter of Herodias is dated c. AD 14 – c. AD 62 (dates uncertain) in the archive, which places Salome, daughter in the Apostolic Age (AD 4–70). The dating is traditional and approximate; the archive marks it as uncertain rather than fixing a year the sources do not give.
Which early sources mention Salome, daughter?
Salome, daughter of Herodias is named in 2 primary-source passages catalogued here, drawn from Mark and Flavius Josephus. Every passage is quoted from a named public-domain translation, earliest first.
Where was Salome, daughter from?
The archive associates Salome, daughter of Herodias with Galilee, Chalcis. The sources record more than one location, so the places are listed in the order the record moves through them.
Who were Salome, daughter’s contemporaries?
The archive links Salome, daughter of Herodias to 5 other figures, including Herodias, Herod Antipas, Philip the Tetrarch and John the Baptist. Each connection is drawn from a source that places them together, not from inference.
Scripture record
Primary-source mentions (2)
Every passage below is quoted from a named public-domain translation, earliest first.
Mark 6:22–25
c. AD 29And when the daughter of the said Herodias came in, and danced, and pleased Herod and them that sat with him, the king said unto the damsel, Ask of me whatsoever thou wilt, and I will give it thee. … And she came in straightway with haste unto the king, and asked, saying, I will that thou give me by and by in a charger the head of John the Baptist.Mark · read ↗
Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews XVIII
c. AD 94[Josephus is the only source for her name. He gives her as the daughter of Herodias by her first husband, married first to **Philip the Tetrarch** and after his death to Aristobulus, king of Chalcis, by whom she had three sons. He does not mention the dance.]Flavius Josephus · Antiquities XVIII.v.4 · source text
Josephus, *Antiquities of the Jews* — held in this library. English: William Whiston (1737), public domain.
Connected in the archive
People
Events in this lifetime
- AD 30 · Crucifixion, Resurrection and Pentecost, AD 30–33
- AD 44 · Persecution under Herod Agrippa I, AD 44
- AD 49 · The Council of Jerusalem, AD 49
- AD 57 · Paul writes Romans, AD 57
- AD 62 · James the Just stoned, AD 62
Place
Places served
The 2 places the sources put Salome, daughter, in the order the record moves through them. This is what the sources attest, not a reconstructed route.