the foundation for how the king was portrayed in the mystery cycles of the past and in modern popular culture. Herod was documented to have killed his own sons (Antipater, Alexander and Aristobulus) when he perceived them as threats to his throne, as recounted in the compendium Saturnalia (compiled by Macrobius) that Augustus remarked "It is better to be Herod's pig than his son." Jones notes that "surroundings" refers to the rural areas around the village of Bethlehem. It does not refer to any other nearby towns or villages. At the time, Bethlehem was a small village and it and its surrounding area would have had a very small population. Albright and Mann estimate the village would have had only some 300 people at the time, Raymond E. Brown estimates it was around a thousand. For all these figures, the number of children killed would have been less than twenty. This number clashes with the traditional view of thousands of deaths, but it helps explain why the massacre was not mentioned by any historians such as Josephus. The killing of all the infants in a small village would have been only one of many massacres Herod is recorded to have carried out in his later years. At the same time, Brown notes that the double word all shows that the author of Matthew is trying to portray a large massacre. Gundry notes that "two years old and under" properly refers to children who have not entered their second year, thus those twelve months old and younger. That Herod picks this number is considered an important clue to when Jesus was born. It is taken to indicate that close to a year had elapsed since the birth of Jesus. Herod is believed to have died in 4 BC so based on Matthew, Jesus' birth is guessed to have been in 5 or 6 BC. Commentary from the Church Fathers Pseudo-Chrysostom: When the infant Jesus had subdued the Magi, not by the might of His flesh, but the grace of His Spirit, Herod was exceeding wrath, that they whom he sitting on his throne had no power to move, were obedient to an Infant lying in a manger. Then by their contempt of him the Magi gave further cause of wrath. For when kings’ wrath is stirred by fear for their crowns, it is a great and inextinguishable wrath. But what did