Salome - Account by Flavius Josephus, Biblical character, Salome in the arts

The traditional name of the daughter of Herodias. She danced before Herod Antipas (Mark 6.17–28), and was offered a reward. At her mother's instigation, she was given the head of John the Baptist. However, the incident is not recorded in the historical account by Josephus.

Salome or Salomé, the Daughter of Herodias (c AD 14 - between 62 and 71), like Dismas, or the various names of the Three Magi, is a name given to a character in the New Testament, one whose name is not given there itself.

Account by Flavius Josephus

The name "Salome" is preserved in Josephus' Jewish Antiquities (Book XVIII, Chapter 5, 4):

Herodias, [...], was married to Herod, the son of Herod the Great, who was born of Mariamne, the daughter of Simon the high priest, who had a daughter, Salome; after whose birth Herodias took upon her to confound the laws of our country, and divorced herself from her husband while he was alive, and was married to Herod, her husband's brother by the father's side, he was tetrarch of Galilee; but her daughter Salome was married to Philip, the son of Herod, and tetrarch of Trachonitis;

Biblical character

Salome was the step-daughter of Herod Antipas, and danced before Herod and her mother Herodias at the occasion of Herod's birthday, and by doing so caused the death of John the Baptist. The New Testament suggests that Salome caused John to be executed because of his complaints that Herod's marriage to Herodias was adulterous; And 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. (KJV)

This Salome is not the same Salome who is said to be a witness to the Crucifixion of Jesus in Mark 15:40.

Salome in the arts

Painting

This Biblical story has long been a favourite of painters, since it offers a chance to depict oriental splendour, semi-nude women, and exotic scenery under the auspices of being a Biblical subject.

Oscar Wilde's play

This story was made the subject of a play by Oscar Wilde that premiered in Paris in 1896, under the French name Salomé. In Wilde's play, Salome takes a perverse fancy for John the Baptist, and causes him to be executed when John spurns her affections. In the finale, Salome takes up John's severed head and kisses it.

Opera

Strauss

The Wilde play (in the German translation of Hedwig Lachmann) was edited down to a one-act opera by Richard Strauss. As with the Wilde play, it turns the action on to Salome herself, reducing her mother to a bit-player, though the Wilde play centers mostly upon Herod's motivations.

Massenet

The 1881 opera Hérodiade by Jules Massenet tells a slightly different story of the relationship between Salome, John the Baptist and Herod. The rather sub-standard libretto by Paul Milliet, Gremont and Zamadini based upon the novella Herodias by Gustave Flaubert (published in Three Tales, 1877) gives full responsibility for John's death to Salome's mother Herodias and the priests who fear his religious power. Salome herself is shown as a loving disciple of John who commits suicide when he is executed.

Films

Wilde's Salome has at least twice been made into a film: a 1923 silent film starring Alla Nazimova in the title role (see Salomé (1923 film)) and a 1988 Ken Russell play-within-a-film treatment, Salome's Last Dance, which also includes Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas (Bosie) as characters.

Also, in Billy Wilder's 1950 film Sunset Boulevard, Norma Desmond's script she plans to make her comeback in is a horrible, bloated retelling of the Salome story.