A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

2. The eldest daughter of Agrippa I., by his wife Cypros, was espoused at a very early age to Marcus, son of Alexander the Alabarch; but he died before the consummation of the marriage, and she then became the wife of her uncle, Herod, king of Chalcis, by whom she had two sons. (J. AJ 18.5.4, 19.5.1, 9.1, 20.5.2, 7.3; Bell. Jud. 2.2.6.) After the death of Herod, A. D. 48, Berenice, then 20 years old, lived for a considerable time with her brother, and not without suspicion of an incestuous commerce with him, to avoid the scandal of which she induced Polemon, king of Cilicia, to marry her; but she soon deserted him and returned to Agrippa, with whom she was living in A. D. 62, when St. Paul defended himself before him at Caesareia. (J. AJ 20.7.3; Juv. 6.156; Acts, xxv. xxvi.) About A. D. 65, we hear of her being at Jerusalem (whither she had gone for the performance of a vow), and intereding for the Jews with Gessius Florus, at the risk of her life, during his cruel massacre of them. (Joseph. Beil. Jud. 2.15.1.) Together with her brother. she endeavoured to divert her countrymen from their

purpose of rebellion (Bell. Jud. 2.16.5); and having joined the Romans with him on the out-break of the war, she gained the favour of Vespasian by her munificent presents, and the love of Titus by her beauty. Her connexion with the latter continued at Rome, whither she went after the capture of Jerusalem, and it is said that he wished to make her his wife; but the Romans by such a step compelled him to dismiss her, and, though she afterwards returned to Rome, he still avoided a renewal of their intimacy. (Tac. IIist. 2.2, 81; Suet. Tit. 7; D. C. 66.15, 18.) Quintilian (Inst. Orat. 4.1) speaks of having pleaded her cause on some occasion, not further alluded to, on which she herself sat as judge.

[E.E]