Felix, Drusilla and Bernice

So Claudius sent Claudius Felix, the brother of Pallas, to take charge of affairs in Judea. And when he had already completed the twelfth year of his reign, he gave Agrippa the tetrarchy of Philip and Batanea, adding to it Trachonitis together with Abila, which had been the tetrarchy of Lysanias; but he took Chalcis away from him, after he had ruled it for four years. When Agrippa had received this gift from Caesar, he gave his sister Drusilla in marriage to Azizus, king of Emesa, who was willing to be circumcised. For Epiphanes, the son of King Antiochus, had refused the marriage, since he was unwilling to take up the Jewish customs, although he had earlier promised her father to do so. Agrippa also gave Mariamne in marriage to Archelaus son of Helcias, to whom her father Agrippa had betrothed her earlier; and a daughter was born to them, named Berenice. [a]

But the marriage of Drusilla and Azizus was dissolved not long afterward, for the following reason. While Felix was procurator of Judea, he saw Drusilla; and since she surpassed all women in beauty, he conceived a desire for her. He sent to her one of his friends, a Jew named Atomus, a Cypriot by birth, who pretended to be a magician, and tried to persuade her to leave her husband and marry Felix, promising that if she did not scorn him, he would make her a happy woman. She was unhappy, and she wanted to escape the envy of her sister Bernice, for Bernice treated her badly in no small ways because of her beauty. So she was persuaded to transgress the laws of her ancestors and to marry Felix. She bore him a son and named him Agrippa. But how this young man and his wife perished in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, in the time of Titus Caesar, I will explain later. [c]

As for Bernice, after the death of Herod, who had been both her husband and her uncle, she remained a widow for a long time. When a rumor spread that she was sleeping with her brother, she persuaded Polemo, who was king of Cilicia, to be circumcised and marry her; for she thought that in this way she would prove the slanders false. Polemo was persuaded, chiefly because of her wealth. But the marriage did not last long. Bernice left Polemo, out of licentiousness, as people said; and he was released at once both from the marriage and from keeping the customs of the Jews. At the same time Mariamne also left Archelaus and married Demetrius, the foremost of the Jews in Alexandria in family and wealth, who at that time held the office of alabarch himself. She named the son she had by him Agrippinus. But we will give a precise account of each of these later. [g]