Berenice’s Birth and Marriages

18.132

Agrippa had two sons and three daughters by Cypros. [The daughters’] names were Berenice, Mariamme, and Drusius [Drusilla]. The names of the sons were Agrippa and Drusus. [ . . . ]

19.274–277

Now when Claudius had gotten all the soldiers he suspected out of the way, which he did immediately, he issued a decree both confirming the rule that Gaius had granted to Agrippa and through it praising the king highly. He also added to his kingdom all the land over which Herod his grandfather had reigned—that is, Judaea and Samaria—and restored these lands to him as an obligation due to his being part of the Herodian family. He further added, out of his own territories, Abila of Lysanias and all the land belonging to the mountain country of Lebanon. He also made a treaty with this Agrippa, confirmed by oaths, in the middle of the forum in the city of Rome. He additionally took away from Antiochus the kingdom that he possessed but gave him a portion of Cilicia and Commagena. He also freed Alexander Lysimachus, the alabarch,¹ who had been his old friend and guardian to his mother Antonia but had been imprisoned by Gaius out of anger. [Alexander’s] son married Berenice, the daughter of Agrippa. But after Marcus, Alexander’s son, who had married her when she was a virgin, died, Agrippa gave her in marriage to his brother Herod and begged Claudius to give him the kingdom of Chalcis. [ . . . ]

20.143–147

Accordingly [Drusilla] acted ill, and because she wanted to avoid her sister Berenice’s envy, for she was badly mistreated by her on account of her beauty, she was persuaded to transgress her ancestral laws and marry Felix [the procurator of Judaea]. She gave birth through him to a son and named him Agrippa. But the manner in which that young man, with his wife, perished during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, in the days of Titus Caesar, I shall explain later.

As for Berenice, she lived as a widow for many years after the death of Herod [king of Chalcis], who had been both her husband and her uncle. But when a report came out that she had an improper relationship with her brother [Agrippa II], she persuaded Poleme, who was king of Cilicia, to be circumcised and marry her, thinking that by this means she would prove the calumnies against her to be false. Poleme was won over mainly on account of her wealth. Yet this marriage did not last long, for Berenice left Poleme, reportedly with impure intentions. So he rid himself simultaneously of the marriage and the Jewish practices. At the same time, Mariamme left Archelaus and married Demetrius, who was the greatest of the Alexandrian Jews in terms of both his family and his wealth and served as their alabarch. She named the son she had by him Agrippinus. [ . . . ]