Role Herod Agrippa's daughter Died August 25, 79 AD, Italy Name Drusilla Drusilla | Parents Herod Agrippa | |
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Siblings Herod Agrippa II, Berenice Cousins Salome, Aristobulus of Chalcis Similar People Herod Agrippa, Herod Agrippa II, Berenice, Herodias, Salome | ||
Drusilla (38 AD – 25 August 79 AD) was a daughter of Herod Agrippa and thus sister to Berenice, Mariamne and Herod Agrippa II. She perished in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.
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First marriage
She was six years of age at the time of her father's death at Caesarea in 44. Her father had betrothed her to Gaius Julius Archelaus Antiochus Epiphanes, first son of King Antiochus IV of Commagene, with a stipulation from her father that Epiphanes should embrace the Jewish religion. The prince in the end refused to abide by his promise to do so, and the marriage had still not been contracted on her father's death. On Agrippa's death:
Once Drusilla's brother, Herod Agrippa II, had been assigned the tetrachy of Herod Philip I (along with Batanea, Trachonites and Abila) in around 49/50, he broke off her engagement to Epiphanes and gave her in marriage to Gaius Julius Azizus, Priest King of Emesa, who, in order to obtain her hand, consented to be circumcised. Herod also at around this time married Mariamne to her betrothed, Julius Archelaus Epiphanes.
Marriage to Antonius Felix
It appears that it was shortly after her first marriage was contracted that Antonius Felix, the Roman procurator of Judea, met Drusilla, probably at her brother's court (Berenice, the elder sister, lived with her brother at this time, and thus Drusilla probably did too). Felix was struck by the great beauty of Drusilla, and determined to make her his (second) wife. In order to persuade her, a practising Jew, to divorce her Jewish husband and marry him, a pagan, he took the following steps:
She was about nineteen years of age when she appeared at Felix's side, during St. Paul's captivity at Caesarea - the Book of Acts 24:24 reports her thus:
"Several days later Felix came [back into court] with his wife Drusilla, who was a Jewess."
The Book of Acts gives no further information on her subsequent life. Josephus states that they had a son named Marcus Antonius Agrippa and a daughter Antonia Clementiana. Their son perished together with Drusilla, along with noted Roman historian Pliny the Elder plus most of the populations of Pompeii and Herculaneum in the AD 79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Although, in modern excavations very few people have been found either at Herculaneum and even less at Pompeii.