Cypros (wife of Herod Agrippa)

Cypros (1st-century) was a queen consort of Judea. She was married to king Herod Agrippa.

Not to be confused with Cypros, the Nabatean mother of Herod the Great.
Herod Agrippa I and Cypros, in the 1493 Nuremberg Chronicle

Life

She was born to Phasael II and Salampsio and was the granddaughter of Phasael, brother of Herod the Great.

She married Herod Agrippa after he returned from having spent his childhood in Rome.

By the help of Herodias, she convinced Herod Antipas to appoint Herod Agrippa as governor in Tiberias in Galilee.[1]

When Agrippa and Antipas became involved in conflict and Agrippa wished to return to Rome, Cypros successfully negotiated a loan from the banker Alexander the Alabarch of Alexandria to finance his exile.[2]

Issue
  • Herod Agrippa II [b. AD 27/28?-d. 93?] became the eighth and final ruler from the Herodian family, but without any control of Judea. He supported Roman Rule and died childless.
  • Berenice [b. AD 28-after 81], who first married Marcus Julius Alexander, son of Alexander the Alabarch around AD 41. After Marcus Julius died [AD 44], she married her uncle Herod of Chalcis by whom she had two sons, Berenicianus and Hyrcanus.[3] She later lived with her brother Agrippa II, reputedly in an incestuous relationship. Finally, she married Polemon, king of Cilicia, as alluded to by Juvenal.[4] Berenice also had a common law relationship with the Roman emperor Titus.[5] Similar to her brother Herod Agrippa II, she supported Roman Rule.
  • Drusus [b.?-d.?]; According to Josephus, there was also a younger brother called Drusus, who died before his teens.[6]
  • Mariamne [b. 34/35-], who married Julius Archelaus, son of Chelcias AD 49/50; they had a daughter Berenice (daughter of Mariamne) [b. AD 50] who lived with her mother in Alexandria, Egypt after her parents' divorce. Around AD 65 Mariamne left her husband and married Demetrius of Alexandria who was its Alabarch and had a son from him named Agrippinus.[7]
  • Drusilla [AD 38–79], who married first to Gaius Julius Azizus, King of Emesa and then to Antonius Felix, the procurator of Judaea.[8][9][10][11] Drusilla and her son Marcus Antonius Agrippa died in Pompeii during the eruption of Vesuvius. A daughter, Antonia Clementiana, became a grandmother to a Lucius Anneius Domitius Proculus. Two possible descendants from this marriage are Marcus Antonius Fronto Salvianus (a quaestor) and his son Marcus Antonius Felix Magnus, a high priest in 225.

References
  1. Flavius Josephus , Ant 18, 141
  2. Flavius Josephus, Ant 18, 159-160
  3. Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews XX.5.2
  4. Juvenal, Satires vi. 156
  5. Suetonius, Titus 7
  6. Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews XVIII.5.4
  7. Ciecieląg Jerzy, Polityczne dziedzictwo Heroda Wielkiego. Palestyna w epoce rzymsko-herodiańskiej, Kraków 2002, s. 75-77, 140.
  8. Josephus, Antiquitates Judaicae xvii. 1. § 2, xviii. 5–8, xix. 4–8
  9. Josephus, The Wars of the Jews i. 28. § 1, ii. 9. 11
  10. Cassius Dio lx. 8
  11. Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History ii. 10
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