Berenice (lived c. AD 28–after AD 79)

A woman of the Flavian era: marble bust with a hairstyle of curls, AD 69–96, Capitoline Museums, Rome. An image of the period, not a portrait of Berenice.

Daughter of King Agrippa I. In AD 66 she stood barefoot before the procurator Florus, begging him to spare Jerusalem (Josephus). In AD 69 she supported Vespasian’s cause (Tacitus).

In AD 75 she came to Rome with her brother and settled in the palace with Titus, hoping for marriage. The Romans muttered, and Cynics reviled the couple in the theater. Dio writes that Titus sent her away while his father was still alive, and that when she returned after AD 79, he did not resume the old relationship (“he restrained himself”). Suetonius: he sent her away immediately on taking power.

The sources do not say what became of her later.

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