Marcus Julius Agrippa I (), also known as Agrippa I (, epithet Agrippa the Great) or Herod Agrippa, was a Roman citizen, under the patronage of Antonia Minor, friend of Roman emperors Caligula and Claudius, and the last client king of Judea (r. 41–44). He was a grandson of Herod the Great and Mariamne I, and he was the father of Herod Agrippa II, the last king from the Hasmonean branch of the Herodian dynasty.Agrippa II held a title of king but he reigned over other territories in the Eastern Mediterranean, not over Judea. He played crucial roles in Roman politics under Caligula and was a "kingmaker" of Claudius. In return he was rewarded with the kingship of Judea, which brought a brief period of relative independence to Judea and significant influence in the Eastern portion of the Roman Empire.
He spent his childhood and youth at the imperial court in Rome, where he befriended the imperial princes Claudius and Drusus. He suffered a period of disgrace following the death of Drusus, which forced him to return to Judea. Back in Rome around 35, Tiberius made him the guardian of his grandson Tiberius Gemellus, and Agrippa approached the other designated heir, Caligula. The ascent of Caligula to the throne allowed Agrippa to become king of Batanea, Trachonitis, Gaulanitis, Auranitis, Paneas and Iturea in 37 by obtaining the old tetrarchies of Philip and Lysanias, then Galilee and Perea in 40 following the disgrace of his uncle, Herod Antipas.
After the assassination of Caligula, he played an important role in Rome to the accession of Claudius to becoming the head of the empire in 41, and he was endowed with the former territories of Herod Archelaus (Idumea, Judea and Samaria) thus ruling over a territory as vast as the kingdom of Herod the Great.
Carrying a dual Jewish and Roman identity, he played the role of intercessor on behalf of the Jews with the Roman authorities and, on the domestic level, gave hope to some of his Jewish subjects of the restoration of an independent kingdom. Pursuing the Herodian policy of euergetism through major works in several Greek cities of the Near East, he nevertheless alienated some of his Greek and Syrian subjects while his regional ambitions earned him the opposition of Marsus, the legate of Roman Syria.
Agrippa I died suddenly from an “infestation of worms” in 44. In a Christian context, he is traditionally identified as the king simply named Herod whose death is recounted in Acts 12 ().
Biography Origins Family Herod Agrippa was born in Caesarea Maritima around 11 BC. He was the son of Aristobulus IV, one of the children that Herod the Great had with Mariamne the Hasmonean. His mother was Berenice, daughter of Salome, daughter of Antipater the Idumaean and sister of Herod the Great.. Herod the Great was therefore both the paternal grandfather and the maternal great-uncle of Agrippa, and Agrippa thus descends from both the Hasmonean and Herodian dynasties. His parents marked the Roman status of this Jewish prince by naming him after Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, a close collaborator of Emperor Augustus.
Herod the Great, a ruler perceived as a ruthless usurper by his subjects, was a devoted supporter of the Roman Empire and promoted its cause throughout his kingdom. His reign was characterized by violence and numerous family intrigues as he had 10 wives.. In 29 BC, Herod executed his wife Mariamne (Agrippa's grandmother).. In 7 BC, when Agrippa was just three or four years old, Herod had two of his sons (Agrippa's father Aristobulus IV and his uncle Alexander) executed following more palace intrigues. These events also led to the executions of Antipater, a son Herod had with Doris, and Costobarus, Agrippa's maternal grandfather, three years later.. Herod was responsible for the deaths of many members of the Hasmonean dynasty and its supporters, almost wiping them out entirely. However, he spared the children of Aristobulus IV (including Agrippa, Herod, Aristobulus Minor, Herodias, and Mariamne).
Imperial court
In 5 BC, two years after the murder of his father, the young Agrippa I was sent by Herod the Great to the imperial court of Rome in the company of Berenice as well as his brothers and sisters.. He was supported there by his mother's friend Antonia Minor (sister-in-law of Tiberius – who would become emperor in 14 – and mother of the future emperor Claudius) as well as by Empress Livia, who was the friend of his grandmother. Agrippa I grew up in Rome with the children of the imperial family, including Drusus, the young son of Tiberius, to whom he was particularly attached, and Tiberius' nephew Claudius, who was the same age as Agrippa I. He thus lived all his youth in the capital of the empire and personally knew almost all the members of the imperial family. At that time, Agrippa I's future appeared to be secured by his privileged relationship with Drusus (the heir apparent of Tiberius) and Claudius.
As young men, Agrippa I and his friends Claudius and Drusus had a reputation for immorality and excess.. Agrippa I went into debt as a result of this sumptuous life and received significant financial assistance from his uncle Herod Antipas. But Agrippa I's future darkened with the death of Drusus in 23,. isolating him and leaving him helpless in the face of his creditors,. especially since Berenice probably died at the same time. After the death of his son, the distraught Tiberius reacted by removing Agrippa I and Claudius from his court..
Return to Judea Agrippa I squandered the rest of his fortune trying to win the favor of the freedmen of Tiberius,. and he hastily left Rome for the province of Judaea. In Judaea he experienced various adventures and scandals linked to the need to ensure his lifestyle without enjoying the corresponding income.
Around 26, Agrippa married his cousin Cypros (daughter of Phasael, son of the tetrarch Phasael) who gave him a son named Herod Agrippa II.. Agrippa I and Cypros lived in a fortress in Malatha of Idumea where they led a modest existence, far from the splendor of the imperial court.
Cypros got along well with Herodias, the wife of Herod Antipas, who encouraged Antipas to continue to help Agrippa I. Antipas provided him with money, offered to settle Agrippa I and his family in Tiberias, and appointed him as the agoranomos (organizer of the agora) of the city, which provided him with a regular income. However, this situation was short-lived. Agrippa I accepted at first, but he soon gave the impression of not being satisfied with what was given to him. He quickly found this burden boring in a small provincial town devoid of the amenities of the Roman civilization which he had become accustomed. He quarreled with Antipas during a banquet in Tyre and then went to Syria, of which his friend Lucius Pomponius Flaccus was the legate. Shortly after, he was disgraced following an intervention by his brother Aristobulus Minor, who denounced him to Flaccus for having received a bribe to defend the interests of Damascus against Sidon in a border dispute brought before his legate friend. Agrippa I then decided to attempt a return to Rome where Tiberius might agree to receive his son's old friends again..
Back to Rome
Agrippa I borrowed the sum of 20,000 drachmas. to embark at Anthedon for Alexandria, after having been reminded by the Roman governor of Yavne, Herennius Capiton, for the debts contracted vis-à-vis the treasury of the empire. Herennius sent him the troop, but taking advantage of the night, Agrippa I embarked and managed to reach Alexandria where he obtained new funding from the alabarch Alexander Lysimachus, brother of Philo and head of the Jewish community of Alexandria. This senior official, belonging to a Jewish family of Roman citizens, was a large landowner and, like Agrippa I, a friend of Claudius. Lysimachus refused to lend the money directly to Agrippa I, whose reputation for profligacy was well established. It was with his capital of 200,000 drachmas that Agrippa embarked for Italy in the spring of 36.
Tiberius, retired to Capri, received Agrippa I and gave his son's former companion a warm welcome, which was soon tempered by a letter from the governor of Yavne about his debts. But Antonia Minor helped Agrippa I to get out of this new embarrassment by advancing him the totality of the sum due.—300,000 drachmas—and Agrippa I regained imperial favour. All these details are found in the second work of Josephus, the Antiquities of the Jews, published around 93/94, during the reign of Domitian,. but in book II of The Jewish War, his first account, published between 75 and 79,André Pelletier, La Guerre des Juifs contre les Romains, Les Belles Lettres, 1975, 3 Tomes., rééd. 2003. Traduction Pierre Savinel, Éditions de Minuit, 1977, en un volume. Josephus was more direct. It was "to accuse the tetrarch""Agrippa, fils de cet Aristobule que son père Hérode avait mis à mort, se rendit auprès de Tibère pour accuser le tétrarque Hérode (Antipas). L'empereur n'ayant pas accueilli l'accusation, Agrippa resta à Rome pour faire sa cour aux gens considérables et tout particulièrement à Gaius, fils de Germanicus" ; Josephus, The Jewish War, livre II, IX, 5 (178). Herod Antipas, that Agrippa I decided to go "to Tiberius", in order to try to take his domain,Gilbert Picard, « La date de naissance de Jésus du point de vue romain », dans Comptes-rendus des séances de l'Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres, 139 (3), 1995, . and it was because Agrippa I had been ousted from his pretensions to obtain the tetrarchy of Antipas that he would have started plotting against the emperor. Like other information about Agrippa, these are not found in the Judaic texts, whereas Josephus expands much on the subject.
The emperor asked Agrippa I to take charge of Drusus' son, his grandson Tiberius Gemellus, then a teenager and one of the two designated heirs of Tiberius with his grand-nephew Gaius Caligula, grandson of the protector of Agrippa I, Antonia. Antonia undertook to win the favors and friendship of Gaius, imitated in this by another prince without a kingdom, Antiochos of Commagene, and managed to contract a loan of one million drachmas from a Samaritan freedman of the emperor to carry out his project with the rising star of Rome. Although the conditions are unknown under which the friendship between the two men was forged, it must have been worth such an investment.
A flattery from Agrippa I to Caligula however caused him trouble: wishing in a conversation that the death of Tiberius would not be delayed any longer so that the young prince could succeed him, this remark was reported to Tiberius who ordered the arrest of Agrippa I. Agrippa I enjoyed a comfortable captivity and was released by Caligula shortly after the death of Tiberius on 16 March 37, when Pontius Pilate arrived in Rome..
The accession to the throne of his friend began Agrippa I's fortune. Caligula offered Agrippa I a gold chain "of the same weight as the chain of his captivity". He granted him, in addition to the title of king and the diadem which was its sign, the territories of Philip, who had died shortly before, tetrarch of Iturea, Trachonitis, Batanea, Gaulanitis, Auranitis and Paneas, located northeast of the lake of Tiberias. Caligula also conferred on him the praetorian ornaments, a dignity which allows certain non-senators to sit among them during public celebrations.. "This completely exceptional reversal of the situation seems to have greatly impressed Agrippa's contemporaries."