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BERNICE
Eldest daughter of Herod Agrippa I. Bernice was present during the apostle Paul’s speech before her brother King Agrippa II (Acts 25:13, 23; 26:30). Bernice (also spelled Berenice) was born around AD 28. At 13 she married Marcus, son of the Jewish official Alexander. After her husband’s death, her father betrothed her to his elder brother, Herod of Chalcis. Two sons, Bernicianus and Hyrcanus, were born to them before her second husband’s death in AD 48. When the young widow’s relationship with her brother, Agrippa II, deepened, there were rumors of incest. In defense, Bernice persuaded Polemo, king of Cilicia, to marry her. But she left him shortly afterward.
In AD 66 Bernice bravely but unsuccessfully appealed to the mad Roman procurator Gessius Florus not to ransack the temple in Jerusalem. She was at her brother’s side when he warned the people against war. When war broke out that year, Jewish rebels set fire to her palace as well as to her brother’s.