BERENICE (BERNICE). - Sister of Agrippa II and daughter of King Herod Agrippa I (d. 44 A.D.). She married Herod, king of Chalcis, her father’s brother. After becoming a widow at the age of 21, she lived scandalously with her brother. Later she married Polemon I, king of Cilicia, but soon abandoned him to return to her brother. During this period, around 60 A.D., Agrippa II and Bernice, passing through Caesarea Maritima, were invited by the procurator Festus to hear the defense of St. Paul, who had appealed to Caesar (Acts 25:13–26:12). Subsequently Bernice succeeded in seducing the elderly Vespasian, and Titus, who would have married the Jewess had he not feared the disapproval of the Roman people.
Besides Flavius Josephus (*Antiquitates Iudaicae*, XIX, 5, 1 and 9, 1; XX, 7, 2; *Bellum Iudaicum*, II, 15, 1 and 17, 6; *Vita*, 65), the following writers mention Bernice: Cassius Dio, 66, 18; Juvenal, VI, 155–160; Tacitus, *Historiae*, II, 2, 81; Suetonius, *Titus*, 7, 1. The tragedies by Racine (*Bérénice*) and by Corneille (*Tite et Bérénice*) are well known.
Pietro De Ambroggi