Agrippa I

Origins and early life

Agrippa I was born around 10 BCE, grandson of Herod the Great and of the Hasmonean princess Mariamne — in him the usurper's line and the old priestly royal house met.

Work and career

Raised in Rome among the imperial family, he became the personal friend of two future emperors, and his life turned on that friendship: imprisoned by Tiberius for an incautious word, he was freed by Caligula, who crowned him king; and in the chaos after Caligula's assassination in 41 he threw himself into the negotiations that helped secure the succession for his friend Claudius, who rewarded him with Judea and Samaria — making him the last king to rule essentially the whole kingdom of his grandfather.

He used his standing at real personal risk: when Caligula ordered his own statue erected in the Temple of Jerusalem, Agrippa's intercession helped stay the sacrilege that could have set the country ablaze. Josephus, Philo and the rabbinic sources — so hard on his grandfather — praise his piety and his popularity with his Jewish subjects; the Mishnah remembers him reading the Torah in the Temple as the people cried 'you are our brother'. He died suddenly at Caesarea in 44 CE.