ANTONIUS FELIX

Description

Marcus Antonius Felix (Felix, in Greek: ὁ Φῆλιξ, born between 5/10-?) was the Roman procurator of Judea Province 52–60, in succession to Ventidius Cumanus.
Life
Felix was the younger brother of the Greek freedman Marcus Antonius Pallas. Pallas served as a secretary of the treasury during the reign of Emperor Claudius. Felix was a Greek freedman either of Claudius, according to which theory Josephus (Antiq. xx. 7) calls him Claudius Felix, or of Claudius’s mother Antonia Minor, a daughter of Triumvir Mark Antony to Octavia Minor and niece of Emperor Augustus. According to Tacitus, Pallas and Felix descended from the Greek Kings of Arcadia. Felix became the procurator by the petition of his brother.

Felix’s cruelty, coupled with his accessibility to bribes (Book of Acts 24:26), led to a great increase in crime in Judaea. The period of his rule was marked by internal feuds and disturbances, which he put down with severity.

After Paul the Apostle was arrested in Jerusalem and rescued from a plot against his life, the local Roman chiliarch Claudius Lysias transferred him to Caesarea, where he stood trial before Felix. On at least one further occasion Felix and his wife Drusilla heard Paul discourse, and later on, frequently sent for Paul and talked with him (Acts 24:24–26). When Felix was succeeded as procurator, having already detained Paul for two years, he left him imprisoned as a favor to the Jews (Acts 24:27).

On returning to Rome, Felix was accused of using a dispute between the Jews and Syrians of Caesarea as a pretext to slay and plunder the inhabitants, but through the intercession of his brother, the freedman Pallas, who had great influence with Emperor Nero, he escaped unpunished. Porcius Festus succeeded him as procurator of Judea. Many historians believe that Felix may have had tuberculosis (like many other Romans) and that this was the cause of his death.

Several days later Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was Jewish. He sent for Paul and listened to him as he spoke about faith in Christ Jesus. (Acts 24:24)

Marriages and issues
Felix married three times. His first wife was Drusilla of Mauretania the Younger, possibly the daughter of Ptolemy of Mauretania and Julia Urania. Felix’s second wife was Drusilla of Judea, daughter of Herod Agrippa I and Cypros. Drusilla of Judea divorced Gaius Julius Azizus, King of Emesa to marry him. Felix and the Judean Drusilla had a son, Marcus Antonius Agrippa, who died along with many of the inhabitants of Pompeii and Herculaneum in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius on 24 August 79, and a daughter, Antonia Clementina. Antonia Agrippina may have been a daughter from their son’s marriage (this name was graffiti in a Royal Tomb in Egypt). Clementina became a grandmother to a Lucius Anneius Domitius Proculus. Two possible descendants from this marriage are Marcus Antonius Fronto Salvianus (a quaestor) and his son Marcus Antonius Felix Magnus, a high priest in 225. Felix married for the third time, but little is known about his third wife.