The Julii of Judaea, 47 BC – AD 117

Herod’s house, carrying the name of the Julii.

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The Master Timeline

40 BC 20 BC AD 1 AD 20 AD 40 AD 60 AD 80 AD 100 ROME — THE NAME, THE PATRON, THE EXILES THE EAST — THE THRONES 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
Rome — the name, the patron, the exiles The East — the thrones of the house Death — large ring marks the end of the house’s kingships Error bar — the dating window
  1. 147 BCThe grant: the house becomes Julii
  2. 2late 40 BCThe Senate makes Herod king
  3. 34 BCThe will argued before Augustus
  4. 4AD 6Archelaus banished to Gaul
  5. 5AD 36Agrippa in Tiberius’s prison
  6. 6AD 37Caligula crowns Agrippa
  7. 7AD 39Antipas banished to Gaul
  8. 8AD 41Agrippa brokers Claudius’s accession
  9. 9c. AD 75Berenice on the Palatine
  10. 10AD 79Titus sends Berenice away
  11. 11c. AD 116–17The consul: the name returns to the fasti
  12. 1237 BCHerod takes Jerusalem
  13. 134 BCHerod dies
  14. 14c. AD 6A grandson of Herod on Armenia’s throne
  15. 15AD 41Marcus Julius Agrippa, king of Judaea
  16. 16AD 44Agrippa dies; two records
  17. 17AD 54Nero grants Armenia Minor
  18. 18AD 66The revolt; the house sides with Rome
  19. 19AD 70The Temple burns
  20. 20AD 79A death under Vesuvius
  21. 21c. AD 92–100The last king of the house dies

Each numbered marker links to its row in the event register below. The upper lane holds every act of the Roman patron toward the house — the grant that gave it the name, the crown voted in the Senate, the hearings, prisons, exiles and dismissals — and the name’s return to the consular lists under Trajan. The lower lane holds the thrones of the East: Judaea, Chalcis, Armenia, Armenia Minor. Closely spaced events are fanned rightward for readability at 6.2 pixels per year; the register carries the true dates. This period continues The Name After the Blood, 44 BC – AD 90, which it overlaps by design; green M4 chips link each event to the section of The Julii of Judaea covering it.

The Genealogy

The line the timeline follows, drawn as a tree: the timeline above carries the events in time; the tree carries the same people by descent. The full statement of every relationship is in The Julii of Judaea.

C. JULIUS CAESARthe dictator †44 BC citizenship grant, 47 BC — the house takes the name ANTIPATER†43 BC, poisoned PHASAEL†40 BC HERODking of Judaea, 37–4 BC Antipater IIexecuted 4 BC Alexanderexecuted 7 BC Aristobulus IVexecuted 7 BC Philiptetrarch †AD 34 Archelausexiled to Gaul, AD 6 Antipasexiled to Gaul, AD 39 Tigranes Vking of Armenia, AD 6 Herod of Chalcisking †AD 48 AGRIPPA IM. Julius Agrippa †AD 44 Tigranes VIking of Armenia, AD 60 AristobulusArmenia Minor, AD 54 AGRIPPA IIlast king †c. AD 92–100 Berenicewith Titus, Rome Drusillam. Felix, procurator C. JULIUS ALEXANDER BERENICIANUSconsul of Rome, c. AD 116–17 a son†Vesuvius, AD 79 male-line descent through a woman grant / adoption bore the name as ruler killed
Line conventions: solid for male-line blood, dotted for descent through a woman, dashed gold for adoption and grant; gold boxes bore the name as rulers; ringed boxes were killed. Simplified to the named figures of the record; relationships per the sources in the register, with the prosopographic links on the memo’s verification register.

The Event Register

№DateLaneEventRefs
147 BCROME Caesar grants Antipater the Idumaean Roman citizenship, tax exemption and the procuratorship of Judaea, for service in the Alexandrian war. An enfranchised client takes his patron’s name: the house becomes, in law, Julii. 42.1.14 42.2.1.194 M4 §2
2late 40 BCROME The Senate, on Antony’s motion with Octavian supporting, declares Herod king of Judaea; the new king walks to the Capitol to sacrifice between the two of them. 42.2.1.284 M4 §3
34 BCROME The heirs argue Herod’s will before Augustus in Rome; the kingdom is split three ways, subject to the emperor’s ruling. The Julian patron disposes of the client succession. 42.1.17 M4 §3
4AD 6ROME Archelaus deposed by Augustus and banished to Vienne in Gaul; Judaea annexed as a province. 42.1.17.342 11.1.55 M4 §4
5AD 36ROME Agrippa, grandson of Herod, imprisoned by Tiberius over an overheard wish for Caligula’s accession. 42.1.18 M4 §5
6AD 37ROME Tiberius dead, Caligula frees his friend, gives him a gold chain the weight of his iron one, and makes him king of Philip’s former tetrarchy. 42.1.18.237 M4 §5
7AD 39ROME Antipas — the Herod of the Gospels — asks for a royal title, is denounced by his nephew Agrippa, and is banished to Lugdunum in Gaul. 42.1.18.252 M4 §4
8AD 41ROME Caligula assassinated. Josephus places Agrippa at the centre of the crisis, moving between the terrified Claudius and the Senate. Claudius becomes emperor owing a debt to a grandson of Herod. 42.1.19 42.2.2.206 M4 §5
9c. AD 75ROME Berenice, great-granddaughter of Herod, lives with Titus on the Palatine — by Dio’s account a wife in everything but law. 11.1.65 M4 §7
10AD 79ROME On his accession, under public pressure and the spoken memory of Cleopatra, Titus sends Berenice away finally — dimisit invitus invitam. 9.5.7 M4 §7
11c. AD 116–17ROME Gaius Julius Alexander Berenicianus, by the standard prosopography a descendant of Herod, holds a suffect consulship of Rome under Trajan. The name is back in the fasti — carried by the enfranchised line. 34.2 M4 §9
1237 BCTHE EAST Herod takes Jerusalem from the Parthian-backed rival; the reign begins in fact and runs thirty-three years. 42.1.14.487 M4 §3
134 BCTHE EAST Herod dies at Jericho. 42.1.17.188 M4 §3
14c. AD 6THE EAST Tigranes V, grandson of Herod through the executed Alexander, placed on the throne of Armenia by Augustus. His nephew Tigranes VI is placed there again by Nero in AD 60. 42.1.18.139 M4 §6
15AD 41THE EAST Claudius gives Agrippa the whole of his grandfather’s kingdom: Marcus Julius Agrippa, king of Judaea. 42.1.19.274 M4 §5
16AD 44THE EAST Agrippa dies at Caesarea after five days of pain. Josephus and the Acts of the Apostles record the death independently, from opposite directions. 42.1.19.343 45.1.12 M4 §5
17AD 54THE EAST Nero, in his first year, grants Armenia Minor to Aristobulus, great-grandson of Herod — a throne from the last of the adopted line to the enfranchised line. 41.1.13.7 M4 §6
18AD 66THE EAST Judaea revolts. Agrippa II argues against the war in the speech Josephus reproduces, and the house sides with Rome throughout. 42.2.2 M4 §8
19AD 70THE EAST Jerusalem falls; the Temple Herod rebuilt burns. 42.2.6 M4 §8
20AD 79THE EAST The son of Drusilla — Agrippa I’s daughter — and the procurator Felix dies, with his wife, in the eruption of Vesuvius. A great-great-grandson of Herod among the dead of the catastrophe. 42.1.20.144 M4 §8
21c. AD 92–100THE EAST Agrippa II — Marcus Julius Agrippa on his coins — dies, the last king of the house. The date is disputed: c. 92 by the common dating, c. 100 by the tradition Photius preserved from Justus of Tiberias. 42.1.20 M4 §8

Reference codes read source . work . passage against the master source register. Green M4 chips link to the section of The Julii of Judaea covering the event. The register cites the earliest attestation, not the most familiar one; where two independent traditions record one event — Josephus and the Acts on the death of Agrippa — both are cited.

The Sources of This Period

Numbers are master register numbers — permanent across the whole timelines project; the full register lives at the master source register.

  1. 42 · Josephus — ~AD 75–94, Judaean priest and Flavian client, writing within living memory of the Herodian court. Caesar’s grant of citizenship to Antipater, 47 BC (42.1.14; 42.2.1.194); the reigns of the enfranchised kings (42.1.18–19).42.1 Antiquities of the Jews · 42.2 The Jewish War
  2. 45 · The Acts of the Apostles — ~AD 80–90, within living memory of the Herodian court it describes. The death of Agrippa I at Caesarea (45.1.12); Agrippa II and Berenice hearing Paul (45.1.25–26).45.1 Acts (cited by chapter)
  3. 41 · Tacitus — ~AD 110–120, senator writing under Trajan, two generations after the events of the Julio-Claudian court he records. The Clemens interrogation (41.1.2.39–40); the adoption of Nero (41.1.12.25); the first false Nero (41.2.2.8).41.1 Annals · 41.2 Histories
  4. 9 · Suetonius — ~AD 121, imperial secretary to Hadrian with access to the archives. The will (9.1.83), the Cinna bill (9.1.52.3), the Oppius pamphlet (9.1.52.2), the funeral and Cinna’s death (9.1.85). The opening of the Divus Julius is lost in transmission; it begins in Caesar’s sixteenth year.9.1 Divus Julius · 9.2 Divus Augustus · 9.3 Tiberius · 9.4 Nero · 9.5 Divus Titus
  5. 11 · Cassius Dio — ~AD 200–230, some 250 years after, Roman senator writing in Greek. The fullest connected narrative; the Sibylline report “whether true or false” (11.1.44.15); the fate of the statue (11.1.51.22); the end in Alexandria (11.1.51.10–15).11.1 Roman History
  6. 34 · The Bovillae altar — stone altar dedicated by the gens Julia to Vediovis at Bovillae, inscribed leege Albana — by Alban law; dated on letter-forms to c. 100 BC. The one surviving physical document of the family’s own Alban claim.34.1 The inscription (CIL I² 1439) — stone; no single edition to link · 34.2 imperial fasti and inscriptions (later consular lists; not one document — cited as a class, unlinked)

Missing sources

Nothing in this list links out: these works are lost — their absence is the entry.

  1. 43 · The Memoirs of King Herod — Herod’s own account of his reign, cited by Josephus as a source (42.1.15.174). Lost.
  2. 44 · Justus of Tiberias — the rival Herodian-court historian; his chronicle ran to the death of Agrippa II and was still read by Photius in the ninth century. Lost.

Memos for This Period

Held as references, per the stream rule — the arguments live in the memos; the timeline states only what is attested and by whom.

  1. The Julii of Judaea: Herod’s House and the Name of Caesar — the memo this page serves; every event above is chipped to its section
  2. The Julii: From Troy to the Ides — the family whose name this house carried, and the two endings of its line

A Note on the Dating

Every event on this page is attested; the dashed markers carry a dating window, not a doubt about the event, and the one genuine dispute in the record — the death of Agrippa II, c. 92 by the common dating against c. 100 by the tradition Photius preserved from the lost Justus of Tiberias — is drawn as an eight-year error bar and left unresolved, per the house rule. The chart crosses from BC to AD with no year zero; the scale runs astronomical years beneath the labels. Nearly the whole page rests on Josephus, a writer inside the events’ living memory and inside the house’s patronage — his position is stated in the register, and the two points where an independent tradition crosses him, the Acts of the Apostles on the death of Agrippa and the Roman historians on Berenice, are cited beside him.

Format — TIMELINE-FORMAT-SPEC v1.4

This page follows the period-page format with a thematic lane split: a lane for the Roman patron’s acts toward a client house, a lane for the house’s thrones in the East, every event referenced to the master register, memo chips linking each event to the section that covers it, and dating windows drawn as error bars.

House rules: every event carries numbered references, linked to the master register · the register states no interpretation as an event · estimated means flagged, not resolved · the earliest attestation is cited.