The character which the ancients have left of Felix is of a verj' dark complexion. Suetonius speaks of the military honors which the emperor loaded him
FELIX
523
FELIX
with, and specifies his appointment as governor of the province of Jud;ca {Claudius, 28), adding an innuendo, which loses nothing by its brevity, namely, that he was the husband of three queens or royal ladies (" trium reginarum muritum"). Tacitus, in his History (v, 9), declares that, during his governorsliip in Juda;a, he in- dulged in all kinds of cruelty and lu;.t, exercising re- gal power with the disposition of a slave ; and, in his Annals (xii, 5i), he represents Felix as considering himself licensed to commit any crime, relj'ing on the influence which he possessed at court. The country was ready for rebellion, and the unsuitable remedies which Felix applied served only to inflame the pas- sions and to incite to crime. The contempt which he and Cumanus (who, according to Tacitus, governed Galilee while Felix ruled Samaria ; but see Josephus, Ant. XX, 7, 1) excited in tlie minds of the people, en- couraged them to give free scope to the passions which arose from the old enmity between the Jews and Sa- maritans, while the two wil}' and base procurators were enriched by booty as if it had been spoils of war. This so far was a pleasant game to these men^ but in the prosecution of it Roman soldiers lost their lives, and but for the intervention of Quadratus, governor of Sj'ria, a rebellion would have been inevitable. A court-martial was held to inquire into the causes of this disafFeclion, when Felix, one of the accused, was seen by the injured Jews among the judges, and even seated on the judgment-seat, placed there by the presi- dent Quadratus expresslj' to outface and deter the ac- cusers and witnesses. Josephus {Ant. xx, 8, 5) re- ports that under Felix the affairs of the country grew worse and worse. The land was filled with robbers and impostors who deluded the multitude. Felix used his power to repress these disorders to little purpose, since his own example gave no sanction to justice. Thus, having got one Dineas, leader of a band of as- sassins, into his hands by a promise of impunit}', he sent him to Rome to receive his punishment. Having a grudge against Jonathan, the high-priest, who had expostulated with him on his misrule, he made use of Doras, an intimate friend of Jonathan, in order to get him assassinated by a gang of villains, who joined the crowds that were going up to the Temple worship — a crime which led subsequentl}' to countless evils, by the encouragement which it gave to the Sicarii, or leagued assassins of the da)', to whose excesses Jo- sephus ascribes, under Providence, the overthrow of the Jewish state. Among other crimes, some of these villains misled the people under the promise of per- forming miracles, and were punished by Felix. An Egvptian impostor, who escaped himself, was the occa- sion of the. loss of life to four hundred followers, and of the loss of liberty to two hundred more, thus se- verely dealt with by Felix (Josephus, Ant. xx, 8, 6; War, ii, 13, 5 ; comp. Acts xxi,38). A serious misun- derstanding having arisen between the Jewish and tha Syrian inhabitants of Cajsarea, Felix employed his troops, and slew and plundered till prevailed on to de- sist. His cruelty in this affair brought on him, after he was superseded by Festus, an accusation at Rome, which, however, he was enabled to render nugatory by the influence which his brother Pallas had, and ex- ercised to the utmost, with the emperor Nero. Jose- phus, in his Life (§ 3), reports that, " at the time when Felix was procurator of Judaa, there were certain priests of my acquaintance, and very excellent persons the}' were, whom, on a small and triflinu; occasion, he had put into bonds and sent to Rome to plead their cause before Cajsar." At the end of a two years' term Porcius Festus was appointed to supersede Felix, who, on his return to Rome, was accused by the Jews in Caisarea, as above noticed {Ant. xx, 8, 9). This was in A.D. 55 (not in the year GO, as Anicer, De tempnrum in A ct. Apost. ratione, p. 100 ; Wieseler, Chronologie der Apostelgeschichte, p. 66-82).
While in his office, being inflamed by a passion for
the beautiful Drusilla, a daughter of king Herod Agrip- pa, who was married to Azizus, king of Emesa, he em- ployed one Simon, a magician, to use his arts in order to persuade her to forsake her husband and marry him, promising that if she would comply- with his suit; he would make her a happy woman. Drusilla, partly impelled by a desire to avoid the envy of her sister Berenice, was prevailed on to transgress the laws of her forefathers, and consented to a union with Felix. In this marriage a son was born, who was named Agrippa : both mother and son perished in an eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which took place in the days of Titus Cfflsar (Josephus, Ant. xx, 7, 2). With this adul- teress was Felix seated when Paul reasoned before the judge, as already stated (Acts xxiv, 24). Another Drusilla is mentioned by Tacitus as being the wife (the first wife) of Felix. This woman was niece of Cleopatra and Anton3^ See Drusilla. By this mar- riage Felix was connected witli Claudius. Of his third wife nothing is known. (See Salden, De Felice et Drusilla, Amst. 1684).