Family Tree of Polemon, who married Bernice and Tryphaena, who adopted Thekla (as indicated by Mommsen and Sir W^{m} Ramsay) Marcus Antonius = Octavia +---------------------------------------------------+ | | Zenon of Laodicea +-------------+ | | | Antonia = Nero Drusus | +-------------+ | | | Polemon-----------------+ Claudius | | | 41-54 A.D. | | | |Germanicus Tryphaen b. 8 B.C. Polemon 17 A.D. | | Caligula Polemon of Pontus 37 A.D. 41 A.D. 37 A.D. to 72 A.D. The boy paused in confusion, blushing red as a girl. The Idumean grasped his wrist. “Go on—the truth—or I’ll have you torn limb from limb by the tigers in the arena. What of that night monster, Bernice, with the snaky Herod blood in her veins?” The boy cried out with the pain of the viselike grasp. “The Princess bade me not to fear to come to Rome, where she would come when she had shaved her head and paid a vow in Jerusalem—” “Where she is now, and all Rome laughing at the pretext,” the old Idumean loosened his grasp. “Where she is now, to slip her old husband and throw her net over Titus, our General Vespasian’s son. I’ll warrant it will be a net of air she’ll weave; the spider maid will throw her wiles on the next poor fly! Did the King Agrippa’s sister send you to Rome? Have a care how you answer that!” “No, my Lord Julius, the King, her brother Agrippa, handed me to a Grecian merchant in Colossé; but with the gold his sister gave me I ran away and took ship to Rome from Crete.” A curious, terrible crafty change had come over the guard. No wild boar of the desert was he now, but crafty hunter stalking human prey in Rome’s underworld. “Young one—I have no love for these seditious Judeans; but I’ll befriend you because I have given you a Roman’s pledge. Here’s my right hand as pledge no Roman ever broke. Had I lost my prisoners it would have cost my head; but when you go into the Prophet there, see you do not bleat like one of your long-eared mountain goats! Blastus, Herod’s old chamberlain, is friend of his; so is Manæn, Herod’s foster-brother, and Joanna, wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward! Keep yourself out of sight in the inner room when strangers call; for some of Cæsar’s household also come here, whether to spy or believe, how do I know? But how did the knaves and body snatchers of the Three Taverns snare you?”