Flavius Hyrcanus

Who is Flavius Hyrcanus?

Titus Flavius Hyrcanus was an aristocratic, wealthy Roman Jew.

Hyrcanus was born and raised in Rome. He was the youngest son born to the Roman Jewish Historian Josephus, and from his third wife, an unnamed Alexandrian Jewish woman. Hyrcanus was the only child to have survived as his two other brothers had died.

His paternal uncle was Matthias, while his paternal grandparents were Matthias and his wife, an unnamed Jewish noblewoman. His paternal grandmother was an aristocratic woman who descended royalty and of the former ruling Hasmonean Dynasty. His paternal grandfather had descended from the priestly order of the Jehoiarib, which was the first of the twenty four-orders of Priests in the Temple in Jerusalem and was a descendant of the High Priest Jonathon. Jonathon may have been Alexander Jannaeus, the High Priest and Hasmonean ruler who governed Judea from 103 BC-76 BC.

The name Hyrcanus means one from Hyrcania. The Hyrcania Sea was the ancient Greek name for the Caspian Sea. Hyrcanus’ name reveals his father’s favourite monarch from the Hasmonean Dynasty and his lineage from the dynasty. Perhaps his father, named him in honor of the Herodian Prince Julius Hyrcanus, one of the sons Herod of Chalcis and Berenice.