Beautifully set in sterling silver handmade pendant

Obverse: inscription within wreath Reverse: Two palm branches, crossed, between them date: LIA. struck 54 AD

Weight: 5.5 cm
Dimensions: length: 2.5 cm - Diameter: 2 cm

Found in Jerusalem, Israel

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Marcus Antonius Felix (Felix in Greek) was the ancient Rome procurator of Judaea Province 52-60, in succession to Ventidius Cumanus.

Felix was the younger brother of the Greek freedman Marcus Antonius Pallas. Felix was a Greek freedman either of the Emperor Claudius, according to which theory Josephus (Antiq. xx. 7) calls him Claudius Felix, or his 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’s cruelty and licentiousness, coupled with his accessibility to bribes (see Acts 24:26), led to a great increase of 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 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 the Emperor Nero, he escaped unpunished. Porcius Festus succeeded him as procurator of Judea