Festus, Porcius
succeeded Antonius Felix as procurator of Judaea in A. D. 62, and vigorously repressed the robbers and assassins (sicarii), by whom the province was infested. It was he who bore testimony to the innocence of St. Paul, when he defended himself before him in the same year. Festus died not long after his appointment as procurator, and was succeeded by ALBINUS. (J. AJ 20.8. §§ 9-11. 9.1, Bell. Jud. 2.14.1; Acts, 24.27, xxv. xxvi.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.