Titus Flavius Justus was an aristocratic, wealthy Roman

Roman citizenship

Citizenship in ancient Rome was a privileged political and legal status afforded to certain free-born individuals with respect to laws, property, and governance....

 Jew

History of the Jews in Italy

The history of the Jews in Italy goes back over two thousand years. Jews have been present in Italy from the Roman period until the present.-Antiquity:-Pre-Christian Rome:...

.

Justus was born and raised in Rome

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

. He was the first son born to the Roman Jewish Historian Josephus

Josephus

Titus Flavius Josephus , also called Joseph ben Matityahu , was a 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian and hagiographer of priestly and royal ancestry who recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the 1st century AD and the First Jewish–Roman War, which resulted in the Destruction of...

 and from his fourth wife, a distinguished unnamed Greek Jewish

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

 noblewoman from Crete

Crete

Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...

. The parents of Justus met in Rome and Josephus describes his mother, as one ‘in character who excelled many women, as her subsequent life demonstrated’. Justus had an older paternal half-brother Hyrcanus

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...

 and his younger brother was Flavius Simonides Agrippa

Flavius Simonides Agrippa

Titus Flavius Simonides Agrippa, also known as Titus Flavius Agrippa was an aristocratic, wealthy Roman Jew.Agrippa was born and raised in Rome. He was the second son born to the Roman Jewish Historian Josephus and from his fourth wife, a distinguished unnamed Greek Jewish noblewoman from Crete...

.

His paternal uncle was Matthias

Matthias (brother of Josephus)

Matthias was an ethnic Jew living in Jerusalem.Matthias came from a wealthy, aristocratic family and through his father he descended from the priestly order of the Jehoiarib, which was the first of the twenty four-orders of Priests in the Temple in Jerusalem. He was the first born son of Matthias...

, while his paternal grandparents were Matthias

Matthias (father of Josephus)

Matthias was an ethnic Jew living in Jerusalem.Matthias came from a wealthy family and through his father he descended from the priestly order of the Jehoiarib, which was the first of the twenty four-orders of Priests in the Temple in Jerusalem. He was the son born to Josephus and his wife, an...

 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

Jehoiarib

Jehoiarib was the head of a family of priests, which was made the first of the twenty-four priestly divisions organized by King David.- High Priest :...

, which was the first of the twenty four-orders of Priests in the Temple in Jerusalem

Temple in Jerusalem

The Temple in Jerusalem or Holy Temple , refers to one of a series of structures which were historically located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, the current site of the Dome of the Rock. Historically, these successive temples stood at this location and functioned as the centre of...

 and was a descendant of the High Priest Jonathon. Jonathon may have been Alexander Jannaeus

Alexander Jannaeus

Alexander Jannaeus was king of Judea from 103 BC to 76 BC. The son of John Hyrcanus, he inherited the throne from his brother Aristobulus I, and appears to have married his brother's widow, Shlomtzion or "Shelomit", also known as Salome Alexandra, according to the Biblical law of Yibbum...

, the High Priest and Hasmonean ruler who governed Judea

Judea

Judea or Judæa was the name of the mountainous southern part of the historic Land of Israel from the 8th century BCE to the 2nd century CE, when Roman Judea was renamed Syria Palaestina following the Jewish Bar Kokhba revolt.-Etymology:The...

 from 103 BC-76 BC.

Justus’ cognomen

Cognomen

The cognomen nōmen "name") was the third name of a citizen of Ancient Rome, under Roman naming conventions. The cognomen started as a nickname, but lost that purpose when it became hereditary. Hereditary cognomina were used to augment the second name in order to identify a particular branch within...

 was a very common Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 name in the Jewish Catacombs of Rome

Catacombs of Rome

The Catacombs of Rome are ancient catacombs, underground burial places under or near Rome, Italy, of which there are at least forty, some discovered only in recent decades. Though most famous for Christian burials, either in separate catacombs or mixed together, they began in the 2nd century, much...

. Josephus gave his son a Latin name in preference to a Greek name, despite the fact the Greek language was spoken more among Roman Jews than the Latin Language. Justus was a contemporary of the ruling Flavian dynasty

Flavian dynasty

The Flavian dynasty was a Roman Imperial Dynasty, which ruled the Roman Empire between 69 and 96 AD, encompassing the reigns of Vespasian , and his two sons Titus and Domitian . The Flavians rose to power during the civil war of 69, known as the Year of the Four Emperors...

 and Nerva–Antonine dynasty of the Roman Empire

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

. He was alive when Josephus was compiling his historical writings and when his father died about 100. Unfortunately little is known on his remaining life.

Sources

• M. Fergus, S. Emil & V. Geza, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 B.C. - A.D. 135), Continuum International Publishing Group, 1973
• É. Nodet, A search for the origins of Judaism: from Joshua to the Mishnah, Continuum International Publishing Group, 1997
• F. Josephus & S. Mason, Flavius Josephus: translation and commentary, BRILL, 2001