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I don't believe this image is completely accurate, since the brother and sister, Agrippa II and Berenice, coruled equally for a while in a province of Roman Palestine. Thus, they would have both been seated side-by-side on thrones: she would not have been standing off to his side or behind him. It is accurate though in showing the two as having a Roman cultural presentation since that is what they were: Roman. On the many monuments they commissioned, both of their names are inscribed consecutively, sometimes with his ahead of hers and sometimes in the reverse. Berenice also commissioned a few of her own projects and donations, one of which was found in Athens, Greece. Other projects of theirs can be found in Berytus, Syria (present day Beirut, Lebanon). One of the Herods' responsibilities as a Roman family was to present a strong Roman presence in Roman Syria including Berytus and nearby Baalbek. Syria and Judaea were sensitive areas in the Parthian buffer zone bordering on Rome. Parthia (Persia) was the arch-enemy of Rome and the last Maccabean king had earlier invited an invading Parthian force into Syria, threatening Rome's sphere of influence, although this crisis had been quelled by Herod I.
These two rulers so-depicted were the eldest son and daughter of Marcus Julius Agrippa I, the grandson of Herod the Great and the last king of Roman Judaea who ruled a province larger than that of his grandfather's and was a very adept politician and negotiator, highly skilled at diplomacy and intrigue, who seems to have acquired the closest ability of all the Herods to his grandfather unaccompanied by the harsher approach the latter took later in his life. He was also very loved by the Jewish people and is mentioned by various ancient Jewish contemporary and near-contemporary sources (Philo Judaeus and Flavius Josephus) as well as the Talmud. The Herods were a Roman family (Roman Judaean) and Agrippa I felt both Roman and Jewish. Thus, his presentation was Roman rather than Eastern (belying silly media presentations) and this also applies to his son and daughter (and to the other Herods as well). He was very ambitious and his reign ended abruptly, mysteriously and prematurely, and the emperor Claudius withheld Agrippa II's inheritance, although he did make him ruler of a small Palestinian province.
Agrippa II seems not to have inherited his father's higher political and diplomatic acumen, although he also treated the Jewish people fairly. When his sister Berenice finished an arranged marriage, she went to stay with her brother and began to corule equally with him. Both children and their younger sisters had travelled with their parents while growing up when their father had needed to flee from Rome under possibly political circumstances before acquiring his kingship. They thus spent time in parts of Palestine, Egypt and Syria. They might have been close to their father and in that way, Berenice seems likely to have acquired some of her father's knack. This together with their closeness growing up (Agrippa II was only a year older than her) could have influenced their decision to corule: it seems she was useful to him as a partner politician. Later, when the first Jewish revolt broke out (whose seeds were sown when their father died so abruptly, causing widespread mourning, and Judaea reverted to the status of Roman province) she approached Titus the son of Vespasian alone to attempt to persuade him not to destroy the Jerusalem Temple. This demonstrates her following her father's expertise in diplomacy. Titus was so impressed with her intelligence that he agreed, but the fire supposedly occurred by accident.
The book of Acts tells also how Berenice and Agrippa II tried Paul (Paulus/Paulinus) together as equals and discussed together their legal decision on how to deal with his case following the trial, also demonstrating their corule. Since they were well educated and saw his approach as philosphical rather than political, they would have released him had he not already appealed to Caesar (the Supreme Court) on his arrest.
Titus fell in love with Berenice and would have married her, making her the next empress of Rome, but it is believed that his sudden death rather than anything else precluded this plan.
Agrippa II's closeness to Berenice as his sister and great respect for her political ability such that he coruled with her as an equal sparked rumours and scandal. The Romans and Romanised people loved scandals and would often accuse politicians of whom they were suspicious or who went about things differently of incestuous behaviour, affairs and so on, most of which are not taken seriously by modern scholars. Thus, in fact, any gossip repeated in the sources regarding such things can be assumed to be politically connected. Rome was very conservative, so a variety of behaviour would have shocked and intrigued them as potentially interesting gossip. The Herods sometimes married their first cousins as was allowed under Jewish Law -- and Antipas had married his neice, Herodias, Agrippa I's sister -- and these things were allowed by Judaic Law, but sibling marriages were considered incestuous. The Herods but even more so Agrippa I and his family made effort to follow the Mosaic laws. Agrippa I and his wife Cypros were part Hasmonaean/Maccabee through Herod's queen, Mariamne, and apart from his personality and choices, Agrippa I was also popular for the effort he made to follow the basic laws (even going out of his way to show them respect), and he made sure his family did the same. For this reason, both he and Agrippa II are mentioned in the Torah. Agrippa I's great popularity with the people kept the region extremely peaceful despite its diverse factions (Judaea was very multicultural, yet there is no record of Zealot activity occurring under his reign). Agrippa II and Berenice attempted to follow in their father's footsteps and often associate themselves with him on their dedications, so they would not have been involved romantically. But the gossip about Agrippa II allowing his sister (a woman) to corule became so pronounced that they eventually needed to live in separate locations.
There were similar rumours just a little earlier than this time regarding Agrippa I's friend, Caesar Gaius "Caligula", and his close relationship with his sisters. These siblings had lost their parents and older brothers growing up, mostly for political reasons and had only had one another, and Gaius as a young ruler in his 20s was untrained, sarcastic, impatient and outspoken and managed to get on the wrong side of the Senate. It was the senatorial class which wrote these histories, not to mention that records concerning him were also subject to a double smear campaign from both his successor (probably involved in his assassination), his uncle Claudius, and the succeeding Flavian dynasty. As well, the objective Roman source at the time is missing a large section that had covered his life, so we must rely on the inferior source by Suetonius, who specialised in writing tabloids. So we have some consequently juicy but defamatory writings about him as well.
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