Judaea (Roman province)

Following the death of Herod the Great, the Herodian Kingdom of Judea was divided into the Herodian Tetrarchy, jointly ruled by Herod's sons and sister: Herod Archelaus (who ruled Judea, Samaria and Idumea), Herod Philip (who ruled Batanea, Trachonitis as well as Auranitis), Herod Antipas (who ruled Galilee and Perea) and Salome I (who briefly ruled Jamnia).

A messianic revolt erupted in Judea in 4 BCE because of Archelaus's incompetence; the revolt was brutally crushed by the Legate of Syria, Publius Quinctilius Varus, who occupied Jerusalem and crucified 2,000 Jewish rebels.[9][10]

Because of his failure to properly rule Judea, Archelaus was removed from his post by Emperor Augustus in 6 CE, while Judea, Samaria and Idumea came under direct Roman administration.[11]

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The Judean province did not initially include Galilee, Gaulanitis (today's Golan), nor Peraea or the Decapolis. Its revenue was of little importance to the Roman treasury, but it controlled the land and coastal sea routes to the "bread basket" of Egypt and was a buffer against the Parthian Empire. The capital was moved from Jerusalem to Caesarea Maritima.[12]

Augustus appointed Publius Sulpicius Quirinius to the post of Legate of Syria and he conducted a tax census of Syria and Judea in 6 CE, which triggered the revolt of Judas of Galilee; the revolt was quickly crushed by Quirinius.[13]

Judea was not a senatorial province, nor an imperial province, but instead was a "satellite of Syria"[14] governed by a prefect who was a knight of the Equestrian Order (as was that of Roman Egypt), not a former consul or praetor of senatorial rank. Quirinius appointed Coponius as first prefect of Judea.[15]

Still, Jews living in the province maintained some form of independence and could judge offenders by their own laws, including capital offenses, until c. 28 CE.[16] Judea in the early Roman period was divided into five administrative districts with centers in Jerusalem, Gadara, Amathus, Jericho, and Sepphoris.[17]

In 30–33 CE, Roman prefect Pontius Pilate, at the request of the Jewish authorities, had Jesus of Nazareth crucified on the charge of sedition, an act that led to the birth of Christianity.[18][19][20] In 36 CE another messianic revolt erupted near Mount Gerizim, under the lead of a Samaritan, and was quickly crushed by Pilate; the Samaritans complained against Pilate's brutality to the Legate of Syria Lucius Vitellius the Elder, who removed Pilate from his post and sent him to Rome to account, replacing him with an acting prefect called Marcellus.[21]

Old Roman era gate, Bab al-'Amud in Jerusalem's Old City (today part of Damascus Gate)

In 37 CE, Emperor Caligula ordered the erection of a statue of himself in the Jewish Temple of Jerusalem,[22] a demand in conflict with Jewish monotheism.[23] The Legate of Syria, Publius Petronius, fearing civil war if the order was carried out, delayed implementing it for nearly a year.[24] King Herod Agrippa I finally convinced Caligula to reverse the order.[25] Caligula later issued a second order to have his statue erected in the Temple of Jerusalem, but he was murdered before the statue reached Jerusalem and his successor Claudius rescinded the order.[26] The "Crisis under Caligula" has been proposed as the first open break between Rome and the Jews.[27]

Between 41 and 44 CE, Judea regained its nominal autonomy, when Herod Agrippa was made King of the Jews by the emperor Claudius, thus in a sense restoring the Herodian dynasty, although there is no indication that Judea ceased to be a Roman province simply because it no longer had a prefect. Claudius had decided to allow, across the empire, procurators, who had been personal agents to the Emperor often serving as provincial tax and finance ministers, to be elevated to governing magistrates with full state authority to keep the peace. He may have elevated Judea's procurator to imperial governing status because the imperial legate of Syria was not sympathetic to the Judeans.[28]

Following Agrippa's death in 44, the province returned to direct Roman control, incorporating Agrippa's personal territories of Galilee and Peraea, under a row of procurators. Nevertheless, Agrippa's son, Agrippa II was designated King of the Jews in 48. He was the seventh and last of the Herodians.

A famine took place in Jerusalem, likely between 44 and 48,[29] which Josephus describes as follows:[30]

she went down to the city Jerusalem, her son conducting her on her journey a great way. Now her coming was of very great advantage to the people of Jerusalem; for whereas a famine did oppress them at that time, and many people died for want of what was necessary to procure food withal, queen Helena sent some of her servants to Alexandria with money to buy a great quantity of corn, and others of them to Cyprus, to bring a cargo of dried figs. And as soon as they were come back, and had brought those provisions, which was done very quickly, she distributed food to those that were in want of it, and left a most excellent memorial behind her of this benefaction, which she bestowed on our whole nation. And when her son Izates was informed of this famine, he sent great sums of money to the principal men in Jerusalem.

— Josephus, The Antiquities of the Jews, Book XX

Between the years 66-70 follows the Great Revolt.

From 70 until 135 Judea's rebelliousness required a governing Roman legate capable of commanding legions. Because Agrippa II maintained loyalty to the Empire, the Kingdom was retained until he died, either in 93/94 or 100, when the area returned to complete, undivided Roman control.

Judaea was the stage of two, possibly three, major Jewish–Roman wars:

• 66–70 CE– First Jewish–Roman War, resulting in the siege of Jerusalem, the destruction of Herod's Temple and ending with the siege of Masada in 73–74 (see Josephus). Before the war Judaea was a Roman province of the third category, that is, under the administration of a procurator of equestrian rank and under the overall control of the governor of Syria. After the war it became an independent Roman province with the official name of Judaea and under the administration of a governor of praetorian rank, and was therefore moved up into the second category (it was only later, in about 120, that Judaea became a consular province, that is, with a governor of consular rank).[31]
• 115–117 – the Kitos War (Second Jewish-Roman War); Judea's role in it is disputed though, as it played itself out mainly in the Jewish diaspora and there are no fully trustworthy sources on Judea's participation in the rebellion, nor is there any archaeological way of distinguishing destruction levels of 117 CE from those of the major Bar Kokhba's revolt (Third Jewish-Roman War) revolt of just a decade and a half later.
• 132 – The province of Judaea was merged with Galilee into an enlarged province named Syria Palaestina.[2][3][4] As a result of the Jews' defeat in the Third Jewish-Roman War, Jerusalem was destroyed. A few years later, a new colony was founded in its place, named Aelia Capitolina. One scholarly view the aim of renaming Judea was to disassociate the Jewish people from the land,[32] though other explanations have also been proposed,[33] and an alternative theory is that the renaming efforts preceded and helped precipitate the rebellion.[34] The renaming did not prevent the Jewish people from referring to the country in their writings as either "Yehudah" (Hebrew: יהודה)[35][36] or "The Land of Israel" (Hebrew: ארץ ישראל).[37]

Roman stepped road in the Shephelah hill country of Judea (adjacent to Highway 375)

Under Diocletian (284–305) the region was divided into three provinces:[38]

• Palaestina Prima (Judea, Samaria, Idumea, Peraea and the coastal plain, with Caesarea Maritima as capital)
• Palaestina Secunda (Galilee, Decapolis and Golan, with Beth-Shean as capital)
• Palaestina Tertia (the Negev desert, with Petra as capital).

Agriculture played a significant role in economic life in Judaea. It is thought that grain was the main crop grown in Judaea's fields, namely wheat but also the harder and less common barley in drier regions. Many olive and winepresses have been discovered by archaeologists, demonstrating the significance of olive oil and wine as well. Evidence for the cultivation of herbs, garden vegetables, and legumes comes from Rabbinic literature, Josephus' works, and the New Testament. Writings from the late first and early second centuries indicate that Jewish farmers introduced rice to Palestine during the early Roman period. The local crop was fine, large-kernel rice.[39][40]

• Jacobson, David (2001), "When Palestine Meant Israel", Biblical Archaeology Review, 27 (3)