Actually the historical term by the Romans was called the Roman Province of Iudaea
en.wikipedia.org...(Roman_province)
This was before "Palestine" came into existence and Romans documented this history. The Egyptians also documented a people as well as a nation
called Israel.
I guess people forgot about this piece of history as well, was this part of "Palestine"?
www.unrv.com...
nice try attempting to change history. Palaestina was a "region" not a country with borders. That's like saying I belong to the midwest.
Roman influence in the near eastern provinces of Judaea and Syria Palaestina first came to major fruition with the conquests of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus
(Pompey the Great). In 64 BC, the Jews had maintained nearly 2 centuries of independent rule from various eastern nations, but internal struggles and
succession issues after the death of King Alexander Jannaeus threatened the stability. His sons, Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, as well as other political
and religious factions, all vied for the Judean crown, and they eventually sought mediation from the great Roman conqueror Pompey.
Pompey endorsed Hyrcanus, but Aristobulus and his followers bided their time to resist the decision. While Pompey was busy in a minor campaign against
the Arabic Nabataeans, Aristobulus seized Jerusalem and Rome was forced to do more than mediate. Pompey besieged the ancient city and within 3 months,
officially made Hyrcanus the high priest and established Judaea as a client state. Despite this, Judaea remained independent of Roman authority
provided they stayed within the rules of their status, and some degree of instability beleaguered the state for some time.
Some 2 decades later, Julius Caesar arrived in Judaea while on campaign in the east in 47 BC. The Jews were granted various benefits owing to the
uniqueness of their monotheistic religion and Hyrcanus was officially made the King or Ethnarch. Antipater Idumean was granted the first Roman title
of the area, being appointed as procurator. It was his responsibility to see to the day to day management of Roman interests and provincial oversight.
However, Antipater was assassinated soon after, and his son, the soon to be famous Herod, took his place. Shortly thereafter, Parthian invasions from
Syria set up Aristobolus II on the throne, but Herod shrewdly garnered the intervention of the Roman Senate was confirmed as Ethnarch in 37 BC. Later,
Marcus Antonius who was given command of the entire eastern empire in an agreement with Octavian (the future Augustus), bequeathed the province along
with other Roman possessions to Cleopatra in Egypt. While Herod remained in a position of authority in this period, he supported Antonius and
Cleopatra, understandably so, but with Octavian's victory in the civil war at Actium in 31 BC, the situation changed irrevocably for the entire Roman
world.
Herod went to Rhodes to meet the victorious Octavian, and through his political skill, and likely proven ability to stabilize the province, continued
in his confirmation as ruler of Judaea. Herod was a brutal king, but this brutality helped keep an often instable political and religious environment
on peaceful terms. Despite his brutality and apparent disinterest in traditional Jewish customs, Herod was careful not to infringe on these traditions
for the people. He found it vital to his own survival to seek the approval of the masses, but the overwhelming reason for his success was the
administration of force to suppress open opposition. The Jews, however, were limited self-rule as it related to their religious practices. The
Sanhedrin was established under Herod as a sort of religious council to oversee the affairs of faith and religious law.
Herod's reign ended with his death in 4 BC and the now Roman emperor, Augustus, was faced with a difficult challenge. At first he appointed Herod's
sons as rulers of smaller districts within the larger kingdom, but misrule forced him to change tactics. Unfortunately, Judaea offered little in the
way of benefits to Rome, as it was poor in both agriculture and mineral wealth. However, its position on the eastern Mediterranean placed between the
Roman provinces of Aegyptus and Syria, bordering the Nabataean territory of Arabia, and its unstable political history necessitated firm Roman control
in order to facilitate security in the region. Augustus was forced to place Judaea under the direct control of Roman Prefects, who were in turn
responsible to the Governor of Syria. Though no legions were directly assigned to the Praefect in Judaea's early formation, there were typically 3
nearby legions in Syria ready to respond to the numerous revolts of the small province.
Of the most famous of these Roman Prefects, was Pontius Pilate. His position in religious history is secured through the word of the Christian faith
that saw its start in Judaea. The life of Pilate, and of Jesus Christ are both highly disputed by scholars, but its certain that Pilate was the
Prefect between the years 26 and 36 AD. He was considered responsible for the death and crucifixion of Jesus though many have argued, including
ancient contemporaries, that Pilate was innocent of the whole affair, and that blame rested on Caiphas the high priest and his conservative Jewish
followers. Regardless, the rule of Pilate was one of difficult circumstances with several revolts put down by extreme force. Some of his actions
regarding religious tradition alienated him from the Jewish population, and even the Emperor Tiberius was forced to intervene. Threatening Pilate if
peaceful administration wasn't restored, Pilate's actions in the biblical stories may have been less out of tolerance toward Jesus, than fear of
retribution from Rome if new revolts occurred. By the end of Pilate's term in 36 AD, however, violence and resistance to Roman rule was at dangerous
levels. Attempts by Pilate to introduce statues of Tiberius and of Caligula to do the same with his own images, within Jewish temples had the people
close to open revolt. Only the wise intervention of Claudius suppressed this and restored a sense of stability.
In 41 AD, Claudius appointed Herod Agrippa as king, restoring some sense of self rule to the Jewish state. Agrippa, though the grandson of Herod, was
extremely popular among the people and his administration was able to alleviate tension. A devout traditionalist regarding religion, Agrippa upheld
the all important Jewish customs and maintained some degree of independence from the authorities in Rome. Unfortunately, his death in 44 AD put Judaea
back under direct governing by Roman Procurators for another 20 years, and dissatisfaction grew at an alarming rate.
By 66 AD, all out revolt finally broke out when the Procurator Gessius Florus apparently seized seventeen talents from the Jewish temple treasury.
This act, paling in comparison to the religious strife that existed between Pagan Rome and the Jewish faith, was simply the final straw that broke the
people's tolerance and armies were raised throughout the province. The Syrian governor Gallus attempted to invest Jerusalem but was soundly defeated,
even losing the standard of XII Legion in the process. Religious zealots took hold of forts throughout the region, and ethnic purging took place all
over. By 67 AD, however, the Roman general Vespasian arrived and things began to go well for the Romans. He invaded Palestine from Syria and stamped
out resistance in the north with great speed. By the summer of 68 AD, only Jerusalem and the stronghold of Masada remained in opposition.
69 AD saw the year of the 4 emperors after the death of Nero, and Vespasian was one of the civil war candidates who took to the field to claim the
throne. Successful in his goal, he sent his son Titus to finish the subjugation of Judaea. In 71 AD, Jerusalem was finally captured and its great
temple destroyed, ending the resistance of the main body of the population. The great Jewish historian Josephus was also captured during the campaign
and eventually became a confidant of the emperor. Vespasian and Titus returned to Rome to celebrate a triumph, but the fortress of Mesada and its
militant occupants remained. By 74 AD, Lucius Flavius Silva, then the governor of Judaea ordered the legion X Fretensis to besiege the mountain
fortress to put an end to the resistance. Building an incredible ramp to allow easy movement for siege engines and infantry, the Romans discovered
that their efforts would not require a fight. They found the place abandoned, save for a woman and her children, who informed the Romans that the
inhabitants had killed themselves rather than become slaves to the Romans.
Under the reign of Trajan, a large Jewish revolt broke out on Cyprus and in Cyrenaica on the African coast. Roman pagan temples were destroyed, and
the conflict spread to the largest Jewish city in the empire, Alexandria Egypt. There, more Roman temples were destroyed along with the tomb of Pompey
the Great. However, Trajan managed to prevent widespread revolt in the home province of Judaea and put down the trouble where it originated. His
successor, Hadrian, found matters much more difficult, however, and had to deal with the last and most dangerous Jewish revolt of them all.
Hadrian was responsible for stopping Roman expansion and attempting to bring cultural uniformity throughout the empire. While it brought great success
in most places, the religious differences in Judaea were too great. He rebuilt Jerusalem, first razed by Titus, as the Roman city of Aelia Capitolina
and erected a great temple to Jupiter, rather than the Jewish God. Hadrian also forbade circumcision which the Jews viewed as a direct attack on their
customs, and by 132 AD, revolt broke out once again. Under the leadership of Simon ben Kosiba, or Bar Kochba, this 3 year struggle would be the most
brutal in the history of Roman rule and would turn into a clash involving ethnicity, faith and culture. Three full legions were needed to suppress
this clash and extreme measures were taken to end resistance. By 135 AD, the Romans cornered Kosiba and his followers at Bethar where they starved to
death and the war was over.
The Jewish people were severely punished by Hadrian. Prisoners were sold into slavery in massive numbers, and Judaism as a religion was under attack.
He forbade the people to teach Mosaic Law or to own scrolls of any sort. Pagan temples and symbols were erected all over the province and even
directly over old Jewish religious sites. The province itself was renamed Palestine; and of course, Jerusalem was already called Aelia Capitolina to
stamp out any reference even to the Jewish names. The people were even forbidden from entering the temple complex to pray at their own sacred grounds,
and the outer wall of the complex eventually came to be known as the 'wailing wall'.
Despite the severity of Hadrian's response, his tactics worked and the Jews fell into a long period of peaceful subjugation. Hadrian's successor,
Antoninus Pius, restored many of the religious rites of the people, and that seemingly went a long way towards healing the wounds. Over the next 2
centuries Roman occupation of Palaestina-Judaea was a relatively uneventful period. The territory received some additional notoriety with the
acceptance of Christianity by Constantine and that religion's continued growth throughout the 4th century. The province remained a relatively
peaceful backwater of the empire even through the fall of the west in the 5th century. It remained a part of the Byzantine Empire until 638 AD, when
the region was overrun by the Arab conquest.
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