Judea (Roman province)

Not to be confused with the geographical region of Judea.

Provincia Iudaea
Province of the Roman Empire
← 6 CE–135 CE →
Capital		Caesarea Maritima
Prefects before 41, Procurators after 44
•	6–9 CE	Coponius
•	26–36 CE	Pontius Pilate
•	64-66 CE	Gessius Florus
•	117 CE	Lusius Quietus
•	130-132 CE	Tineius Rufus
King of the Jews
•	41–44	Agrippa I
•	48–93/100	Agrippa II
Legislature		Synedrion/Sanhedrin
Historical era		Roman Principate
•	Census of Quirinius	6 CE
•	Crisis under Caligula	37–41 CE
•	Incorporation of Galilee and Peraea	44 CE
•	Destruction of the Second Temple	August 4, 70 CE
•	Governor of praetorian rank & given the 10th Legion	c.74 CE
•	Bar Kokhba revolt	132–135 CE 135 CE
Today part of		Israel Jordan Palestine
Before August 4, 70 is referred to as Second Temple Judaism, from which the Tannaim and Early Christianity emerged.

The Roman province of Judea (Hebrew: יהודה, Standard Yehuda Tiberian Yehûḏāh; Arabic: يهودا‎‎; Greek: Ἰουδαία; Latin: Iūdǽa), sometimes spelled in its original Latin forms of Judæa, Judaea or Iudaea to distinguish it from the geographical region of Judea, which incorporated the regions of Judea, Samaria and Idumea, and extended over parts of the former regions of the Hasmonean and Herodian kingdoms of Israel. It was named after Herod Archelaus's Tetrarchy of Judea, but the Roman province encompassed a much larger territory. The name "Judea" was derived from the Kingdom of Judah of the 6th century BCE.

Judea province was the scene of unrest at its founding in 6 CE during the Census of Quirinius and several wars were fought in its history, known as the Jewish–Roman wars. The Temple was destroyed in 70 as part of the Great Jewish Revolt resulting in the institution of the Fiscus Judaicus, and after Bar Kokhba's revolt (132–135), the Roman Emperor Hadrian changed the name of the province to Syria Palaestina and Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina, which certain scholars conclude was done in an attempt to remove the relationship of the Jewish people to the region.

Relations with Hasmonean and Herodian dynasties

Pompey in the Temple of Jerusalem, by Jean Fouquet

The first intervention of Rome in the region dates from 63 BCE, following the end of the Third Mithridatic War, when Rome made a province of Syria. After the defeat of Mithridates VI of Pontus, Pompey (Pompey the Great) sacked Jerusalem and established Hasmonean prince Hyrcanus II as Ethnarch and High Priest, but he was denied the title of King. A later appointment by Julius Caesar was Antipater the Idumaean, also known as Antipas, as the first Roman Procurator. Herod the Great, Antipater's son, was designated "King of the Jews" by the Roman Senate in 40 BCE. He did not gain military control until 37 BCE. During his reign the last representatives of the Hasmoneans were eliminated, and the great port of Caesarea Maritima was built.

He died in 4 BCE, and his kingdom was divided mostly among three of his sons, who became tetrarchs ("rulers of a quarter part", or in this case rather of "thirds"). One of these tetrarchies was Judea corresponding to the territory of the historic Judea, plus Samaria and Idumea. Herod's son Herod Archelaus, ruled Judea so badly that he was dismissed in 6 CE by the Roman emperor Augustus, after an appeal from his own population. Another, Herod Antipas, ruled as tetrarch of Galilee and Perea from 4 BCE to 39 CE, being then dismissed by Caligula. The third tetrarch, Herod's son Philip, ruled over the northeastern part of his father's kingdom.

Judea as Roman province

The Roman empire in the time of Hadrian (ruled 117–138 CE), showing, in western Asia, the Roman province of Iudaea. 1 legion deployed in 125.

In 6 CE Archelaus' tetrachy (Judea, plus Samaria and Idumea) came under Roman direct administration. Even though Iudaea is simply derived from the Latin for Judea, many historians use it to distinguish the Roman province from the previous territory and history. Iudaea province did not initially include Galilee, Gaulanitis (the 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 Egypt and was a border province against the Parthian Empire because of the Jewish connections to Babylonia (since the Babylonian exile). The capital was at Caesarea (Maritima), not Jerusalem. Quirinius became Legate (Governor) of Syria and conducted the first Roman tax census of Syria and Iudaea, which was opposed by the Zealots. Iudaea was not a Senatorial province, nor exactly an Imperial province, but instead was a "satellite of Syria" governed by a prefect who was a knight of the equestrian order (as was Roman Egypt), not a former consul or praetor of senatorial rank. Pontius Pilate, whose name was recorded in the Pilate Stone, was one of these prefects, from 26 to 36 CE. Caiaphas was one of the appointed High Priests of Herod's Temple, being appointed by the Prefect Valerius Gratus in 18. Both were deposed by the Syrian Legate Lucius Vitellius in 36 CE.

The 'Crisis under Caligula' (37–41) has been proposed as the first open break between Rome and the Jews.

Between 41 and 44 CE, Iudaea 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, though there is no indication Iudaea 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 elevated Iudaeas's procurator whom he trusted to imperial governing status because the imperial legate of Syria was not sympathetic to the Judeans. Following Agrippa's death in 44 CE, 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.

From 70 CE until 135 CE, Iudaea'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 Empire control.

Judaea was the stage of two, possibly three major rebellions against Roman rule:

• 66–70 CE - first rebellion, ending in the siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of Herod's Temple (see Great Jewish Revolt, 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 CE, that Judaea became a consular province, that is, with a governor of consular rank).
• 115–117 CE - second rebellion, called Kitos War; Judaea'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 Judaea's participation in the rebellion, nor is there any archaeological way of distinguishing destruction levels of 117 CE from those of the large Bar Kokhba revolt of just a decade and a half later.
• 132–135 CE - third rebellion, Bar Kokhba's revolt

Following the suppression of Bar Kokhba's revolt, the emperor Hadrian changed the name of the province to Syria Palaestina and Jerusalem became Aelia Capitolina which Hayim Hillel Ben-Sasson states was done to erase the historical ties of the Jewish people to the region.

Under Diocletian (284-305) the region was divided into three provinces:

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

List of Governors (AD 6–135)

Name	Reign	Length of rule	Category
Coponius	6–9	3	Roman Prefect
Marcus Ambivulus	9–12	3	Roman Prefect
Annius Rufus	12–15	3	Roman Prefect
Valerius Gratus	15–26	11	Roman Prefect
Pontius Pilate	26–36	10	Roman Prefect
Marcellus	36–37	1	Roman Prefect
Marullus	37–41	4	Roman Prefect
Agrippa I	41–44	3	King of Judaea
Cuspius Fadus	44–46	2	Roman Procurator
Tiberius Julius Alexander	46–48	2	Roman Procurator
Ventidius Cumanus	48–52	4	Roman Procurator
Marcus Antonius Felix	52–60	8	Roman Procurator
Porcius Festus	60–62	2	Roman Procurator
Lucceius Albinus	62–64	2	Roman Procurator
Gessius Florus	64–66	2	Roman Procurator
Marcus Antonius Julianus	66–70 (dates uncertain)	4	Roman Procurator
Sextus Vettulenus Cerialis	70–71	1	Roman Legate
Lucilius Bassus	71–72	1	Roman Legate
Lucius Flavius Silva	72–81	9	Roman Legate
M. Salvidenus	80–85	5	Roman Legate
Cnaeus Pompeius Longinus	c.86	1	Roman Legate
Sextus Hermetidius Campanus	c.93	1	Roman Legate
Tiberius Claudius Atticus Herodes	99–102	3	Roman Legate
Gaius Julius Quadratus Bassus	102–104	2	Roman Legate
Quintus Pompeius Falco	105–107	2	Roman Legate
Tiberianus	114–117	3	Roman Legate
Lusius Quietus	117-120	3	Roman Legate
Lucius Cossonius Gallus	120	1	Roman Legate
Quintus Tineius Rufus	132–135	3	Roman Legate
Sextus Julius Severus	c.135	1	Roman Legate

See also

• Siege of Jerusalem (AD 70)
• Aelia Capitolina

External links

• Jewish Encyclopedia: Procurators of Iudaea
• The name Rome gave to the land of Israel