Faces of Ancient Middle East Part 30 (Romans)
Syria (
Roman province)
Syria was an early Roman province, annexed to the
Roman Republic in 64 BC by
Pompey in the
Third Mithridatic War following the defeat of
Armenian King Tigranes the Great.
Later, after the
Bar Kokhba revolt, in 135 CE, Syria province was merged with
Judea province, creating the larger province of
Syria Palaestina.
Judea (Roman province)
Judea ,sometimes spelled in its original
Latin forms of Judæa,
Judaea or
Iudaea to distinguish it from Judea proper, is a term used by historians to refer to the Roman province that incorporated the geographical regions of
Judea, Samaria, and
Idumea, and which 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, of which it was an expansion, the latter name deriving from the
Kingdom of Judah of the
6th century BCE.
Rome's involvement in the area dated from 63
BCE, following the end of the Third Mithridatic War, when Rome made Syria a province. In that year, after the defeat of
Mithridates VI of Pontus, the proconsul
Pompeius Magnus (
Pompey the Great) sacked
Jerusalem and entered the
Jerusalem Temple. Subsequently, during the
1st century BCE, the
Herodian Kingdom was established as a
Roman client kingdom and then in 6 CE parts became a province of the
Roman Empire.
Judea province was the scene of unrest at its founding 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 CE), 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.
Syria Palaestina
Syria Palæstina was a Roman province between 135 and about 390. It was established by the merge of
Roman Syria and
Roman Judaea, following the defeat of the
Bar Kokhba Revolt in 135. Shortly after 193, the
Syrian regions were split off as
Syria Coele in the north and
Phoenice in the south, and the province was reduced to Judea.
Arabia Petraea
Arabia Petraea, also called Provincia
Arabia or simply Arabia, was a frontier province of the Roman Empire beginning in the
2nd century; it consisted of the former
Nabataean kingdom in Transjordan, southern Syria, the
Sinai Peninsula and northwestern
Arabian peninsula. Its capital was
Petra. It was bordered on the north by Syria, on the west by Iudaea (merged with Syria from 135 AD) and Aegyptus, and on the south and east by the rest of Arabia, known as
Arabia Deserta and
Arabia Felix.
It was annexed by
Emperor Trajan, like many other eastern frontier provinces of the Roman Empire, but held onto, unlike
Armenia,
Mesopotamia and
Assyria, well after
Trajan's rule -- its desert frontier being called the
Limes Arabicus. It produced no usurpers and no emperors (Philippus, though
Arab, was from Shahbā, a Syrian city added to the province of Arabia at a
point between 193 and 225 — Philippus was born around 204). As a frontier province, it included a desert populated by the nomadic Saraceni, and bordering the Parthian hinterland.
Though subject to eventual attack and deprivation by the
Parthians and Palmyrenes, it had nothing like the constant incursions faced in other areas on the Roman frontier, such as
Germany and
North Africa, nor the entrenched cultural presence that defined the other, more Hellenized, eastern provinces.
Roman Armenia
Roman Armenia or the
Province of Armenia (Latin: Provincia Armenia) was a short-lived frontier province of the Roman Empire created by Emperor Trajan in 114 which lasted until
118.
Assyria (Roman province)
Assyria was a Roman province that lasted only two years (116--118
AD).
Mesopotamia (
Roman province)
Mesopotamia was the name of two distinct
Roman provinces, the one a short-lived creation of the Roman Emperor Trajan in 116--117 and the other established by
Emperor Septimius Severus in ca. 198, which lasted until the
Muslim conquests of the
7th century.
Euphratensis
Euphratensis or
Augusta Euphratensis was a Roman province in
Greater Syria, part of the late
Roman Diocese of the
East.
Sometime between 330 and 350 (likely ca. 341), the province of Euphratensis was created out of the territory of Syria Coele along the western bank of the Euphrates. It included the territories of Commagene and Cyrrhestice. Its capital was
Cyrrus[2] or perhaps
Hierapolis Bambyce.
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Music:
Franz Schubert -
Symphony No. 4 in
C minor,
D. 417, "Tragic": I.
Adagio molto -
Allegro vivace