Faces of Ancient Middle East Part 30 (Romans)

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• published: 25 Jan 2014
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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.