Answers to Questions by Yair Davidiy
What is the history of the Roman occupation of Judea/Palestine?
Preamble
The Assyrians conquered the northern section of Israel and exiled the Ten Tribes.
The Ten Tribes disappeared though according to the Bible and Rabbinical tradition they shall return in the future.
The Ten Tribes have been traced to entities in Western Europe.
Assyria was destroyed by the Babylonians, Medes, and Scythians who included elements from the Ten Tribes. The Babylonians and Medes then divided the former Assyrian Empire between them.
Later the Babylonians conquered Judah and destroyed the First Temple and Jerusalem. They exiled the Jews to Babylon.
Following that some decades later, the Medes and Persians conquered Babylon. Cyrus the Persian allowed the Jews to return to Judea in order to rebuild the Temple and Jerusalem. The reconstituted Province of Judah grew.
Alexander the Macedonian at the head of Greek forces conquered Persia. At his death four of the generals of Alexander divided the Empire between them.
From this arrangement emerged the Seleucid Dynasty in Syria and the Ptolemaic Dynasty in Egypt. They struggled with each other over control of Judah and its neighbors.
The Seleucids were generally predominant in the region. They attempted to force a process of Hellenization i.e. to become like the Greeks, the equivalent then of modernization.
They tried to force the Jews to worship idols.
There was a revolt as a result of which Judah was ruled by a dynasty of Priests (Cohens) known as the Maccabees and headed by the Hasmonean family.
The Hasmoneans founded many cities and expanded the boundaries of Judah.
The community of Jews who returned from Babylon had included Prophets among them, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. Their successors became known as the Pharisees and developed the Oral law from which we have the Talmud.
Eventually Judah became weakened. The Itureans (perhaps ancestors of the Druze) gained control of the Galilee in 103 BCE.
Roman Rule
The Power of Rome was growing and its influence was being felt.
Rome fought a series of war with Mithridates of Pontus in northern Turkey and Southern Russia.
As a result of these wars Rome under Pompey consolidated its gains in Armenia and its neighbors and also gained control of Syria in 65-63 BCE.
Meanwhile there was a dynastic struggle in Judah. Two brothers, Aristobulus-1 and Hyrcanus-2, were quarreling over which of them would be the High Priest and therefore the ruler.
Aristobolus-1 relied on an Idumean adviser named Antipater. The Idumeans were former residents of Edom to the southeast of Judah. They were descended from Esau and related to the early founders of Rome and Germany (Megilla 6).
The two brothers, while warring with each other, each appealed to Rome to intervene on their behalf against the other.
Josephus says that consequently Pompey seized Jerusalem and the Temple and killed about 12,000 Jews. Other accounts do not confirm this.
Pompey gave back to Syria areas the Jews had previously liberated. He made Jerusalem a tributary of Rome and Judea a sub-province of Syria.
Hyrcanus-2 was appointed as High Priest but not as ruler.
In Rome Julius Caesar defeated Pompey and took over. Caesar came eastwards to deal with his rivals Mark Anthony and Cleopatra. Caesar appointed Antipater the Idumean as Procurator i.e. Governor, in 47 BCE and of the sons of Antipater, Phasael was made governor of Jerusalem and Herod governor of Galilee.
In 40 BCE, the Parthians from Persia attempted to expell the Romans from the area. They conquered Judah and appointed a Hasmonean, Antigonus, as king.
Herod (known to history as "Herod the Great"), the son of Antipater the Idumean escaped to Rome. Herod made a good impression on the Roman Senate who declared him to be King of the Jews in 40 BCE. By 37 BCE Rome through Herod had regained control of Judah. Herod rebuilt the Temple and established many new cities. Judea was a very rich province at that time.
When Herod died Judea was split up into the provinces of Judea, Edom, and Samaria. In 6 CE the three provinces came again under direct Roman administration.
Judea:
# 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) [on the coast], not Jerusalem. #
# The Province of Judea, during the late 2nd Temple period was also divided into five conclaves, or administrative districts: 1) Jerusalem, 2) Gadara, 3) Amathu, 4) Jericho, 5) Sepphoris.#
Herod Agrippa (i.e. Agrippa) was the son of Aristobolus who was one of the sons of Herod the Great. The Emperor Claudius appointed Agrippa (41-44 CE) as King over Judea. When Agrippa died Judea was again directly ruled by Rome and had territory (e.g. the Galilee) added onto it.
In 48 CE Agrippa-2 (son of Agrippa-1) was declared King but his power was limited.
The Romans oppressed the Jews and frequently attempted to paganize the Jewish Religion. The present-day EU considers itself a continuation of the Holy Roman Empire and thus of Ancient Rome. Russia also considers itself an inheritor of Rome and so do other nations.
60-70 CE Judean Rebellion. The Temple was destroyed.
115-117 CE -Kitos War. Jews in Cyrenaica (North Africa), Cyprus, and Egypt, possibly in collusion with the Parthians, revolted against Rome. After much loss the rebels were defeated. The Role of Jews in Judaea is not clear.
132-135 CE. Bar Kokhba Revolt.
The Emperor Hadrian changed the name of Judea to "Syria Palaestina." Jerusalem was re-named "Aelia Capitolina." This was done to erase the historical ties of the Jewish people to the region.
# 985 villages were destroyed and most of the Jewish population of central Judaea was essentially wiped out, killed, sold into slavery, or forced to flee. #
# Many of the Judaean Jews were sold into slavery while others became citizens of other parts of the Roman Empire. #
