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Syria Palæstina was a Roman province between 135CE and 390CE.[1] It had been established by the merge of Roman Syria and Roman Judaea, following the defeat of the Bar Kokhba Revolt in 135 CE. In 193 Syria-Coele was split to form a separate provincial locality. Syria Palaestina had become part of the splinter Palmyrene Empire for a brief period of 260-272 CE, but was restored under Roman central authority. Eventually the province became reorganized under Byzantium as part of the Diocese of the East, which included it as the provinces of Byzantine Syria, Palaestina Prima and Palaestina Secunda.
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Earliest numismatic evidence for the name Syria Palæstina comes from the period of emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.
Herodotus wrote in c.450 BC in The Histories of a 'district of Syria, called Palaistinê" (whence Palaestina, whence Palestine).[2][3][4][5] In c.340 BC, Aristotle wrote in Meteorology about Palestine in a reference to the Dead Sea: "Again if, as is fabled, there is a lake in Palestine, such that if you bind a man or beast and throw it in it floats and does not sink, this would bear out what we have said. They say that this lake is so bitter and salt that no fish live in it and that if you soak clothes in it and shake them it cleans them."[6] And in c.40 AD, Roman-Jewish writer Philo of Alexandria wrote of the Jews in Palestine: "Moreover Palestine and Syria too are not barren of exemplary wisdom and virtue, which countries no slight portion of that most populous nation of the Jews inhabits. There is a portion of those people called Essenes"[7]
During the second and first centuries BC, the independent Hasmonean state of Judea expanded, but following the Roman Siege of Jerusalem in 63 BC was incorporated into the Roman Republic, initially as a client kingdom under Herod the Great, but after 6 CE as Judaea (Roman province).
Between 132–135 CE, Simon Bar Kokhba led a revolt against the Roman Empire, controlling Jerusalem and the surrounding areas for three years. He was proclaimed as the Messiah by Rabbi Akiva ben Joseph. As a result, Hadrian sent Sextus Julius Severus to the region, who brutally crushed the revolt and retook the city. After crushing the revolt, the Roman Emperor Hadrian applied the name Syria Palestina to the entire region that had formerly included Iudaea Province,[8] which some scholars interpret to have been an attempt to suppress Jewish national feelings.[9][10] However Cassius Dio the Roman historian from whom we have the bulk of our understanding of the revolt, does not mention the change of name nor the reason behind it in his "Roman History".[11]
The city of Aelia Capitolina was built by the emperor Hadrian on the ruins of Jerusalem. The capital of the province was Caesarea Palaestina, which, according to historian H. H. Ben-Sasson, had been the "administrative capital" of the region beginning in 6 AD.[12]
A number of events with far-reaching consequences took place, including religious schisms, such as Christianity branching off from Judaism.
The Romans destroyed the Jewish community of the Mother Church in Jerusalem, which had existed since the time of Jesus[13] Many Jews left the country altogether for the Diaspora communities, and large numbers of prisoners of war are sold as slaves throughout the Empire. Traditionally it is believed the Jerusalem Christians waited out the Jewish–Roman wars in Pella in the Decapolis. After the Jewish–Roman wars (66–135), which Epiphanius believed the Cenacle survived,[14] the significance of Jerusalem to Christians entered a period of decline, Jerusalem having been temporarily converted to the pagan Aelia Capitolina, but interest resumed again with the pilgrimage of Helena (the mother of Constantine the Great) to the Holy Land c. 326–28.
The line of Jewish bishops in Jerusalem, which is claimed to have started with Jesus's brother James the Righteous as its first bishop, ceased to exist, within the Empire. Hans Kung in "Islam :Past Present and Future", suggests that the Jewish Christians sought refuge in Arabia and he quotes with approval C. Clemen, T. Andrae and H.H. Schraeder, p. 342 "This produces the paradox of truly historic significance that while Jewish Christianity was swallowed up in the Christian church, it preserved itself in Islam, and some of its most powerful impulses extend down to the present day".
Christianity was practiced in secret and the Hellenization of Palestine continued under Septimius Severus (193–211 AD).[15] New pagan cities were founded in Judea at Eleutheropolis (Bayt Jibrin), Diopolis (Lydd), and Nicopolis (Emmaus).[15][16]
As a large province, the territory of Syria-Palaestina included the Levant and the western part of Mesopotamia. In Northern Levant, the mixed pagan population of Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans formed the majority along Ismaelite Arab societies of Itureans and later also Ghassanids (Arab Christians), who migrated to the area of Golan in 4th century AD from Yemen. A mix of Arameans and Assyrians, along Indo-Iranian speaking Karduchi were populating the western Mesopotamia, and nomad Arabs, like the Nabateans, were thriving in the Syrian Desert and south. In Southern Levant, until about 200 AD and despite the genocides of Jewish-Roman Wars, Jews had formed a majority of the population.[17] Samaritans and Greco-Romans became the dominant societies in this region by the end of the 2nd century AD.
By the beginning of the Byzantine period (disestablishment of Syria-Palaestina), the Jews had still formed the majority and were living alongside Samaritans, pagan Greco-Syrians and a small Christian community.[18]" Other opinions however, put the majority population of southern Levant on Samaritans or Christian Byzantines. Thus, no
In c.390, Syria Palaestina was reorganised into three administrative units: Palaestina Prima, Secunda, and Tertia (First, Second, and Third Palestine), part of the Diocese of the East.[19] Palaestina Prima consisted of Judea, Samaria, the coast, and Peraea with the governor residing in Caesarea. Palaestina Secunda consisted of the Galilee, the lower Jezreel Valley, the regions east of Galilee, and the western part of the former Decapolis with the seat of government at Scythopolis. Palaestina Tertia included the Negev, southern Jordan—once part of Arabia—and most of Sinai with Petra as the usual residence of the governor. Palestina Tertia was also known as Palaestina Salutaris.[20]