Syria Palaestina (literally, "Palestinian Syria";Trevor Bryce, 2009, The Routledge Handbook of the Peoples and Places of Ancient Western AsiaRoland de Vaux, 1978, The Early History of Israel, Page 2: "After the revolt of Bar Cochba in 135 CE, the Roman province of Judaea was renamed Palestinian Syria."
;Syria Palaestina on the Wiktionary. , ) was the name given to the Roman province of Judea by the emperor Hadrian following the suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 CE.Moše Šārôn / Moshe Sharon, 1988, Pillars of Smoke and Fire: The Holy Land in History and Thought
The province was divided into Palaestina Prima and Palaestina Salutaris in about 357, and by 409 Palaestina Prima had been further split into a smaller Palaestina Prima and Palaestina Secunda, while Salutaris was named Tertia or Salutaris.
Background
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.
Following the partition of the Herodian kingdom into tetrarchies in 6 AD, it was gradually absorbed into Roman provinces, with Roman Syria annexing Iturea and Trachonitis.
The Roman province of Judea 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 capital of Roman Syria was established in Antioch from the very beginning of Roman rule, while the capital of the Judaea province was shifted to Caesarea Maritima, which, according to historian H. H. Ben-Sasson, had been the "administrative capital" of the region beginning in 6 AD.A History of the Jewish People, H. H. Ben-Sasson editor, 1976, page 247: "When Judea was converted into a Roman province [in 6 AD, page 246], Jerusalem ceased to be the administrative capital of the country.
The Romans moved the governmental residence and military headquarters to Caesarea.
The centre of government was thus removed from Jerusalem, and the administration became increasingly based on inhabitants of the hellenistic cities (Sebaste, Caesarea and others)."
Judea province was the scene of unrest at its founding in 6 AD 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 AD as part of the First Jewish–Roman War resulting in the institution of the Fiscus Judaicus.
The Provinces of Judaea and Syria were key scenes of an increasing conflict between Judaean and Hellenistic population, which exploded into full scale Jewish–Roman wars, beginning with the First Jewish–Roman War of 66–70.
Disturbances followed throughout the region during the Kitos War in 117–118.
Between 132–135, Simon bar Kokhba led a revolt against the Roman Empire, controlling parts of Judea, for three years.
As a result, Hadrian sent Sextus Julius Severus to the region, who brutally crushed the revolt.
Shortly before or after the Bar Kokhba's revolt (132–135), the Roman Emperor Hadrian changed the name of the Judea province to Syria Palaestina, and founded Aelia Capitolina on the ruins of Jerusalem, which most scholars conclude was done in an attempt to remove the relationship of the Jewish people to the region.H.H. Ben-Sasson, A History of the Jewish People, Harvard University Press, 1976, , page 334: "In an effort to wipe out all memory of the bond between the Jews and the land, Hadrian changed the name of the province from Iudaea to Syria-Palestina, a name that became common in non-Jewish literature."
Ariel Lewin.
The archaeology of Ancient Judea and Palestine.
Getty Publications, 2005 p.
33. "It seems clear that by choosing a seemingly neutral name - one juxtaposing that of a neighboring province with the revived name of an ancient geographical entity (Palestine), already known from the writings of Herodotus - Hadrian was intending to suppress any connection between the Jewish people and that land."
Ronald Syme suggested the name change preceded the revolt; he writes "Hadrian was in those parts in 129 and 130.
He abolished the name of Jerusalem, refounding the place as a colony, Aelia Capitolina.
That helped to provoke the rebellion.
The supersession of the ethnical term  by the geographical may also reflect Hadrian's decided opinions about Jews."  (page 90)
Hadrian's connection to the name change and the reason behind it is disputed.
: "While it is true that there is no evidence as to precisely who changed the name of Judaea to Palestine and precisely when this was done, circumstantial evidence would seem to point to Hadrian himself, since he is, it would seem, responsible for a number of decrees that sought to crush the national and religious spirit of thejews, whether these decrees were responsible for the uprising or were the result of it.
In the first place, he refounded Jerusalem as a Graeco-Roman city under the name of Aelia Capitolina.
He also erected on the site of the Temple another temple to Zeus."
History
thumb|Palaestina in modern times (ca 1926 or possibly earlier).
Consolidation
After crushing the Bar Kokhba revolt, the Roman Emperor Hadrian applied the name Syria Palaestina, meaning "Palestinian Syria", to Judea province.
The name Syria Palaestina predates Hadrian's naming decision by at least five centuries, as the term was already in use in the West; Herodotus, for example, uses the term in the V century BC when discussing the component parts of the fifth province of the Achaemenid empire: Phoenicia, Cyprus, "and that part of Syria which is called Palestine" ().
In 2018 Nur Masalha wrote the name refers to Palestine as part of a broader Syrian region encompassing the Levant from Cappadocia and Cilicia in the north to Phoenicia and Palestina, bordering Egypt to the south.
The city of Aelia Capitolina was built by the emperor Hadrian on the ruins of Jerusalem.
The capital of the province of Syria proper remained in Antiochia.
Around the year 300, Syria Palaestina was enlarged by transferring to it the southern part of what had been the Roman Province of Arabia Petrea: the Negev, part of the Sinai, and ancient Edom.
Conflict with Sassanids and emergence of the Palmyrene Empire
Beginning in 212, Palmyra's trade diminished as the Sassanids occupied the mouth of the Tigris and the Euphrates.
In 232, the Syrian Legion rebelled against the Roman Empire, but the uprising went unsuccessful.
Septimius Odaenathus, a Prince of the Aramean state of Palmyra, was appointed by Valerian as the governor of the province of Syria Palaestina.
After Valerian was captured by the Sassanids in 260, and died in captivity in Bishapur, Odaenathus campaigned as far as Ctesiphon (near modern-day Baghdad) for revenge, invading the city twice.
When Odaenathus was assassinated by his nephew Maconius, his wife Septimia Zenobia took power, ruling Palmyra on behalf of her son, Vabalathus.
Zenobia rebelled against Roman authority with the help of Cassius Longinus and took over Bosra and lands as far to the west as Egypt, establishing the short-lived Palmyrene Empire.
Next, she took Antioch and large sections of Asia Minor to the north.
In 272, the Roman Emperor Aurelian finally restored Roman control and Palmyra was besieged and sacked, never to recover her former glory.
Aurelian captured Zenobia, bringing her back to Rome.
He paraded her in golden chains in the presence of the senator Marcellus Petrus Nutenus, but allowed her to retire to a villa in Tibur, where she took an active part in society for years.
A legionary fortress was established in Palmyra and although no longer an important trade center, it nevertheless remained an important junction of Roman roads in the Syrian desert.Isaac (2000), p. 165
Diocletian built the Camp of Diocletian in the city of Palmyra to harbor even more legions and walled it in to try and save it from the Sassanid threat.
The Byzantine period of the late Eastern Roman Empire only resulted in the building of a few churches; much of the city went to ruin.
Reorganization
In circa 390, Syria Palaestina was reorganised into several administrative units: Palaestina Prima, Palaestina Secunda, and Palaestina Tertia (in the 6th century), Syria Prima and Phoenice and Phoenice Lebanensis.
All were included within the larger Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Diocese of the East, together with the provinces of Isauria, Cilicia, Cyprus (until 536), Euphratensis, Mesopotamia, Osroene, and  Arabia Petraea.
Palaestina Prima consisted of Judea, Samaria, the Paralia, 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 Transjordan part of Arabia, and most of Sinai, with Petra as the usual residence of the governor.
Palestina Tertia was also known as Palaestina Salutaris.
Religion
Roman cult
After the Jewish–Roman wars (66–135), which Epiphanius believed the Cenacle survived,Catholic Encyclopedia: Jerusalem (A.D. 71-1099): "Epiphanius (died 403) says..." 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.
New pagan cities were founded in Judea at Eleutheropolis (Bayt Jibrin), Diopolis (Lydd), and Nicopolis (Emmaus).Encyclopædia Britannica (2007).
Palestine.
In Encyclopædia Britannica Online, 2007.
Retrieved on 2007-08-12 from Early Christianity
The Romans destroyed the Jewish community of the Church in Jerusalem, which had existed since the time of Jesus.Whealey, J. (2008) "Eusebius and the Jewish Authors: His Citation Technique in an Apologetic Context" (Journal of Theological Studies; Vol 59: 359-362) Traditionally it is believed the Jerusalem Christians waited out the Jewish–Roman wars in Pella in the Decapolis.
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 Clemen et al.:
"This produces the paradox of truly historic significance that while Jewish Christianity was swallowed up in the Christian church, it preserved itself in Islam."
C. Clemen, T. Andrae and H.H. Schraeder, p. 342
Christianity was practiced in secret and the Hellenization of Palaestina continued under Septimius Severus (193–211 AD).Shahin, Mariam (2005) Palestine: a Guide.
Interlink Books , p. 7 Demographics
In Southern Levant, until about 200 AD, and despite the genocide of Jewish–Roman wars, Jews had formed a majority of the population with Samaritans and Pagans forming the rest of the population.
By the beginning of the Byzantine period (disestablishment of Syria-Palaestina), the Jews had become a minority and were living alongside Samaritans, pagan Greco-Syriacs and a large Syriac Christian community.
See also
Shaam
Notes
References
Bibliography
Nicole Belayche, "Foundation myths in Roman Palestine.
Traditions and reworking", in Ton Derks, Nico Roymans (ed.), Ethnic Constructs in Antiquity: The Role of Power and Tradition (Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2009) (Amsterdam Archaeological Studies, 13), 167-188.
External links
Two legates and a procurator of Syria Palaestina Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 1977
