Roman protection, never took a permanent place in the Empire; lonely and remote, they were left to hold their own, as best they could, in the midst of barbarous peoples.
CYPRUS, CRETE, AND CYRENE.—In the western Mediterranean there were two insular provinces, Sicily and Sardinia; so likewise in the eastern parts of the same sea there were two insular provinces, Cyprus and Crete. Crete, however, was not an entire province; it had been joined by its conqueror Metellus with the Cyrenaic pentapolis. The joint province of “Crete and Cyrene” was assigned to the senate. The land of Cyrene, remarkable for its delightful, invigorating climate, was also blessed by freedom from political troubles throughout its history as a Roman province. Like Asia and Bithynia, it had been willed to the Roman republic by Ptolemy Apion, its last Macedonian king (96 B.C.). Cyprus was at first imperial, but in 22 B.C. Augustus transferred it, along with Gallia Narbonensis, to the senate. The early history of this island had turned, like that of Sicily, on the struggle between the Phoenicians and the Greeks. Under Roman rule it would have enjoyed unbroken tranquility, but for the large population of Jews who sometimes rebelled. Even the peaceful Cyrenaica was at times disturbed by the agitations of the same race. Crete, once the home of piracy was lucky enough to play no part in history as long as the Mediterranean was a wholly Roman sea.
SECT. III. — THE NEIGHBOURING DEPENDENT KINGDOMS AND SYRIA
Of the imperial provinces, Syria was the most important in the east, as Gaul in the west. The legatus of Syria, on whom it devolved to defend the frontier of the Euphrates against the Parthians, had four legions under him, the same number that was stationed on the Rhine. But it was not only for frontier service that the Syrian troops were needed; they had also to protect the cities and the villages against marauding bands who infested the hills. Hence the legions were quartered in the cities, and not, like the Rhine army, in special military stations on the frontier; and this circumstance was the source of the demoralization and lack of discipline which marked the Syrian army. But notwithstanding the existence of the hill-robbers, Syria was a most prosperous province. In the way of Hellenisation and colonization the Seleucid kings had left nothing for the Romans to do. Augustus founded Berytus in order to provide for veteran soldiers, and it remained an isolated Italian town in the midst of the Greek Asiatics—like Corinth in Greece, and Alexandria in the Troad. The Greek names of the towns in Syria recalled Macedonia, as towns in Sicily and Magna Graecia recalled old Greece, or as names of places in the United States recall the mother-country. But the older Aramaic names lived on side by side with the new Greek names, and in some cases have outlived them, as, for instance, Heliopolis, which is called Baalbec at the present day. People, too, had double names as well as places. Thomas who was called Didymus, and Tabitha also called Dorcas, in the New Testament, are familiar examples. The Aramaic tongue continued to be spoken beside Greek, like Celtic beside Latin in Gaul, especially in the remoter districts. From the mixture of Greek and Syrian life, a new mixed type of civilization arose, sometimes called Syrohellenic, and characteristically expressed in the great mausoleum erected on a hill near the Euphrates by Antiochus, king of Commagene. In his epitaph, that monarch prays, that upon his posterity may descend the blessings of the gods both of Persis and of Maketis (Persia and Macedonia).
In the busy factories of the great Syrian cities—Laodicea, Apamea, Tyre, Berytus, Byblus—were carried on the manufactures (linen, silk, &c.) for which the country was famous. But Antioch, the capital, was a town of pleasure rather than of work. It was not well situated for commerce, like Alexandria; but it was rich and magnificent. Splendidly supplied with water, brightly lit up at night, and full of superb buildings, it, with its suburb, the Gardens of Daphne, was probably the pleasantest town in the empire for the pleasure-seeker.
Southern Syria, on its eastern side, bordered on the dependent kingdom of Nabat, which extended from Damascus, encircling Palestine on the east and south, and including the northern portion of the Arabian peninsula. The regions, however, of Trachonitis, between Damascus and Bostra, which had been committed to the charge of Zenodorus, prince of Abila, were subsequently transferred by Augustus to the king of Judea because Zenodorus, instead of suppressing the robbers who infested Trachonitis, made common cause with them. Damascus itself, however, was subject to the Nabatean kings, whose capital was the great commercial city of Petra, the midway station through which the caravans of Indian merchandise passed on their road from Leuce Come in Arabia, to Gaza. These kings were Arabs, and Hellenism had only superficially touched their court. They had officers named Eparchoi and Strategoi. In the northern part of their realm, Damascus was Greek, and the close neighborhood of Syria brought those border regions on the edge of the desert into connection with Greek civilization, The kings of Petra were always at feud with their neighbors the kings of Judea. Obodas nearly lost his crown for taking up arms against Herod, instead of appealing to Augustus, their common lord. Civilization did not really begin for this Nabatean kingdom, until, more than a century later, it was at length converted into a Roman province.
The kingdom of Judea, restored and bestowed upon Antipater of Idumea by Julius Caesar, had been specially favored by that statesman, being exempted from tribute and military levies. After the death of Antipater the kingdom was won by his son Herod, after many struggles. At first the unwilling client of Antonius and the queen of Egypt, he performed some services in the final contest for Caesar, who not only confirmed him in his kingdom, but enlarged its borders. Samaria was added to Judea, and also the line of coast from Gaza as far as the Tower of Straton, which afterwards, under Herod’s rule, was to become the city of Caesarea, the chief port of southern Syria. Herod, throughout his long reign, prosecuted the work of Hellenism, by no means acceptable to his Jewish subjects, with generous zeal. His policy was to keep religion and the government of the state quite apart, and do away altogether with the Jewish theocracy. There was thus a continuous rivalry between the king and the high priest. The Hellenism of Herod was shown by his building a theatre at Jerusalem, and instituting a festival, to be celebrated at the end of every fourth year, in imitation of the Greek games. At this festival, musical as well as gymnastic and equestrian contests were held, and people of every nation were invited. He also imitated the Romans by building an amphitheatre in the plain beneath the city, and exhibiting there combats of wild beasts and condemned criminals. All this was a gross violation of Jewish traditions. Herod founded two new cities, both of which were named after the Emperor: Caesarea, already mentioned, intended to be the seaport of Jerusalem, and Sebaste, on the site of Samaria. These cities were of Hellenistic and not Jewish character.
The reign of Herod was stained by horrible tragedies, which darkened his domestic life. Before his death, which occurred in 4 B.C., his kingdom had been increased by the land beyond the Jordan. The whole realm he divided among his three sons, Archelaus was to receive Judea, with Samaria and Idumea; to Philip fell Batanea and the adjacent regions, with the title of tetrarch; while Galilee and the land beyond the Jordan were assigned to Herod Antipas, also as tetrarch. But the kingdom was not destined to be of long duration. The Jews preferred to be the direct subjects of the Emperor, to being under the rule of a king of their own; and a deputation from Jerusalem waited upon Augustus in Rome, to pray him to abolish the kingdom. The Emperor at first compromised. He did not remove Archelaus from the government of Judea, but he refused him the royal title, and deprived him of Samaria. A few years later, however, in consequence of the incapacity of Archelaus, the wishes of the Jews were accomplished, and Judea was made a Roman province (6 A.D.) under an imperial procurator, over whom doubtless the legatus of Syria was empowered to exercise a certain supervision, in certain cases, somewhat as the governor of Pannonia might intervene in Noricum. Under the procurator, the city communities were allowed to manage their own affairs, as in Asia or Achaia. In Jerusalem, the synhedrion, an institution which had been founded under the Seleucids, corresponded to the town council, and the high priest, appointed by the procurator, to the chief magistrate. Everything possible was done, under the new system, to respect and deal tenderly with the customs and prejudices of the Jews. Out of consideration for their objection to images, the coins did not bear the Emperor’s head; and when Roman soldiers went to Jerusalem, they had to leave their standards behind them in Caesarea. The difference of treatment which the occidental Jews experienced is striking. The same Emperors who persecuted Jews in the west, scrupulously respected their customs in their own land. But the Jews were not content; they grumbled against the tribute, not because it was oppressive, but on the ground that it was irreligious.