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Syria

Under the Romans. As Syria holds an important place in the NT as well as in the OT, some account of its condition under the Romans is in order. That condition was somewhat peculiar. Although the country generally was formed into a Roman province, under governors who were at first propraetors or quaestors, then proconsuls, and finally legates, a number of "free cities" were exempted from the direct rule of the governor. These retained the administration of their own affairs, subject to a tribute levied according to the Roman principles of taxation. Also a number of tracts, assigned to petty princes, commonly natives, were ruled at their pleasure, subject to the same obligations as the free cities as to taxation. The free cities were Antioch, Seleucia, Apamea, Epiphania, Tripolis, Sidon, and Tyre; the principalities, Comagene, Chalcis ad Belum, Arethusa, Abila or Abilene, Palmyra, and Damascus. The principalities were sometimes called kingdoms, sometimes tetrarchies. They were established where it was thought that the natives were so inveterately wedded to their own customs, and so well disposed for revolt, that it was necessary to consult their feelings, to flatter the national vanity, and to give them the semblance without the substance of freedom.

Although previously overrun by the Romans, Syria was not made tributary and governors appointed until 64 BC Down to the battle of Pharsalia the country was fairly tranquil; the only trouble was with the Arabs, who occasionally attacked the eastern frontier. The Roman governors, particularly Gabinius, took great pains to restore the ruined cities. After Pharsalia (46 BC) the troubles of Syria were renewed. Julius Caesar gave the provinceto his relative Sextus (47 BC), but Pompey's party was still so strong in the East that the next year one of his adherents, Caecilius Bassus, put Sextus to death and established himself in the government so firmly that he was able to resist for three years three proconsuls appointed by the Senate to dispossess him. He only finally yielded upon terms that he himself offered to his antagonists. Bassus had just made his submission when, upon the assassination of Caesar, Syria was disputed between Cassius and Dolabella (43 BC). The next year Cassius left his province and went to Philippi, where he committed suicide. Syria then fell to Antony, who appointed as his legate L. Decidius Saxa (41 BC.). Pacorus, the crown prince of Parthia, overran Syria and Asia Minor, defeating Antony's generals and threatening Rome with the loss of all her Asiatic possessions (40-39 BC). Ventidius, however, in 38 BC, defeated the Parthians, slew Pacorus, and recovered for Rome her former boundary. A quiet time followed. In 27 BC a special procurator was therefore appointed to rule it. He was subordinate to the governor of Syria but within his own province had the power of a legatus. Syria continued without serious disturbance from the expulsion of the Parthians (38 BC) to the breaking out of the Jewish war (AD 66). In 19 BC it was visited by Augustus and in A.D. 18-19 by Germanicus, who died at Antioch in the last named year. In AD 44-47 it was the scene of a severe famine.