The History of Rome: Rise and Fall of the Empire. John Bagnell Bury
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. This state of things resulted in the great Jewish war of Vespasian, to which we shall come hereafter.
Some other small vassal states were allowed to survive for a considerable time. The kingdom of Commagene in the north was not incorporated in the provincial system until 72 A.D.. The principality of Chalcis, north-west of Damascus, survived still longer, (until 92 A.D.). Abila, (between Chalcis and Damascus) was annexed about 49 A.D.. Iamblicus of Emesa had been executed by Antonius shortly before the battle of Actium; and his territory was at first annexed by Augustus to the province of Syria, but in 20 B.C. restored to a member of the native dynasty of Sampsigeramus. It finally became provincial before 81 A.D.. At what time the Syrian state of Palmyra, called in the Syrian tongue Tadmor, came to be a Roman dependency, we cannot say for certain, but probably in the reign of Augustus. This nourishing city, situated in an oasis of the desert, lay on the trade route from the Euphrates to the Mediterranean Sea, and was governed, under Roman supremacy, by its own municipal officers, until its destruction by the Emperor Aurelian in the third century.
SECT. IV. — EGYPT
The death of Cleopatra, the last queen of the royal house of the Lagidae, was followed by the conversion of Egypt from the condition of a vassal kingdom into a directly subject land. But although it is often counted with the imperial provinces, it never stood in line with the other provinces. It was subject to the Emperor in his own right, not merely as representative of the populus Romanus. Augustus ruled over Egypt, not as proconsul, but as a successor of the Ptolemies, a king all but in name; and the country always remained a sort of imperial preserve. The Emperor was worshipped as a god by the Egyptian priests, according to the same forms which had been used in the cult of the royal Ptolemies. It was a logical consequence of this legal status of Egypt, as the Emperor’s private domain, that it should stand apart from the imperial provinces in its administration. Thus senators were disqualified to fill the post of governor. Hence the governor of Egypt did not hold the rank of a legatus, but only of a praefectus. He was in command, however, of three legions, and this was the only case in which legions were commanded by men of the equestrian order. But not only were senators excluded from the governorship, they wore even forbidden to set foot in the land without permission of the lord of the land. This regulation (which extended also to equites illustres) was made by Augustus in self-protection. For if a prominent senator wished to excite a rebellion, Egypt, through its immense resources and its geographical position, could have been a most favorable field for such an enterprise. The military importance had been abundantly proved in the Civil Wars. Whoever controlled the Egyptian ports could stop the corn-supply on which Rome and Italy depended, and thus force them to capitulate without leaving Alexandria. And besides Egypt was a country difficult to attack and easy to defend; it had the advantage of an insular position without being an island. The jealousy with which the Emperors watched Egypt, is illustrated by the fate of the first prefect, Cornelius Gallus, the poet. He allowed his name and deeds to be inscribed on the pyramids, and these indiscretions were interpreted as treasonable. Tried by the senate, he was removed from his command, and his disgrace drove him to commit suicide. Augustus is reported on this occasion to have complained that he was the only citizen who could not show anger against a friend without making him an enemy. Besides the prefect there was a iuridicus to administer justice, and an officer called idiologus to manage the finances.
In organization also Egypt differed from the other provinces. The system of the Ptolemies was continued. No municipal self-government was granted; city life was not encouraged, as in the rest of the empire. The country was divided into districts (nomes) which were placed under officers appointed by the government. No diet was instituted to represent the political views of the people. Under the Ptolemies, the native Egyptians had formed an inferior class, possessing no political privileges, and under the Romans their condition remained the same.
Upper Egypt extended to Elephantine on the Nile, and to Troglodytic Berenice on the coast (in the same line of latitude). This Berenice must be distinguished from Golden Berenice, far away to the south, opposite Aden, which, like Zula and Ptolemais Theron, were not included in the Roman empire.
The fertility of the land of the Nile was proverbial, and it brought in an enormous revenue to the imperial purse. Augustus did not reduce the heavy taxes which had been levied by his Greek