After suffering persecution at the hands of Ptolemy’s successors, the Jews
threw off the Egyptian yoke, and became subject to Antiochus the Great,
the king of Syria. The cruelty and opression of the successors of
Antiochus at length led to the revolt under the Maccabees (B.C. 163),
when they threw off the Syrian yoke.
In the year B.C. 68, Palestine was reduced by Pompey the Great to a
Roman province. He laid the walls of the city in ruins, and massacred some
twelve thousand of the inhabitants. He left the temple, however, unijured.
About twenty-five years after this the Jews revolted and cast off the
Roman yoke. They were however, subdued by Herod the Great (q.v.). The
city and the temple were destroyed, and many of the inhabitants were put
to death. About B.C. 20, Herod proceeded to rebuild the city and restore
the ruined temple, which in about nine years and a half was so far
completed that the sacred services could be resumed in it (comp. John
2:20). He was succeeded by his son Archelaus, who was deprived of his
power, however, by Augustus, A.D. 6, when Palestine became a Roman
province, ruled by Roman governors or procurators. Pontius Pilate was the
fifth of these procurators. He was appointed to his office A.D. 25.
Exclusive of Idumea, the kingdom of Herod the Great comprehended the
whole of the country originally divided among the twelve tribes, which he
divided into four provinces or districts. This division was recognized so
long as Palestine was under the Roman dominion. These four provinces
were, (1) Judea, the southern portion of the country; (2) Samaria, the
middle province, the northern boundary of which ran along the hills to the
south of the plain of Esdraelon; (3) Galilee, the northern province; and (4)
Peraea (a Greek name meaning the “opposite country”), the country lying
east of the Jordan and the Dead Sea. This province was subdivided into
these districts, (1) Peraea proper, lying between the rivers Arnon and
Jabbok; (2) Galaaditis (Gilead); (3) Batanaea; (4) Gaulonitis (Jaulan); (5)
Ituraea or Auranitis, the ancient Bashan; (6) Trachonitis; (7) Abilene; (8)
Decapolis, i.e., the region of the ten cities. The whole territory of
Palestine, including the portions alloted to the trans-Jordan tribes,
extended to about eleven thousand square miles. Recent exploration has
shown the territory on the west of Jordan alone to be six thousand square
miles in extent, the size of the principality of Wales.