Roman Palestine

Roman Palestine is the term used by historians for the region of Palestine during the period in its history when it stood, to varying degrees, under the rule of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. Historians typically trace the period from the Roman intervention in the Hasmonean civil war in 63 BCE (uncontested), up until the transition from the pagan Roman to the Christian Byzantine Empire with the consolidation of Constantine's rule in 324 CE, but this end date varies from author to author. The Roman period can be subdivided into early and late phases, transitioning at either the First Jewish–Roman War c. 70 CE or the Bar Kokhba Revolt c. 135 CE. Some add a Middle Roman period to the Early and Late subsets.

During the Roman period, Palestine went through a series of administrative changes, beginning as a succession of Roman client states initially centered on Jerusalem and Judea, under the Jewish dynasty of the Hasmoneans, followed by the Herodians, before being gradually annexed into the Roman Empire as the fully incorporated Roman province of Judaea. Its peripheral areas incorporated parts of the Nabataean Kingdom, which underwent a similar evolution from client state to Roman province, Arabia Petraea (est. in 106). After 135 CE, Roman Palestine was re-organised into the Roman province of Syria Palaestina, which received in c. 300 CE, during the reforms of Diocletian, additional territories formerly part of Arabia Petraea: the Negev, Sinai and southern Transjordan. About six decades later, already during the next, Byzantine period, the province was split in two, the northern part being named Palaestina Prima and the southern yet later becoming part of a wider Palaestina Tertia.

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