Note 168 — Chapter XI · JUDAEA AND THE JEWS.

The statement of Josephus that Judaea was attached to the province of Syria and placed under its governor (Arch. xvii fin.: τοῦ δὲ Ἀρχελάου χώρας ὑποτελοῦς προσνεμηθείσης τῇ Σύρων; xviii. 1, 1: εἰς τὴν Ἰουδαίων προσθήκην τῆς Συρίας γενομένην; c. 4, 6) appears to be incorrect; on the contrary, Judaea probably formed thenceforth a procuratorial province of itself. An exact distinction between the de iure and de facto interference of the Syrian governor may not be expected in the case of Josephus. The fact that he organised the new province and conducted the first census does not decide the question what arrangement was assigned to it. Where the Jews complain of their procurator to the governor of Syria and the latter interferes against him, the procurator is certainly dependent on the legate; but, when L. Vitellius did this (Josephus, Arch. xviii. 4, 2), his power extended in quite an extraordinary way over the province (Tacitus, Ann. vi. 32; Staatsrecht, ii. 822), and in the other case the words of Tacitus, Ann. xii. 54: quia Claudius ius statuendi etiam de procuratoribus dederat, show that the governor of Syria could not have pronounced such a judgment in virtue of his general jurisdiction. Both the ius gladii of these procurators (Josephus, Bell. Jud. ii. 8, 1: μέχρι τοῦ κτείνειν λαβὼν παρὰ τοῦ Καίσαρος ἐξουσίαν, Arch. xviii. 1, 1; ἡγησόμενος Ἰουδαίων τῇ ἐπὶ πᾶσιν ἐξουσίᾳ) and their whole demeanour show that they did not belong to those who, placed under an imperial legate, attended only to financial affairs, but rather, like the procurators of Noricum and Raetia, formed the supreme authority for the administration of law and the command of the army. Thus the legates of Syria had there only the position which those of Pannonia had in Noricum and the upper German legate in Raetia. This corresponds also to the general development of matters; all the larger kingdoms were on their annexation not attached to the neighbouring large governorships, whose plenitude of power it was not the tendency of this epoch to enlarge, but were made into independent governorships, mostly at first equestrian.