This devastating war, according to Suetonius the most terrible since the Punic Wars, lasted for three years [7-9 A.D.]. Tiberius and his nephew Germanicus, the son of Drusus, marched through the length and breadth of Dalmatia and Pannonia—now tempting the fortune of war, now treading the paths of treachery, and fostering discord by negotiations. After many sanguinary battles Bato came to terms with the Romans for the surrender of the impregnable mountain stronghold of Anderium, not far from Salona, and went with his family to Ravenna, where Tiberius granted him a liberal allowance to the end of his days, in recompense for his desertion of his country’s cause.
The fortress of Arduba, built on a steep height and protected by a turbulent river, held out longer; the most determined of the insurgents had thrown themselves into it, together with a large number of deserters. But its hour at length drew nigh. After the flower of the garrison, having made a sortie, had fallen in a sanguinary fight at close quarters, the survivors set fire to their homes and, with their wives and children, sought death in the flames or in the foaming torrent. The other towns then surrendered at discretion, and mute obedience settled once more on all the land between the Adriatic and the lower Danube. But the country was waste and inhabitants were few in the blood-sodden fields. The great river from source to mouth soon formed the northern boundary of the empire. The Thracian principalities were merged into the province of Mœsia.
[30 B.C.-14 A.D.]
In Asiatic countries, too, there were many conflicts to be endured, many complications to be unravelled, before the states and nations west of the Euphrates bowed in awe and submission to the supremacy of Rome. The order of things established by Pompey had indeed remained valid in law down to the days of Augustus, but great changes had taken place in the various states in consequence of the civil wars. The republicans Brutus and Cassius, no less than the triumvirs Antony and Octavian, had requited the friendly or hostile sentiments of princes, towns, and provinces with rewards or penalties, had given or taken away privileges and dominion, had bestowed or withdrawn their countenance according to merit or liking. When Augustus appeared in the East, ten years after the battle of Actium, native kingdoms, temporal principalities and hierarchies, free cities, and other territorial divisions, occupying a more or less dependent position towards Rome and bound to render her military service, still existed, as in former times, side by side with the four Roman provinces of Asia, Bithynia, Cilicia, and Syria. Many of these were deprived of their previous status on various pretexts, and swallowed up in the congeries of Roman provinces.
Thus, after the death of that able factionary Amyntas, the general and successor of Deiotarus, Augustus created the province of Galatia out of the major part of his possessions, adding to it first Lycaonia, and later, after the death of Deiotarus Philadelphus, the grandson of the famous Galatian king, the inland region of Paphlagonia. The Pontic kingdom, together with Lesser Armenia, Colchis, and the seaboard towns of Pharnacia and Trapezus, were ruled under favour of Antony and Octavian, by the brave and prudent Polemon as the “friend and ally of the Roman people,” and to these dominions he added the kingdom of the Bosporus, the heritage of his wife Dynamis. After his death, his widow Pythodoris bestowed her hand upon King Archelaus of Cappadocia, who likewise owed his kingdom to the favour of Antony and Octavian and to his devotion to Rome.
By this means the two kingdoms were united, and formed an excellent barrier against the eastern barbarians. But this new creation was not destined to last. Lesser Armenia and Cappadocia were merged into the province of Cappadocia as early as the reign of Tiberius, after Archelaus had died at Rome of fear at the charges brought against him in the senate by the emperor, whose displeasure he had incurred, and the hieratic principality of Comana was added to the same province. Under the rule of Rome the ancient cities rose to great wealth and magnificence, especially Nicomedia in Bithynia and Cæsarea in Cappadocia. Dioscurias and the myth-haunted region about the Phasis became the centre of a far-reaching commercial activity, the market of the world. There Roman merchants bought wool and furs from northern lands, and precious stones, seric (silken) garments, and luxuries from the far East.
Augustus and his successors endeavoured in like manner to unite the disjointed provinces of southern Asia Minor and to range them under the Roman provincial system. The confederacy of Lycia maintained its existence and liberty for some decades longer as a “ruin of antique times,” and Antony and Octavian exerted themselves to the best of their ability to stanch the wounds which Brutus had inflicted. But the confederacy, its prosperity shattered and its bonds loosened by internal discords, was so far past recovery that its conversion into a Roman province in the reign of Claudius seemed a boon. The province of Cilicia was augmented by the addition of Pisidia and the island of Cyprus. A Roman garrison was set to guard the “Cilician Gates” leading to Syria, and Augustus committed to some native dependent princes the work of conquering the robber tribes which dwelt in savage freedom in the mountains and gorges of the Taurus and Amanus. These were not incorporated into the actual dominions of Rome till the reign of Vespasian.
After the battle of Actium, Syria with her subordinate provinces reverted to her old position, which had been temporarily disturbed by the Parthian invasions and the donations of Antony to Cleopatra and her children. Four legions provided for internal tranquillity and security against the neighbour races to the south and east. The northern mountain region of Commagene, with the town of Samosata, the last relic of the Seleucid empire, remained in possession of an independent prince for some time longer, and at his death it was annexed to the province of Syria. A like fate befell the district of Judea, which the Romans had long treated with peculiar favour, for the Julian family was at all times well disposed towards the Jews. After the death of King Herod, who had contrived to gain and retain the favour and confidence of the emperor and Agrippa, his son-in-law and general, by flatteries, presents, and services, the kingdom of Judea, convulsed by party hatreds and dissensions, was also merged, as we have seen, into the Roman world-empire. As a Roman province it was put under the rule of a procurator, who, though nominally under the control of the governor of Syria at Antioch, exercised most of the prerogatives that pertained to proconsuls and proprætors in other countries, in particular the power of inflicting capital punishment. Judea was nevertheless for a long while the “spoiled darling of Rome”; the people of God remained in possession of their faith, their laws, and their nationality; they were exempted from military service and enjoyed many rights and privileges in all countries.
The procurator (agent) for Judea resided at Cæsarea, the new port which Herod had founded, and which rose rapidly to commercial prosperity under Roman rule. Many foreigners settled there under the protection of the Roman garrison, which had its headquarters in the seat of government. The governor was subject in all military matters to the proconsul of Syria, in so far that the latter was bound to come to his assistance in war if appealed to. The inconsiderable garrison at Cæsarea and the small force encamped at Jerusalem were only just sufficient to maintain tranquillity and order in time of peace. At festivals, when great crowds gathered together in Jerusalem, the governor himself went to the Holy City with an army, and “probably disposed of a good deal of business in the supreme judicature and other matters which had been deferred till then.” He then resided in the prætorium, near the Antonia. He gave judgment from a lofty judgment seat set up in a portico adorned with beautiful marble. The trials took place in an inner court. The army had another camp in Samaria.