Palaestina Prima in the context of "Byzantine Palestine"

The region of Palestine, also known as historic Palestine or land of Palestine, is a geographical area in West Asia. It includes the modern states of Israel and Palestine, and some definitions include parts of northwestern Jordan. Other names for the region include Canaan, the Promised Land, the Land of Israel, the Holy Land, and Judea.

The earliest written record referring to Palestine as a geographical region is in the Histories of Herodotus in the 5th century BCE, which calls the area Palaistine, referring to the territory previously held by Philistia, a state that existed in that area from the 12th to the 7th century BCE. The Roman Empire conquered the region in 63 BCE and appointed client kings to rule over it until Rome began directly ruling over the region and established a predominately-Jewish province named "Judaea" in 6 CE. The Roman Empire killed the vast majority of Jews in Judaea to suppress the Bar Kokhba revolt during 132-136 CE; shortly after the revolt, the Romans expelled and enslaved nearly all of the remaining Jews in the historical Judah region centered on Jerusalem, depopulating that area. Roman authorities renamed the province of Judaea to "Syria Palaestina" in c. 135 CE to punish Jews for the Bar Kokhba Revolt and permanently sever ties between Jews and the province. In 390, during the Byzantine period, the region was split into the provinces of Palaestina Prima, Palaestina Secunda, and Palaestina Tertia. Following the Muslim conquest of the Levant in the 630s, the military district of Jund Filastin was established. While Palestine's boundaries have changed throughout history, it has generally comprised the southern portion of the wider Syria or Levant region.

Caesarea (/ˌsɛzəˈriːə, ˌsɛs-, ˌsiːz-/) also Caesarea Maritima, Caesarea Palaestinae or Caesarea Stratonis, was an ancient and medieval port city on the coast of the eastern Mediterranean, and later a small fishing village. It was the capital of Roman Judaea, Syria Palaestina and Palaestina Prima, successively, for a period of c. 650 years and a major intellectual hub of the Mediterranean. Today, the site is part of the Caesarea National Park, on the western edge of the Sharon plain in Israel.

The site was first settled in the 4th century BCE as a Phoenician colony and trading village known as Straton's Tower after the ruler of Sidon. It was enlarged in the 1st century BCE under Hasmonean rule, becoming a Jewish village; and in 63 BCE, when the Roman Republic annexed the region, it was declared an autonomous city. It was then significantly enlarged in the Roman period by the Judaean client King Herod the Great, who established a harbour and dedicated the town and its port to Caesar Augustus as Caesarea.

The Eastern Roman army refers to the army of the eastern section of the Roman Empire, from the empire's definitive split in 395 AD to the army's reorganization by themes after the permanent loss of Syria, Palestine and Egypt to the Arabs in the 7th century during the Byzantine-Arab Wars. The East Roman army was the continuation of the Late Roman army of the 4th century, until it gradually transformed into what is now called the Byzantine army from the 7th century onwards.

The East Roman army was a direct continuation of the eastern portion of the late Roman army, from before the division of the empire. The East Roman army started with the same basic organization as the late Roman army and its West Roman counterpart, but between the 5th and 7th centuries, the cavalry became more important, the field armies took on more tasks, and the border armies were transformed into local militias.

Palaestina Salutaris or Palaestina Tertia was a Late Roman and Byzantine province, which covered the area of the Negev, Sinai (except the north-western coast) and south-west of Transjordan, south of the Dead Sea. The province, a part of the Diocese of the East, was split from Arabia Petraea during the reforms of Diocletian in c. 300 CE - or, alternatively, was created around 357-358 by splitting away southern Palestine from the province of Syria Palaestina, with the remaining northern territory being named Palaestina Prima - and existed until the Muslim Arab conquests of the 7th century.

Jund Filasṭīn (Arabic: جُنْد فِلَسْطِيْن, "the military district of Palestine") was one of the military districts of the Umayyad and Abbasid province of Bilad al-Sham (Levant), organized soon after the Muslim conquest of the Levant in the 630s. Jund Filastin, which encompassed most of Palaestina Prima and Palaestina Tertia, included the newly established city of Ramla as its capital and eleven administrative districts (kura), each ruled from a central town.

The administration of Judaea as a province of Rome from 6 to 135 was carried out primarily by a series of Roman prefects, procurators, and legates pro praetore. The first of these administrators coincided or were intertwined with the ostensible rule by the Herodian tetrarchy. The Roman administrators were as follows:

"Hadrian stationed an extra legion in Judaea, renaming it Syria Palaestina." This was following the defeat of the Bar Kokhba Revolt in 135. The Syria-based legion, Legio III Gallica, took part in the quelling of the revolt from 132 to 136, and in the aftermath, the emperor Hadrian renamed the province of Judea and its extra legion Syria Palaestina. The province of Syria Palaestina was divided into Palaestina Prima and Palaestina Salutaris in about 357, and by 409 Palaestina Prima had been further split into a smaller Palaestina Prima and Palaestina Secunda, while Salutaris was named Tertia or Salutaris. Palæstina Prima or Palaestina I existed from the late 4th century until it was temporarily lost to the Sassanid Empire (Persian Empire) in 614, but re-conquered in 628 and finally until the Muslim conquest of the Levant in the 630s.

The Samaritan revolts (c. 484–573) were a series of Samaritan insurrections in the province of Palaestina Prima against the Byzantine Empire. The revolts were marked by great violence on both sides, and brutal suppression at the hands of the Byzantines and their Ghassanid allies severely reduced the Samaritan population. The events irreversibly shifted the demographics of the region, making the Christians the dominant group in Palaestina Prima for many decades onward.