Hasmonean Judea in the context of "Roman Judea"

Judaea was a Roman province from 6 to 135 AD, which at its height encompassed the regions of Judea, Idumea, Peraea, Samaria, and Galilee, as well as parts of the coastal plain of the southern Levant. At its height, it encompassed much of the core territories of the former Kingdom of Judaea, which had been ruled by the Hasmonean and Herodian dynasties in previous decades. The name Judaea (like the similar Judea) derives from the Iron Age Kingdom of Judah, which was centered in the region of Judea.

Since the Roman Republic's conquest of Judaea in 63 BC, which abolished the independent Hasmonean monarchy, Rome maintained a system of semi-autonomous vassalage in the region. After Hasmonean ruler Antigonus II Mattathias briefly regained the throne, he was overthrown by Herod, who was appointed King of the Jews by the Roman Senate and ruled Judaea until his death in 4 BC. The province's formal incorporation into the Roman Empire was enacted by Augustus in 6 AD following an appeal by the populace against the misrule of Herod's son, Herod Archelaus (r. 4 BC – 6 Anno Domini Nostri). The administrative capital was relocated from Jerusalem to the coastal city of Caesarea Maritima.

Judea or Judaea (/dʒuːˈdiːə, dʒuːˈdeɪə/; Hebrew: יהודה, Modern: Yəhūda, Tiberian: Yehūḏā; Arabic: يهودا, Yahūdā; Greek: Ἰουδαία, Ioudaía; Latin: Iudaea) is a mountainous region of the Levant. Traditionally dominated by the city of Jerusalem, it is now part of Israel and the West Bank. The name's usage is historic, having been used in antiquity and still into the present day; it originates from Yehudah, the Hebrew name of the tribe, called Juda(h) in English. Yehudah was a son of Jacob, later known as 'Israel,' whose sons collectively headed the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Yehudah's progeny among the Israelites formed the Tribe of Judah, with whom the Kingdom of Judah is associated. Related nomenclature continued to be used under the rule of the Babylonians (the Yehud province), the Persians (the Yehud province), during the Hellenistic period (Hasmonean Judea), and under the Romans (the Herodian Kingdom and the Provincia Iudaea, or Province of Judaea). Under the Hasmoneans, the Herodians, and the Romans, the term was applied to an area larger than the Judea of earlier periods. In the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba revolt (c. 132–136 CE), the Roman province of Judaea was renamed Syria Palaestina.

The term Judea was used by English speakers for the hilly internal part of Mandatory Palestine. Judea roughly corresponds to the southern part of the West Bank (Arabic: الضِفَّة الغَرْبِيَّة, romanized: aḍ-ḍiffa al-gharbiya), a territory Israel has occupied since 1967 and administered as the "Judea and Samaria Area"(מחוז יהודה ושומרון, Makhoz Yehuda VeShomron). Usage of the term "Judea and Samaria" is associated with the right wing in Israeli politics.

The Hasmonean dynasty (/hæzməˈniːən/; Hebrew: חַשְׁמוֹנָאִים Ḥašmōnāʾīm; Greek: Ασμοναϊκή δυναστεία) was the Jewish ruling dynasty of Judea during the Hellenistic times of the Second Temple period (part of classical antiquity), from c. 141 BC to 37 BC. Between c. 141 and c. 116 BC the dynasty ruled Judea semi-autonomously within the Seleucid Empire, and from roughly 110 BC, with the empire disintegrating, gained further autonomy and expanded into the neighboring regions of Perea, Samaria, Idumea, Galilee, and Iturea. The Hasmonean rulers took the Greek title basileus ("king") and the kingdom attained regional power status for several decades. Forces of the Roman Republic intervened in the Hasmonean Civil War in 63 BC, turning the kingdom into a client state and marking an irreversible decline of Hasmonean power; Herod the Great displaced the last reigning Hasmonean client-ruler in 37 BC.

Simon Thassi established the dynasty in 141 BC, two decades after his brother Judah Maccabee (יהודה המכבי Yehudah HaMakabi) had defeated the Seleucid army during the Maccabean Revolt of 167 to 160 BC. According to 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, and the first book of The Jewish War by historian Josephus (37 – c. 100 AD), the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes (r. 175–164) moved to assert strict control over the Seleucid satrapy of Coele Syria and Phoenicia after his successful invasion of Ptolemaic Egypt (170–168 BC) was turned back by the intervention of the Roman Republic. He sacked Jerusalem and its Temple, suppressing Jewish and Samaritan religious and cultural observances,and imposed Hellenistic practices (c. 168–167 BC). The steady collapse of the Seleucid Empire under attacks from the rising powers of the Roman Republic and the Parthian Empire allowed Judea to regain some autonomy; however, in 63 BC, the kingdom was invaded by the Roman Republic, broken up and set up as a Roman client state.

The region of Palestine is part of the wider region of the Levant, which represents the land bridge between Africa and Eurasia. The areas of the Levant traditionally serve as the "crossroads of Western Asia, the Eastern Mediterranean, and Northeast Africa", and in tectonic terms are located in the "northwest of the Arabian Plate". Palestine itself was among the earliest regions to see human habitation, agricultural communities and civilization. Because of its location, it has historically been seen as a crossroads for religion, culture, commerce, and politics. In the Bronze Age, the Canaanites established city-states influenced by surrounding civilizations, among them Egypt, which ruled the area in the Late Bronze Age. During the Iron Age, two related Israelite kingdoms, Israel and Judah, controlled much of Palestine, while the Philistines occupied its southern coast. The Assyrians conquered the region in the 8th century BCE, then the Babylonians c. 601 BCE, followed by the Persian Achaemenid Empire that conquered the Babylonian Empire in 539 BCE. Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire in the late 330s BCE, beginning Hellenization.

In the late 2nd-century BCE Maccabean Revolt, the Jewish Hasmonean Kingdom conquered most of Palestine; the kingdom subsequently became a vassal of Rome, which annexed it in 63 BCE. Roman Judea was troubled by Jewish revolts in 66 CE, so Rome destroyed Jerusalem and the Second Jewish Temple in 70 CE. In the 4th century, as the Roman Empire adopted Christianity, Palestine became a center for the religion, attracting pilgrims, monks and scholars. Following Muslim conquest of the Levant in 636–641, ruling dynasties succeeded each other: the Rashiduns; Umayyads; Abbasids; the semi-independent Tulunids and Ikhshidids; Fatimids; and the Seljuks. In 1099, the First Crusade resulted in Crusaders establishing of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which was reconquered by the Ayyubid Sultanate in 1187. Following the invasion of the Mongol Empire in the late 1250s, the Egyptian Mamluks reunified Palestine under its control, before the region was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1516, being ruled as Ottoman Syria until the 20th century largely without dispute.