Phoenice (Roman province)

Not to be confused with Phoenicia.

This article is about the ancient Roman province in the Levant. For the ancient Greek city in Epirus, see Phoenice.

Phoenice (Latin: Syria Phoenīcē Latin: [ˈsʏri.a pʰoe̯ˈniːkeː]; Koinē Greek: ἡ Φοινίκη Συρία, romanized: hē Phoinī́kē Syría Koinē Greek: [(h)e pʰyˈni.ke syˈri.a]) was a province of the Roman Empire, encompassing the historical region of Phoenicia. It was officially created in 194 AD and after c. 394, Phoenice Syria was divided into Phoenice proper or Phoenice Paralia, and Phoenice Libanensis, a division that persisted until the region was conquered by the Muslim Arabs in the 630s.

Province of Syria Phoenice Provincia Syria Phoenice (Latin) ἐπαρχία τῆς Φοινίκης Συρίας (Koinē Greek)
Province of the Roman Empire (after 395 of the Byzantine Empire)
c. 194–c. 394
Roman Empire in 210 with Syria Phoenice highlighted in red
Capital	Tyrus
Historical era	Late Antiquity
• Created by Septimius Severus	c. 194
• Division during the reign of Theodosius the Great	c. 394
Preceded by Succeeded by Syria (Roman province) Syria Palaestina Phoenice Libanensis Phoenice Paralia
Today part of	Lebanon Syria Israel

Administrative history

Map of the Diocese of the East with its provinces, as recorded in the Notitia Dignitatum, c. 400

Phoenicia came under Roman rule in 64 BC, when Pompey created the province of Syria. With the exception of a brief period in 36–30 BC, when Mark Antony gave the region to Ptolemaic Egypt, Phoenicia remained part of the province of Syria thereafter.^[1] Emperor Hadrian (reigned 117–138) is said to have considered a division of the overly large Syrian province in 123–124 AD, but it was not until shortly after c. 194 AD that Septimius Severus (r. 193–211) actually undertook this, dividing the province into Syria Coele in the north and Syria Phoenice in the south.^[1] Tyre became the capital of the new province, but Elagabalus (r. 218–222) raised his native Emesa to co-capital, and the two cities rivalled each other as the head of the province until its division in the 4th century.^[1]

The province was much larger than the area traditionally called Phoenicia: for example, cities like Emesa^[a] and Palmyra^[b] and the base of the Legio III Gallica^[c] in Raphanaea^[d] were now subject to governor in Tyre. Veterans of this military unit were settled in Tyre, which also received the rank of colonia.^[2]

After the death of the 2nd century Roman emperor Commodus, a civil war erupted, in which Berytus, and Sidon supported Pescennius Niger. While the city of Tyre supported Septimius Severus, which led Niger to send Mauri^[e] javelin men and archers to sack the city.^[3] However, Niger lost the civil war, and Septimius Severus decided to show his gratitude for Tyre's support by making it the capital of Phoenice.

Diocletian (r. 284–305) separated the district of Batanaea and gave it to Arabia, while sometime before 328, when it is mentioned in the Laterculus Veronensis, Constantine the Great (r. 306–337) created the new province of Augusta Libanensis out of the eastern half of the old province, encompassing the territory east of Mount Lebanon.^[4]

Phoenice I and Phoenice Libanensis

Constantine's province was short-lived, but formed the basis of the re-division of Phoenice c. 394 into the Phoenice I or Phoenice Paralia (Greek: Φοινίκη Παραλία, "coastal Phoenice"), and Phoenice II or Phoenice Libanensis (Φοινίκη Λιβανησία), with Tyre and Emesa as their respective capitals.^[4] In the Notitia Dignitatum, written shortly after the division, Phoenice I is governed by a consularis, while Libanensis is governed by a praeses, with both provinces under the Diocese of the East.^[5] This division remained intact until the Muslim conquest of the Levant in the 630s.^[6] Under the Caliphate, most of the two Phoenices came under the province of Damascus, with parts in the south and north going to the provinces of Jordan and Emesa respectively.^[7]

Ecclesiastical administration

The ecclesiastical administration paralleled the political, but with some differences. The bishop of Tyre emerged as the pre-eminent prelate of Phoenice by the mid-3rd century. When the province was divided c. 394, Damascus, rather than Emesa, became the metropolis of Phoenice II. Both provinces belonged to the Patriarchate of Antioch, with Damascus initially outranking Tyre, whose position was also briefly challenged by the see of Berytus c. 450; after 480/1, however, the Metropolitan of Tyre established himself as the first in precedence (protothronos) of all the Metropolitans subject to Antioch.^[6]

Military

Since the time of Septimius Severus, it had been the practice to assign not more than two legions to each frontier province, and, although in some provinces one legion was sometimes deemed sufficient, the upper limit was not exceeded. This policy appears to have been continued during the third century AD, as seen in the case of Aurelian raising the garrisons of Phoenice to the normal strength of two legions.^[8]

Governors

Propraetorial Imperial Legates of Phoenicia

Marble head of the emperor Septimius Severus, from Tyre, on display at the National Museum of Beirut.

Date	Legatus Augusti pro praetore (Governor of imperial province)
193 – 194	Ti. Manilius Fuscus[9]
198	Q. Venidius Rufus Marius Maximus L. Calvinianus
c. 207	Domitius Leo Procillianus
213	D. Pius Cassius
Between 268 and 270	Salvius Theodorus
Between 284 and 305	L. Artorius Pius Maximus
292 – 293	Crispinus

Consulares of Phoenicia

In the fourth century, as a whole, almost 30 governors of Phoenicia are known with 23 governors of Phoenicia being in office between 353 and 394.^[10]

Date	Provincial governor (Consularis)
Between 293 and 305	Aelius Statuus
Between 293 and 303	Sossianus Hierocles
Before 305	Julius Julianus
? Between 309/313	Maximus
c. 323	Achillius
328 – 329	Fl. Dionysius
335	Archelaus
c. 337	Nonnus
342	Marcellinus
353/4	Apollinaris
Before 358	Demetrius
358 – 359	Nicentius[11]
(?) 359/60	Euchrostius
Before 360	Julianus
360 – 361	Andronicus
Before 361	Aelius Claudius Dulcitius
361	Anatolius
c. 361/2	Polycles
362	Julianus
362 – 363	Gaianus
363 – 364	Marius
364	Ulpianus
364 – 365	Domninus
372	Leontius
380	Petrus
382 – 383	Proculus
Before 388	Eustathius
388	Antherius
388	Epiphanius
390	Domitius
391	Severianus
392	Leontius

Notes

1. Modern-day Homs/Hims (حمص), Syria.
2. Arabic: تَدْمُر (Tadmur)
3. A military unit of the Imperial Roman army
4. Arabic: الرفنية, romanized: al-Rafaniyya; colloquial: Rafniye
5. Latin designation for the Berber population of Mauretania, a region in the ancient Maghreb.

References

1. Eißfeldt 1941, p. 368.
2. Ulpian, Digests 50.15.1.
3. Herodian, Roman History 3.3.
4. Eißfeldt 1941, pp. 368–369.
5. Notitia Dignitatum, in partibus Orientis, I
6. Eißfeldt 1941, p. 369.
7. Blankinship 1994, pp. 47–48, 240.
8. Parker, “The Legions of Diocletian and Constantine,” p. 177/178.
9. Hall, pg. 94
10. A.H.M. Jones, J.R. Martindale, J. Morris, Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, vol. I: AD 260–395, Cambridge 1971 (hereinafter: PLRE I), pp. 1105–1110 (fasti). For the reviews, often negative, and corrections to the first volume of PLRE, cf. A.H.M. Jones, “Fifteen years of Late Roman Prosopography in the West” (1981–95), [in:] Medieval Prosopography 17/1, 1996, pp. 263–274.
11. Martindale, J. R. & A. H. M. Jones, "Nicentius 1", The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, Vol. I AD 260-395 (Cambridge: University Press, 1971), p. 628

Sources

• Blankinship, Khalid Yahya (1994). The End of the Jihâd State: The Reign of Hishām ibn ʻAbd al-Malik and the Collapse of the Umayyads. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. ISBN 978-0-7914-1827-7.
• Eißfeldt, Otto (1941). "Phoiniker (Phoinike)". Realencyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft. Vol. Band XX, Halbband 39, Philon–Pignus. pp. 350–379.
• Schürer Emil, Vermes Geza, Millar Fergus, The history of the Jewish people in the age of Jesus Christ (175 B.C.-A.D. 135), Volume I, Edinburgh 1973, p. 243-266 (Survey of the Roman Province of Syria from 63 B.C. to A.D. 70).
• Linda Jones Hall, Roman Berytus: Beirut in late antiquity (2004)
• Martindale, J. R.; Jones, A. H. M, The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, Vol. I AD 260–395, Cambridge University Press (1971)