ABSTRACT
In the last generation of the Roman Republic Syria was vulnerable both to Roman civil warfare and to invasion. Its reluctance to be a part of the Roman Empire was manifest in many areas, from resistance to the initial Roman conquest, to rebellions against Roman domination by the Jews in Palestine, reluctance to submit to Rome in the other client kingdoms, and eventually to the widespread welcome for the invasion of Parthian horsemen in 40–37 bc. The Roman provincial system in Syria actually copied, if in a Roman version, the original establishment of Seleukid control in the north. Choosing north Syria as the main Roman military base region in the east was a statement of intent. In military terms the pattern was set in the first century of Roman control, with expeditions by the Syrian army into Armenia and south into Palestine, the suppression of client kingdoms which had become troublesome, and Vespasian's interference in politics of the centre.
