The first historic mention of Rome in the Bible is in 1 Macc. 1:10, about the year 161 B.C. in the year 65 B.C., when Syria was made a Roman province by Pompey, the Jews were still governed
by one of the Asmonaean princes. The next year Pompey himself marched an army into Judea and took Jerusalem. From this time
the Jews were practically under the government of Rome. Finally, Antipater’s son Herod the Great was made king by Antony’s
interest, B.C. 40, and confirmed in the kingdom by Augustus, B.C. 30. The Jews, however, were all this time tributaries of
Rome, and their princes in reality were Roman procurators, On the banishment of Archelaus, A.D. 6, Judea became a mere appendage
of the province of Syria, and was governed by a Roman procurator, who resided at Caesarea. Such were the relations of the
Jewish people to the Roman government at the time when the New Testament history begins.
Extent of the empire .—Cicero’s description of the Greek states and colonies as a “fringe on the skirts of barbarism” has
been well applied to the Roman dominions before the conquests of Pompey and Caesar. The Roman empire was still confined to
a narrow strip encircling the Mediterranean Sea. Pompey added Asia Minor and Syria. Caesar added Gaul. The generals of Augustus
overran the northwest Portion of Spain and the country between the Alps and the Danube. The boundaries of the empire were
now the Atlantic on the west, the Euphrates on the east, the deserts of Africa, the cataracts of the Nile and the Arabian
deserts on the south, the British Channel, the Rhine, the Danube and the Black Sea on the north. The only subsequent conquests
of importance were those of Britain by Claudius and of Dacia by Trajan. The only independent powers of importance were the
Parthians on the east and the Germans on the north. The population of the empire in the time of Augustus has been calculated
at 85,000,000.
The provinces .—The usual fate of a country conquered by Rome was to be come a subject province, governed directly from Rome
by officers sent out for that purpose. Sometimes, however, petty sovereigns were left in possession of a nominal independence
on the borders or within the natural limits of the province. Augustus divided the provinces into two classes— (1) Imperial;
(2) Senatorial; retaining in his own hands, for obvious reasons, those provinces where the presence of a large military force
was necessary, and committing the peaceful and unarmed provinces to the senate. The New Testament writers invariably designate
the governors of senatorial provinces by the correct title anthupatoi, proconsuls. (Acts 13:7; 18:12; 19:38) For the governor of an imperial province, properly styled “legatus Caesaris,” the word hegemon (governor) is used in the
New Testament. The provinces were heavily taxed for the benefit of Rome and her citizens. They are said to have been better
governed under the empire than under the commonwealth, and those of the emperor better than those of the senate.
The condition of the Roman empire at the time when Christianity appeared has often been dwelt upon as affording obvious illustrations
of St. Paul’s expression that the “fullness of time had come.” (Galatians 4:4) The general peace within the limits of the empire the formation of military roads, the suppression of piracy, the march
of the legions, the voyages of the corn fleets, the general in crease of traffic, the spread of the Latin language in the
West as Greek had already spread in the East, the external unity of the empire, offered facilities hitherto unknown for the
spread of a world-wide religion. The tendency, too, of despotism like that of the Roman empire to reduce all its subjects
to a dead level was a powerful instrument in breaking down the pride of privileged races and national religious, and familiarizing
men with the truth that “God had made of one blood all nations on the face of the earth.” (Acts 17:24,26) Put still more striking than this outward preparation for the diffusion of the gospel was the appearance of a deep and wide-spread
corruption, which seemed to defy any human remedy.