Jewish Antiquities XIV. 205, 207–08 and 'The Great Plain'

Abstract

This paper revisits the question of 'the villages in the great plain) granted by Julius Caesar and the Senate to Judaea in the senatus consultum of 47 B.C.E., cited by Josephus in AJ xiv. 202–10. Since several plains in Palestine, other than Esdraelon, were known as 'the great plain' in the late Hellenistic and early Roman periods, the prevailing scholarly assumption that Caesar and the senate returned to John Hyrcanus II private royal estates in the plain of Esdraelon is shown to be unwarranted. Caesar and the Senate restored to Jewish control 'the villages in the great plain' together with the seaport city of Joppa, mention being made also of Jewish rights to Lydda. It is argued here, therefore, that Rome added to Judaea the strategic and fertile farmlands of the south Sharon, that is, the territory between the Yarkon river and Lydda.