page_title: Galilee
section_title: Classical antiquity
hierarchical_section_title: Galilee / History / Classical antiquity
context_page_description: Galilee is a region mainly located in northern Israel. Galilee traditionally refers to the mountainous part, divided into Upper Galilee and Lower Galilee.
  In modern, common usage, as well at different times in history, Galilee referred and refers to all of the area that is north of the Mount Carmel-Mount Gilboa ridge. In this sense, it extends from the Israeli coastal plain and the shores of the Mediterranean Sea with Acre in the west, to the Jordan Rift Valley to the east; and from the Lebanese border in the north plus a piece bordering on the Golan Heights all the way to Dan at the base of Mount Hermon in the northeast, to Mount Carmel and Mount Gilboa in the south. This definition includes the plains of the Jezreel Valley north of Jenin and the Beth Shean Valley, the valley containing the Sea of Galilee, and the Hula Valley, although it usually does not include Haifa's immediate northern suburbs. By this definition it overlaps with much of the administrative Northern District of the country.
context_section_description: During the expansion under the Hasmonean dynasty much of the Galilee region was conquered and annexed by the first Hasmonean King of Judaea Aristobulus I (104 - 103 BCE). Galilee in the first century was dotted with small towns and villages. The Jewish historian Josephus claims that there were 204 small towns in Galilee, but modern scholars believe this estimate to be an exaggeration. Many of these towns were located around the Sea of Galilee, which contained many edible fish and which was surrounded by fertile land. Salted, dried, and pickled fish were an important export good. In 4 BCE, a rebel named Judah plundered Galilee's largest city, Sepphoris. In response, the Syrian governor Publius Quinctilius Varus sacked Sepphoris and sold the population into slavery.
  After the death of Herod the Great that same year, the Roman emperor Augustus appointed his son Herod Antipas as tetrarch of Galilee, which remained a Roman client state. Antipas paid tribute to the Roman Empire in exchange for Roman protection. The Romans did not station troops in Galilee, but threatened to retaliate against anyone who attacked it. As long as he continued to pay tribute, Antipas was permitted to govern however he wished and was permitted to mint his own coinage. Antipas was relatively observant of Jewish laws and customs. Although his palace was decorated with animal carvings, which many Jews regarded as a transgression against the law prohibiting idols, his coins bore only agricultural designs, which his subjects deemed acceptable.
  In general, Antipas was a capable ruler; Josephus does not record any instance of him using force to put down an uprising and he had a long, prosperous reign. However, many Jews probably resented him as not sufficiently devout. Antipas rebuilt the city of Sepphoris and, in either 18 CE or 19 CE, he founded the new city of Tiberias. These two cities became Galilee's largest cultural centers. They were the main centers of Greco-Roman influence, but were still predominantly Jewish. A massive gap existed between the rich and poor, but lack of uprisings suggest that taxes were not exorbitantly high and that most Galileans did not feel their livelihoods were being threatened.
  The archaeological discoveries of synagogues from the Hellenistic and Roman period in the Galilee show strong Phoenician influences, and a high level of tolerance for other cultures relative to other Jewish religious centers. Late in his reign, Antipas married his half-niece Herodias, who was already married to one of her other uncles. His wife, whom he divorced, fled to her father Aretas, an Arab king, who invaded Galilee and defeated Antipas's troops before withdrawing. Both Josephus and the Gospel of Mark 6:17–29 record that the itinerate preacher John the Baptist criticized Antipas over his marriage and Antipas consequently had him imprisoned and then beheaded.
  In around 39 CE, at the urging of Herodias, Antipas went to Rome to request that he be elevated from the status of tetrarch to the status of king. The Romans found him guilty of storing arms, so he was removed from power and exiled, ending his forty-three-year reign. During the Great Revolt (66–73 CE), a Jewish mob destroyed Herod Antipas's palace. According to medieval Hebrew legend, Simeon bar Yochai, one of the most famed of all the Tannaim, wrote the Zohar while living in Galilee. Eastern Galilee retained a Jewish majority until at least the seventh century.
caption: Jesus and the miraculous catch of fish, in the Sea of Galilee. Many people in Roman-era Galilee were fishermen.[6]
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