It seems to me the stretch is to assume that Quirinius had no involvement in Syria until he was appointed civil magistrate in 6 A.D. A Roman legate was the equivalent of a general. They would be of senatorial rank and would outrank all other military. And when the legate was also a consul, one of the highest ranking political positions in the Empire (only 2 were elected each year), you’re talking about a man who held enormous authority.
Quirinius was not in command in Syria during this period - Quinctilius Varus was, a man with a resume as illustrious as Quirinius'. Quirinius was engaged in a prolonged campaign in Galatia, which had its own problems, and Varus was a well-known commander in his own right, in fact had held the consulship earlier than Quirinius. I find it a stretch to assume Quirinius' involvement in a province outside his purview under a magistrate as senior as himself, if not more.
Quirinius wasn't Consul during the period, he had held the consulship in 12 BC, he was a proconsul. This was a title for a senior governor who held important provinces after their consulship.
During the Principate, usually two Consuls were appointed early in the year, who then resigned mid-year, so that another two could become Suffect Consuls. This was a way to increase the pool of Governors for the burgeoning Empire. To characterise Quirinius as thus 'one of 2 most powerful men' is specious.
Syria was an especially important province for Rome, arguably the most important province as it was from here that Rome defended its border against the only other world superpower at the time, Parthia. This province was so important militarily that of the only six legions in the entire eastern third of the Empire, four of those legions were garrisoned in this one small province of Syria, III Gallica, VI Ferrata, X Fretensis, and XII Fulminata. And the highest ranking military commander in the entire eastern region was Quirinius. To suggest that the highest ranking military commander in the region had “no involvement” in the most militarily important and heavily fortified province in the region is difficult to believe.
Quirinius was not the highest ranking commander in the area. Tiberius was active in the area, as was Gaius Caesar, not to mention Quinctilius Varus and Calpurnius Piso.
Quirinius spent the entire period of his proconsulship engaged in a difficult war in Galatia, so it would be out of character for Augustus to have reassigned and then returned him there, especcially as we have no source claiming this.
And especially in light of the fact that the campaigns in which Quirinius showed himself so capable were all fought in the provinces next to Syria, Galatia to the northwest, Armenia to the northeast, and later Ituria which was in Syria just north of Galilee. This was the point of citing Tacitus, as I said, that Quirinius was certainly engaged in conflicts in this region during this period.
These passages in Tacitus make it almost certain he was not involved in Syria, as Tacitus would have mentioned this when recounting his career. Multiple periods as proconsul of Syria would most definitely have been mentioned and we see Quirinius' plate already quite full, acting for a period as Tiberius' second for instance.
And add to that the discovery of the Aemilius Secundus inscription which identifies Quirinius as “the legate of Caesar in Syria,” it makes it too much of a stretch to suggest that Quirinius had “no involvement in Syria” during this period and his military command and campaigns in the region.
The tombstone of Aemilius Secundus dates from 20 AD and refers to Quirinius' period as governor after 6 AD. It is no proof of earlier involvement, which most historians think is unlikely.
There is another inscription called the Lapis Tiburtinus which purports to mention a governor of Asia becoming proconsul of Syria, but this likely refers to Calpurnius Piso. It doesn't fit Quirinius either.
And I disagree about the title Duumvir. It is a Roman title for two magistrates or officials who held a joint office. It was actually very common at the time, and the inscription demonstrates that Quirinius could hold office jointly with a local civil governor so one cannot just assume that Quirinius could not be a “ruler” in some capacity in Syria even while there was a civil magistrate. That capacity would be the legate.
Duumvir is a form of Roman titulature, but it wasn't an official one in the Imperial magistracies. It was a local honorary title in most cases or for local magistrates - basically "mayors" of colonies or municipium.
In this capacity, Quirinius was named the Duumvir of Pisidian Antioch, which was likely honorary. Pisidian Antioch is in central Anatolia, very far away from Syria, and the inscription says nothing whatsoever on the administration of the East as a whole, or even Pisidia. I think you are confusing the major city of Antioch in Syria with this minor Anatolian municipium and then drawing grandiose and erroneous conclusions.
Regardless, Rome only started to differentiate civil from military authority under the Dominate. In the period of the early principate a governor held both, for Romans would not see them as exclusive zones, but all falling under the concept of Imperium. So to create some dual magistracy in Syria here is anachronistic and patently false.
As for the censuses decreed by Caesar, the Res Gestae doesn’t say that he ordered a census of certain provinces or some part of the empire. It says “I made a census of the people” … “A second time … I again performed the lustrum … A third time … I performed the lustrum.” This was not one census divided into three parts, it was a census “of the people” made three different times, each time amounting to approximately the same number. And from everything I have seen a population of 60 million for the Roman Empire would be extremely high and improbable. Even if the women and children were included in the population (they were not included in the census), it would still be a high number.
Now granted, the census would have been conducted at various times (it took time to plan, organize, and then implement a census requiring longer for larger provinces or for those on the frontiers), and in a client kingdom like Judaea and Galilee, it would be conducted by the local ruler, King Herod. And further, unlike a census in other parts of the Roman Empire where men registered in their own towns, in Judaea the law required two things for a census: 1) it was forbidden to count the people (Exodus 30:11-16), so instead a small tax was levied of a half shekel on every man and woman and the coins were counted (In 1 Samuel 11:8 King Saul used shards of pottery and in 2 Samuel 24 David counted the people in violation of the law and 70,000 Jews died in a plague); and 2) the people had to be counted “by tribes,” thus each man and woman had to return to their ancestral seat. This would of course cause a major disruption to the economy, shops would have to close, farmers and herders would have to leave their fields and flocks and herds, and there would be a mass migration as the whole populace was suddenly shifted as people left their homes and traveled to their ancestral seat. You can well imagine that Herod would conduct the census in such a way as to minimize this disruption so it would have taken an even longer period of time to plan and implement a census, so a decree issued by Augustus for a census in 8 B.C. might well have not been actually implemented in Judaea until 6 B.C. but then 6000 Pharisees refused to take the required oath which could have delayed the census until the following year, 5 B.C.
And if you are familiar with the seasons in 1st century Israel, the early winter would be the least disruptive time of the year for such a shifting of the population, when the crops have all be sown and agricultural activity is suspended until the harvests begin in the spring, but early enough in the winter that the weather was still mild and the heaviest rains have not begun yet, December would have been the most opportune time for such a census.
In Christ,
Deborah
Once again, a Lustra counted Roman Citizens. Not all inhabitants. This is very clear from all our sources. Augustus as Censor carried out a census of all Roman citizens to perform the Lustra. This has nothing to do with client kingdoms like Herodian tetrachies or kingdoms nor with non-Romans. To say this was a universal census is simply unsupportable ftom the sources, be they Tacitus, Suetonius or inscriptions like the Gestae.
Anyway, Rome itself likely had a population of about 2 million in this period, so it is quite silly to suggest the Empire's population so low. 60 million is amongst the lower estimates, some ranging to about 90-100 million for the Empire as a whole.
There is simply no support for a universal census having ever been carried out and again, first century readers would not have understood Luke in this manner.
Again, there is no record of Censusses being conducted in client kingdoms either. The oft-mentioned census in Apamea is sometimes used to suggest this, but as I stated earlier this is not such an example as this was a municipium of Syria.
This is simply conjecture based on little evidence here. I myself am very interested in this question, as I am a Roman history buff, but at the moment I consider the problem of Quirinius's census vis-a-vis Christ's birth insoluble, as I described in detail in my thread on this topic earlier mentioned.