Publius Petronius

Who is Publius Petronius?

Publius Petronius was appointed by the Roman Emperor Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, better known to posterity as Caligula, as Governor of Syria in AD 39, probably arriving in the country late in the year. Little seems to be known about him before or after this governorship, but A.A.Barrett lists him as an example of the "excellent appointments" made by an emperor often dismissed as mentally unbalanced if not insane.

As Governor of all Syria Petronius was assisted by lesser officials in charge of various areas. The Prefect of Judea at this time was Marcellus who had arrived only a year earlier, and at about the same time as Petronius' appointment Agrippa I had Galilee and Peraea added to his domains, but he was not then in the country.

Sometime in the winter of AD 39/40 the Greek population of Jamnia in Judea erected an altar to the imperial cult and the resident Jews promptly tore it down, resulting in serious communal rioting.

The destruction of an altar for his own worship was apparently taken as a personal insult by Caligula who was already beset by strife between Jews and Greeks in Alexandria, both of whom had delegations in Rome seeking his adjudication. The emperor struck a counter-blow by instructing Petronius that the temple at Jerusalem should be converted into an imperial shrine with an enormous statue of the emperor in the guise of the Romans' supreme god Jupiter. The Governor was to use two of his available four legions to enforce this decree.