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GESSIUS FLORUS

The last Roman procurator of the province of Judea (including Samaria), who assumed power in 64 c.e. According to Josephus he was from Clazomenae and received his procuratorship because his wife Cleopatra was a friend of Nero’s wife Poppea. Josephus and Tacitus attest that Jewish patience for Roman misgovernment of Judea was exhausted under Florus. Josephus vilifies him as the worst of Roman governors and charges him with wholesale plundering of Jewish cities, going so far as to allow bands of robbers to ravage the country with immunity. When Florus sought to take funds from the Jerusalem temple treasury in 66 c.e., the citizens resisted by mocking his apparent poverty. To retaliate, he led soldiers from Caesarea to sack part of Jerusalem and to arrest numerous leading citizens, whom he had scourged and crucified, including several Jews of Roman equestrian rank. His attempt to force the Jews to show ceremonial submission to his cohorts aggravated the situation and sparked the rebellion that became the Jewish war with Rome.

Bibliography. E. Schürer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 b.c.–a.d. 135) 1, rev. ed. (Edinburgh, 1973).

Scott Nash

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

GESSIUS FLORUS

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)