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Quirinius


Publius Sulpicius Quirinius (c. 51 BC – AD 21) was a Roman . After the banishment of the ethnarch Herod Archelaus from the tetrarchy of Judea in AD 6, Quirinius was appointed legate governor of Syria, to which the province of Iudaea had been added for the purpose of a census.

Born into an undistinguished family in the neighborhood of Lanuvium, a Latin town near Rome, Quirinius followed the normal pathway of service for an ambitious young man of his social class. According to the Roman historian Florus, Quirinius defeated the Marmaridae, a tribe of desert raiders from Cyrenaica, possibly while governor of Crete and Cyrene around 14 BC, but nonetheless declined the honorific name "Marmaricus". In 12 BC he was named consul, a sign that he enjoyed the favour of Augustus.

From 12 – 1 BC, he led a campaign against the Homonadenses, a tribe based in the mountainous region of Galatia and Cilicia, around 5 – 3 BC, probably as legate of Galatia. He won the campaign by reducing their strongholds and starving out the defenders. For this victory, he was awarded a triumph and elected duumvir by the colony of Pisidian Antioch.

By 1 AD, Quirinius was appointed rector to Augustus' grandson Gaius Caesar, until the latter died from wounds suffered on campaign. When Augustus' support shifted to his stepson Tiberius, Quirinius changed his allegiance to the latter. Having been married to Claudia Appia, about whom little is known, he divorced her and around 3 AD married Aemilia Lepida, daughter of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus and sister of Manius Aemilius Lepidus, who had originally been betrothed to Lucius Caesar. Within a few years they were divorced: in 20 AD he accused her of claiming that he was her son's father, and later of trying to poison him during their marriage. Tacitus claims that she was popular with the public, who regarded Quirinius as carrying on a prosecution out of spite.


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