In the course of time, and especially from Vespasian (Emperor from 69

to 79 AD) onwards, the term Palaestina began to supersede the longer Roman name of the province of ‘Syria Palaestina’. The territorial boundaries of Palaestina in the time of the Romans embraced the coastal region of Palestine, Idumaea, Judaea, Samaria, Perasa (northern modern Jordan) and Trachonitis (modern Arab, Lajat), south-east of Damascus. Following Herodotus and classical literature, this Roman conception of Palestine applied to the country in the wider sense: to the area of the southern Levant between modern Lebanon and Egypt. The shift in the terminology from the official Roman province of ‘Syria Palaestina’ introduced by Emperor Hadrian to more and more emphasis on Palestine is reflected in the works of important Roman writers such as Strabo, Pliny the Elder and Pomponius Mela and classical Jewish authors including Josephus and Philo of Alexandria.