历史知识与地理知识和权力密不可分,罗马帝国的扩张与巩固催生了卷帙浩繁的百科全书式著作。公元1世纪,有三部广为人知的巴勒斯坦地理著作:(a)希腊-罗马地理学家兼历史学家斯特拉波(公元前64或63年至公元24年左右),其多卷本著作《地理学》(Geographika)(Strabo 1917)——这部百科全书式的知识建立在他遍历地中海地区和近东的广泛游历之上;(b)老普林尼(公元23–79年)的著作《博物志》(Naturalis Historia)(约公元78年);(c)庞波尼乌斯·梅拉,他是第一位罗马地理学家,撰写了古典拉丁语写成的唯一一部古代地理学专论《世界概说》(De Situ Orbis,意为"世界的描述"),约写于公元43年。斯特拉波、老普林尼和梅拉的记述都在广义上处理巴勒斯坦这一地区,与古典希腊作家用以指代整个国家的名称用法一致。

Historical and geographical knowledge and power are inextricably linked and the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Empire brought about the rise of encyclopaedic multi-volume works. In the 1st century AD there are three well-known geographical accounts of Palestine by: (a) Greco- Roman geographer and historian Strabo (64‒63 BC–c. 24 AD), in his multi-volume work Geographika (Strabo 1917) – this encyclopaedic knowledge was based on his extensive travels throughout the Mediterranean region and Near East; (b) Pliny the Elder (23–79 AD) in his work Naturalis Historia (c. 78 AD);5 (c) Pomponius Mela, who was the first Roman geographer and wrote the only ancient treatise on geography in classical Latin, De Situ Orbis (‘A Description of the World’), written around 43 AD. The accounts of Strabo, Pliny the Elder and Mela all treat the country of Palestine in the wider sense, in the same way as the name applied by the classical Greek writers to the whole country.