Ioudaía

Ioudaía, known in English as Judea, is the Greek name Ἰουδαία for the historical region in the southern Levant that is associated with the biblical kingdom of Judah. The term is used in ancient Greek and Latin sources to denote the land of the Jews and, from the early Roman Empire onward, an administrative unit known as Judaea.

Geographically, Ioudaía covered parts of the southern Levant around Jerusalem. Its approximate area shifted across different periods, from the boundaries of the ancient Kingdom of Judah to the Hasmonean and later Roman arrangements. The region included key religious centers such as Jerusalem and sites associated with Jewish worship, while its exact borders were fluid as political control changed.

Historically, the region traces its early political identity to the Kingdom of Judah in the Iron Age, with Jerusalem as a major center. Under the Hasmonean dynasty (mid-2nd to 1st centuries BCE) Judea expanded its autonomy and territory. After Roman conquest, the area became a client kingdom under Herod the Great and his successors. In 6 CE the Romans reorganized the territory as the province of Iudaea, governed by a Roman prefect. The province endured significant upheaval during the First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE), culminating in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. In 135 CE, following the Bar Kokhba revolt, the Romans renamed the region Syria Palaestina, and Judaea ceased to exist as a separate province under that name.

Usage of Ioudaía appears in various ancient sources, including Jewish, Hellenistic, and Christian texts. In modern scholarship the term helps distinguish the ancient geographic and political entity from broader or differently defined neighboring regions, though its exact boundaries varied by era.