Palaestina

Palaestina is the Latin designation used in antiquity for a region in the southern Levant. In 135 CE, after the Bar Kokhba revolt, the Roman emperor Hadrian renamed the province of Judaea as Syria Palaestina, a change intended to minimize Jewish identification with the land. The term Palaestina subsequently appeared in Roman and Byzantine administration to denote a broader geographic zone within the empire.

During late antiquity, the area was organized in administrative units such as Palaestina Prima, Palaestina Secunda, and Palaestina Tertia, and the name persisted in ecclesiastical and geographical writings throughout the Byzantine period. The usage contributed to the later medieval and modern designation Palestine for the broader region.

Geographically, the term roughly corresponds to parts of the present-day southern Levant, including areas of modern Israel, the Palestinian territories, and Jordan, with boundaries that shifted according to political authority and cartographic conventions.

Etymology and legacy: Palæstina is the Latin rendering of a term attested in Greek as Palaistinē and in later Latin texts. Its ultimate origin is debated; some scholars link it to the Philistines or to a broader designation for the region, while others emphasize its role as a Roman provincial name. In modern usage, Palestine denotes a political and geographic concept associated with the Palestinian national movement and the territories of the West Bank and Gaza, whereas Palaestina survives mainly as a historical term in scholarly contexts.