Pontius Pilate , Latin in full Marcus Pontius Pilatus , (died after 36 ce), Roman prefect (governor) of Judaea (26–36 ce) under the emperor Tiberius who presided at the trial of Jesus and gave the order for his crucifixion.
The official Roman religion was the worship of a large group of Greco Roman gods such a Jupiter, Juno, Minerva and Mars. A Roman priest was responsible for the proper ritual worship to the gods. The very success of the Roman Empire proved that the Romans had properly worshiped their gods.
Instead of leading with the conviction for blasphemy, Caiaphas claimed that Jesus was guilty of sedition. Jesus , Caiaphas said, thought himself, or his followers thought, or people said that he was the King of the Jews. This was a capital crime against Rome and Pilate had to deal with it whether he wanted to or not.
The armed unit that crucified Jesus was an auxiliary unit called Cohors I Sebastenorum. It should be noted that auxiliary units, otherwise known as Cohorts, were made up of 800 non- Roman soldiers who provided military support to the Legions themselves.
Jesus ‘ name in Hebrew was “Yeshua” which translates to English as Joshua.
The 5 Worst Roman Emperors Caligula : 37 – 41 AD. A bust of Caligula . Nero : 54 – 68 AD. As with all emperors, the horror stories may be the work of his enemies, but Nero has many to his name. Commodus : 180 – 192 AD. Caracalla : 198 – 217 AD. Maximinus Thrax: 235 to 238 AD.
To the Romans , Jesus was a troublemaker who had got his just desserts. To the Christians, however, he was a martyr and it was soon clear that the execution had made Judaea even more unstable. Pontius Pilate – the Roman governor of Judaea and the man who ordered the crucifixion – was ordered home in disgrace.
The religions that Rome had the most problems with were monotheistic—Judaism and Christianity . Because these religions believed there was just one god, they prohibited worshiping other gods.
Hebrew was the language of scholars and the scriptures. But Jesus’s “everyday” spoken language would have been Aramaic . And it is Aramaic that most biblical scholars say he spoke in the Bible.
Christian legend has it that Longinus was a blind Roman centurion who thrust the spear into Christ’s side at the crucifixion. Some of Jesus’s blood fell upon his eyes and he was healed. Upon this miracle Longinus believed in Jesus .
It was a canny tactic, but one the hyper-aggressive Romans would not embrace for long. In 216 B.C., they elected Gaius Terentius Varro and Lucius Aemilius Paullus as co-consuls and equipped them with eight legions —the largest army in the Republic’s history.
Roman soldiers were forbidden by law to contract a marriage during their period of military service, at least until the time of Septimius Severus.