An unprecedented discovery sheds light on the Roman occupation of Judea, writes Ilan Ben-Zion:
The remains of an imperial Roman legionary camp—the only one of its kind ever to be excavated in Israel or in the entirety of the eastern [Roman] empire from the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE—have come to light at a dig near Megiddo. . . .
Legio, a Roman site situated next to Tel Megiddo in northern Israel, served as the headquarters of the Sixth Legion Ferrata—the Ironclad—in the years following the Jewish revolt, and helped keep order in the Galilee during the Bar Kokhba revolt in 132-135 CE. . . .
In the century following the Jewish revolt in 66-70 CE, Rome garrisoned two imperial legions in Palestine to keep order, one in Jerusalem and a second in the Galilee. Until recently, the location of the . . . permanent military camp housing the Sixth Legion was uncertain. . . .
“In the aftermath of the first revolt, you had the beginnings of a lot of emigration of the Jewish population of Judea northward,” [the excavation’s co-director Matthew] Adams explained. “The Galilee was increasingly the center of Jewish activity.” In light of the bloody 1st-century revolt which took Rome four years to crush, “probably one of the reasons that they brought the legion here at all was to garrison this unruly population,” Adams said.
Read more on Times of Israel: http://www.timesofisrael.com/in-first-imperial-roman-legionary-camp-uncovered-near-megiddo/