Apollonia and its territory: rural landscape and social change in Palestine from the Hasmoneans to the Romans (100 B.C.- 135 AD).

Résumé

This paper presents the results of research undertaken by a multidisciplinary team of Brazilian and Israeli archaeologists and historians on the site of ancient Apollonia, Israel. Taking issue with current scholarship on this site, the paper re-interprets the available material and literary evidence; proposes a new and original model of settlement of the micro-region during the late Hellenistic and Roman periods; and reassesses the economic and demographic impact on the Sharon coastal plain of the Roman conquest and occupation of Palestine. Instead of a uniform rural landscape and demographic regime, the chora of the Sharon shows discontinuity and fragmentation. The decline of Apollonia in the early Roman period owed less to the destruction caused by the Roman conquest than to the impact of earlier Hasmonean expansion. The development and growth of this site in the second century AD were probably linked to the enhanced Roman presence following the Jewish Revolts of 66 and 132 AD.