Garrison of Jerusalem - AD30

[Carlton Bach]

From reading about the Roman Near East in the 30s and before, my understanding is that the garrison was basically made up of Herod's royal troops after he died and that they were organized into cohorts (six ?). And as such, they would have been under the command of tribunes.

They were auxiliaries and presumably Jewish for the most part, stationed in the Antonian fortress. If true, I doubt there would've been much friction between them and the civilian population or at least there would have been more had they been pagans.

I think that was the theory, but I doubt it worked. This is one of those group psychology things - if a Roman garrison moves into Jerusalem and pushes around the locals, that is what you expect. It's what filthy foreigners do. But if Jews do it on their behalf, they can probably count on few sympathies from their fellow countrymenm and co-religionists. Conversely, a roman is not expected to have any loyalties or sympathies to Judaeans, so any kindness or courtesy from him counts in his favour. A Judaean is assumed to be a member of the group and automatically owes this. Any absence will count against him, all honest effort to mediate simply be insufficient. You see the same thing in guerilla wars to this day - foreign occupiers can usually march away in relative safety when it's over, but their local henchmen are in for terrible vengeance. I doubt these cohorts had an easy time of it.