Quirinius was born into an undistinguished family in
Lanuvium, a Latin town near Rome. He was the son of Publius Sulpicius Quirinius and the paternal grandson of Publius Sulpicius Quirinius of
Gens Sulpicia. Quirinius followed the normal path of service for an ambitious young man of his social class. According to the Roman historian
Florus, Quirinius defeated the Marmaridae, a tribe of desert raiders from Cyrenaica, around 14 BC (possibly while governor of
Crete and Cyrene), but declined the honorific name "Marmaricus". In 12 BC, he was named
consul, a sign that he had
Augustus's favor. Around 5–3 BC, he led a campaign (probably as legate of Galatia) against the
Homanades (Homonadenses), a tribe based in the mountainous region of
Galatia and
Cilicia. He won by reducing their strongholds and starving out the defenders. For this victory, he was awarded a
triumph and elected
duumvir by the colony of
Antioch of Pisidia. By 1 AD, Quirinius was appointed as tutor to Augustus' grandson
Gaius Caesar until the latter died from wounds suffered on campaign. When Augustus' support shifted to his stepson
Tiberius, Quirinius also changed allegiance to Tiberius. Quirinius's marriage to Claudia Appia, about whom little is known, ended in divorce. Around 3 AD, he married
Aemilia Lepida, daughter of
Quintus Aemilius Lepidus and sister of
Manius Aemilius Lepidus. Lepida had originally been betrothed to
Lucius Caesar. Within a few years, Quirinius and Lepida were divorced. In 20 AD, he accused her of falsely claiming that he fathered her son, and later, of trying to poison him during their marriage.
Tacitus claims that Lepida was popular with the public, who regarded Quirinius's prosecution of her as spiteful. After the banishment of
Herod Archelaus in 6 AD,
Judaea (the conglomeration of
Samaria,
Judea and
Idumea) came under direct Roman administration, with
Coponius appointed as
prefect. At the same time, Quirinius was appointed
Legate of Syria, with instructions to assess Judea Province for taxation purposes. One of his first duties was to
carry out a census. The Jews already hated their pagan conquerors, and censuses were forbidden under Jewish law. The Jews greatly resented this taxation assessment, and open revolt was prevented only by the
high priest Joazar. Despite efforts to prevent revolt, the census triggered the revolt of
Judas of Galilee and the formation of the party of the
Zealots, according to
Josephus and Luke in the
Acts of the Apostles. There is a reference to Quirinius in the
Gospel of Luke chapter 2, which mentions the
birth of
Jesus alongside a reference to the
Census of Quirinius. This is widely held to contradict the time of Jesus' birth described in the
Gospel of Matthew as during the reign of
Herod the Great, as Herod died in the year 4 BC. According to this view, the reference to the census of Quirinius is inconsistent with
Luke chapter 1, which states that Herod is still alive about a year before Jesus's birth. Most critical scholars judge Luke to be inconsistent with the historical evidence. Recently, however, David J. Armitage proposed an alternative reading of Luke 2:1-7, asserting that Luke has been misread by both critical and conservative scholarship and that the events mentioned in Luke 2:1-5 are to be linked with the preceding verse rather than 2:6ff, placing the journey to Bethlehem for the census several years after Jesus' birth.. This reading would be compatible with the chronology in Josephus. Quirinius served as governor of Syria with authority over Judaea until 12 AD, when he returned to Rome as a close associate of
Tiberius. Nine years later, he died and was given a public funeral. ==Archaeology==