In this video of Christopher Hitchens thoughts of Mel Gibsons The Passion of Christ, he mentions the legion that executed Jesus probably spoke a dialect of Greek. Can anyone substantiate this? as i cannot find much about legion locations in 33AD.
There were no legionary troops in Judea before the first Jewish Revolt. 10th Legion (Legio X Fretensis) is the legion that ultimately sieged and sacked Jerusalem, and they are attested as having been stationed in Syria in 6 CE when Judea was annexed onto the Syrian province, but there is no information about where they were after that until they turn up in Armenia in 58-59, then in 67, they are back in Judea putting down the Jewish Revolt.
another related question: would an execution be carried out by the legion based at Caesarea or was there a local constabulary operating independently of Pilates troops?
Love this subreddit. Thanks for all the great replies to OP.
Pilate, as Procurator would have had a small Roman force. Caesarea was an embassy community and had only a token Roman presence, most of which would have been Greek-speaking auxilliaries. The gospel according to Luke indicates that it was Pilate's soldiers who performed the execution.
I'm sorry, but I thought there's no historically verified Jesus?