Quirinius

Tacitus gives an outline of his career in reporting his death, which he places in AD 21. Quirinius came from Lanuvium and did not belong to the old patrician family of the Sulpicii. He won a consulship under Augustus by his service, was awarded the insignia of a triumph for taking the strongholds of the Homonadenses on the border of Cilicia, and was later adviser to Gaius Caesar during his command in Armenia. Tiberius asked the senate to give him a public funeral (Tacitus, Annals 3.48). Cassius Dio names Publius Sulpicius as consul with Marcus Valerius, the pair who held office in 12 BC (Cassius Dio, Roman History 54.28.2).

Josephus says that Augustus sent Quirinius, a man of consular rank, to Syria to assess property, and that he came into Judea, newly placed under Roman rule after the removal of Archelaus, to register what people owned. The registration was completed in the thirty-seventh year after the battle of Actium, AD 6–7, and Quirinius then replaced the high priest Joazar with Ananus son of Seth (Josephus, Antiquities 18.1–3, 26); see Judea Comes under Direct Roman Rule. Luke dates the birth of Jesus to an enrollment made “when Quirinius was governor of Syria” (Luke 2:2). How that statement fits with a birth under Herod is discussed under the Birth of Jesus.