Quirinius

Publius Sulpicius Quirinius (c. 51 BC – AD 21) was a Roman aristocrat. After the banishment of the ethnarch Herod Archelaus from the tetrarchy of Judea in AD 6, Quirinius was appointed legate governor of Syria, to which the province of Iudaea had been added for the purpose of a census. The most famous mention of Quirinius occurs in the Gospel of Luke, which dates the birth of Jesus by the Census of Quirinius.