Publius Sulpicius Quirinius (c. 51 BC – AD 21), also translated as Cyrenius,[1] 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 Judaea had been added for the purpose of a census.[2]