The Historians' History of the World 06

The fall of Archelaus left the throne of Judea and Samaria without a direct claimant, and the emperor took the opportunity of attaching them to the Roman dominions. This acquisition was placed under the general administration of the proconsul of Syria, but governed more directly by an imperial procurator, who took up his abode at Cæsarea Philippi. Of the character of the new government we find no complaints even in the Jewish writers whose accounts of this period have been preserved to us.

Both Augustus and his successor appear to have instructed their officers to observe the same respect for the peculiar habits and prejudices of the Jews which had reflected such lustre in their eyes upon the magnanimous Agrippa; whatever may have been the ordinary severities of Roman domination, it was not till the arrival of Pontius Pilate, about the middle of the reign of Tiberius, that any special cause of grievance was inflicted upon them. They complained that the new procurator commenced his career with a grave and wanton insult. He entered Jerusalem with standards flying, upon which, according to the usage of the time, the image of the emperor was displayed. The old religious feeling of the Jews against the representation of the human figure was roused to vehement indignation; they remonstrated with the procurator, nor would they listen to his excuse that the Romans had their customs as well as the Jews, and that the removal of the emperor’s portrait from his ensigns by an officer of his own might be regarded as a crime against the imperial majesty. But if Tiberius was merely the creature of the delators in his own capital, in the provinces he retained his good sense and independence. Perhaps it was by a special authorisation from him that Pilate consented to withdraw the obnoxious images. Nevertheless, the Jews, under the guidance of their priests, continued to watch every act of his administration with inveterate jealousy, and when he ventured to apply a portion of the temple revenues to the construction of an aqueduct for the supply of their city, broke out into violence which provoked him to severe measures of repression.

It is probable that mutual exasperation led to further riots, followed by sanguinary punishments; the government of Pilate was charged with cruelty and exaction, and at last the provincials addressed themselves to Vitellius, the governor of Syria. Nor were their expectations disappointed. The proconsul required his procurator to quit the province, and submit himself to the pleasure of the offended emperor. Tiberius, indeed, was already dead before his arrival, but his successor attended without delay to the representations of his lieutenant, and Pilate was dismissed with ignominy to Vienna. From the confidence with which Tiberius was appealed to on a matter of such remote concern, it would seem that the vigilance of his control was not generally relaxed even in the last moments of his life.

While Judea and Samaria were thus annexed to the Roman province, Galilee and the outlying regions of Peræa and Ituræa were still suffered to remain under their native rulers; and the dominions of the great Herod became once more united transiently under a single sceptre at no distant period. If, however, we consider the condition of the Jewish provincials under the Roman fasces, we shall find reason to believe that it was far from intolerable, and presented probably a change for the better from the tyranny of their own regal dynasties.

Roman Empress

(From a statue in the Capitol)