No sooner were these disorders reduced than, as in a diseased frame, the fever broke out again in another quarter. The impostors and brigands, banding together, induced many to revolt, encouraging them to assert their independence, and threatening to kill any who submitted to Roman rule and to use violence to tear from their allegiance any who still chose voluntary servitude. Distributing themselves in companies throughout the country, they looted the houses of the wealthy, murdered their owners, and set the villages on fire; and so spread the infection of their madness throughout all Judæa.
While this war was daily being fanned into flame, |c. A.D. 59| another disturbance occurred at Cæsarea,[[243]] where the Jewish portion of the population rose against the Syrians. They claimed that the city was theirs on the ground that its founder, King Herod, was a Jew. Their opponents admitted the Jewish origin of its (second) founder, but maintained that the city itself belonged to the Greeks, since Herod would never have erected the statues and temples which he placed there had he intended it for Jews.... The quarrel still continuing, Felix selected the notables from either party and sent them as a deputation to Nero to argue the merits of the case.
Festus
A.D. 60-62
Festus, who succeeded Felix as procurator, proceeded to attack the principal plague of the country; he captured large numbers of the brigands and put not a few to death.
Albinus
The administration of Albinus, who followed Festus, |A.D. 62-64| was of another order; there was no form of villainy which he omitted to practise. Not only did he, in his official capacity, steal and plunder private property and burden the whole nation with imposts, but he accepted ransoms from their relatives on behalf of persons who had been imprisoned for robbery by the local councils or by former procurators; and none was left in gaol as a malefactor save those who failed to pay the price.
At this period a fresh stimulus was given to the revolutionary party in Jerusalem, the influential men among their number securing from Albinus, by means of bribes, immunity for their seditious practices; while the section of the populace which could never remain quiet joined hands with the governor’s accomplices. Individual scoundrels had around them each his own band of followers, among whom they figured conspicuously like brigand-chiefs or tyrants, employing their bodyguard to plunder peaceable citizens. The outcome was that the victims of robbery kept their grievances, of which they had every reason to complain, to themselves, while those who escaped cringed to one who deserved punishment, through fear of suffering the same fate. In short, none could now speak his mind, with tyrants on every side; and from this date were sown in the city the seeds of its impending fall.
Gessius Florus
Such was the character of Albinus, but his successor, Gessius Florus, |A. D. 64-66| made him appear by comparison a paragon of virtue. The crimes of Albinus were, for the most part, perpetrated in secret and with dissimulation; Gessius, on the contrary, ostentatiously paraded his lawless treatment of the nation, and, as though he had been sent as hangman of condemned criminals, committed every kind of robbery and outrage. In cases which called for compassion he was cruel beyond measure; in dealing with shameful conduct,[[244]] he was utterly devoid of shame. No man ever poured greater contempt[[245]] on truth or contrived more subtle methods of villainy. To make gain out of individuals seemed beneath him: he stripped whole cities, ruined entire populations, and almost went the length of proclaiming throughout the country that all were at liberty to rob on condition that he received his share of the spoils. Certainly his avarice brought desolation upon all districts,[[246]] and caused many to desert their ancestral homes and seek refuge in foreign provinces.