Now it may be remembered that the chief legion permanently encamped in Syria, of which detachments must have accompanied Pilate upon his transference of the praetorium from Caesarea to Jerusalem, was the Tenth Legion, called Fretensis (Leg. X Fretensis), and that its standards were a bull and a pig.[[306]] To the mass of the Jews the carrying, as though in triumph, of the gilded image of an unclean animal must have seemed nothing less than derision, and can easily explain the fury of the populace.
Another of the Syrian legions, of which certain divisions may have been with Pilate, was the Third Gallic Legion (Leg. III Gallica). This legion, like the X Fretensis, bore a bull as a standard, which, while less stimulating to the mass of the population, must have seemed even more than the pig the emblem of idolatry to those who had the history of their people in mind.[[307]]
If this was the occasion of the disturbance, Pilate may well have been innocent of any provocative intention. That can scarcely have been altogether the case in the riots provoked by the aqueducts. Pilate seized certain sacred funds for that purpose, and in this case no official, Roman or Greek, could have failed to understand the nature of the funds or the offense involved in using them for secular purposes.
A certain significance is attached to the Samaritan episode mentioned by Josephus (Ant. XVIII. iv. 1). It is one of the incidents that become more and more frequent. The promises of a plausible thaumaturg cause an enormous throng to gather. It does not appear that he had any other purpose than that of obtaining credit as a prophet or magician. But Pilate, as most Roman governors would no doubt have done, held the unlicensed assemblage of armed men to be sedition, and suppressed it as such.
Shortly afterwards Palestine and the closely connected Egyptian communities were thrown into a frenzy of excitement by the widely advertised attempt of Gaius to set up his statue in the temple at Jerusalem. The imperial legate at Antioch had no desire whatever to arouse a rebellion in which all the forces of religious hatred would be let loose upon him. He therefore temporized and postponed at his own imminent peril. In view of the constantly threatening attitude of Parthia, Petronius[[308]] may well have felt his responsibility with especial force. Only a few years before, an invasion on the part of the Parthian king Artabanus had been generally feared. Agrippa had even been accused of complicity with the Parthians.[[309]] The governor of Syria had every reason to hesitate to gratify the caprice of an obviously insane emperor at so great a risk to the state. Luckily for him, the assassination of Gaius saved him from the consequences of his hesitation. His subsequent procedure against the people of Doris[[310]] indicated a lively comprehension on his part of the inflammable character of the people he had to govern and the particular importance to be attached to this question of images.
To the Roman historian, the incident of Gaius’ attempted erection of his statue in the temple is only an illustration of the readiness with which this nation rebelled. Tacitus[[311]] treats the period between insurrections as one of smouldering revolt. The incident of Gaius precipitated an outbreak (Hist. v. 9), which his death calmed, and enabled the Jews to suppress their inclinations a few years longer. Duravit tamen patientia Iudaeis, he tells us, usque ad Gessium Florum procuratorem, “The submission of the Jews lasted till the procuratorship of Gessius Florus.”
The short reign of Herod’s popular grandson, Agrippa, “the great king Agrippa, friend of Caesar and the Romans,” as he calls himself on his coins and inscriptions,[[312]] rather confirmed Roman anxiety about the loyalty of their Jewish subjects than lightened it. It was by a complete adoption of Jewish customs—an adoption that can hardly have been sincere—that Agrippa secured and maintained his hold on their affections.[[313]] His deference to the religious leaders of the people was unqualified. His dealing with the Pharisee Simon, who publicly challenged his right to enter the temple precincts at all, is an illustration.[[314]] The Pharisaic tradition of his reign as preserved in the Talmud is that he was a pious and scrupulously observant Jew, painfully conscious that his Idumean origin made him half a stranger in Israel.
But to Rome Agrippa’s methods, in spite of their success, indicated only that no real progress had been made in the subjugation of Palestine. Rome was not without experience of lands difficult to subdue. Gaul, Belgium, Germany, Britain, were all lands where insurrections might at any time be feared through the devotion of an influential minority to their ancestral customs. But in Palestine there was even less appreciable increase in Romanization or Hellenization of customs than in the countries mentioned. To an antiquary and scholar like the emperor Claudius there might be something interesting and admirable in the maintenance of an historic culture, but to the Roman administrative official, accountable for the security of the East, there was little that was admirable about it.
A quarrel between the Jews of Peraea and the neighboring city of Philadelphia may have had only local significance. And the Ptolemy executed by Fadus may have been only a common highwayman.[[315]] But a very little later the success of a certain Theudas, an “impostor,” γόης τις ἀνήρ, Josephus calls him, in gaining adherents as a prophet is highly significant.[[316]] This Theudas undertook to divide the Jordan, and pass across it with his followers. It is noteworthy that every such claim to miraculous power immediately elicited drastic action on the part of the Romans. Theudas’ followers were cut down in a cavalry raid, and he himself was captured and beheaded. Roman officials apprehended danger chiefly from this source, and were particularly on their guard against it.
Such incidents as the riots provoked by individual soldiers cannot have been frequent. As has been said in one case, the Roman commander executed a soldier whose outrage had stirred up a revolt. But a garrison of foreign soldiers in a warlike country furnishes constant incentives to friction, which may at any time burst out into a general war. In Samaria and Galilee there were abundant pretexts for mutual attacks, the net result of which was that the land was full of brigandage, which indicates that the Roman police here were strikingly ineffective. And in all cases the suspicion that attached to every armed leader was that his motives were treasonable as well as criminal. So Dortus of Lydda was accused by the Samaritans of directly preaching rebellion.