It was therefore not unnatural that she should employ all the means suggested by her imagination, and made possible by her personal charms, to attain this end. The most important step was to gain Tiberius Alexander's support for Vespasian, and in this she succeeded admirably. The governor of Egypt responded to her appeal by making his legions swear fealty to him whom they now called emperor. A few days later the legions stationed in Judæa, and the Syrian troops under the command of Mucianus, also tendered their allegiance to Vespasian. The possession of the coveted purple was enough to make Vespasian for the time being forgetful of the conquest of Judæa. Accompanied by his son Titus, he repaired to Egypt, where they received the news of Vitellius' death (Dec., 69), an event which had drawn forth but the contemptuous scorn of his people. And how did Jerusalem spend the two years of peace that Vespasian granted her? There were originally four distinct factions in the city, without counting the more moderate. These were the Jerusalem Zealots under Eleazer ben Simon and Simon ben Ezron, consisting only of two thousand four hundred members, the Galilæan Zealots under John, numbering six thousand armed men, the Simonists and Sicarii outnumbering the rest by their army of ten thousand, and the Idumæans under Jacob ben Sosa and Simon ben Kathla, a troop of five thousand men. These twenty-four thousand heroic patriots might have put their valor to some account in one decisive battle could they but have acted in harmony. But not one of their leaders was capable of sacrificing his own ambition to the general good. The followers of Eleazer claimed precedence on the grounds of their being natives of Jerusalem and of having thus given the first impulse to the movement. John insisted upon his superiority on account of his quickness of perception and readiness in action, and Simon felt revengeful towards the Zealots, who had dared quell his disorder. Members of the four different factions were perpetually meeting and fighting in the streets, giving the enemy both the time and the opportunity to devastate the surrounding country; for it was almost certain that no one faction would dare oppose the Romans, and equally certain that the four factions would not combine in arms against them. Titus, the new heir to the imperial throne, at last made his appearance before Jerusalem (February, 70), fully expecting that he would be able to force the city into submission; for it was almost a reproach to the Romans that this rebellious capital should have maintained her independence for four years. The prestige of the new imperial house seemed in some measure to depend upon the fall of Jerusalem; a protracted siege would necessarily imply weakness in the military power of Vespasian and his son.