It was inevitable that a prince of this character should persecute the Christians. Sincere or not, Herod Agrippa was, in the most thorough sense of the word, a Jewish Sovereign.[14.9] The house of Herod, as it became weaker, took to devotion. It was no longer that broad profane idea of the founder of the dynasty, seeking to make the most diverse religions live together under the common empire of civilization. When Herod Agrippa, for the first time after he had become king, set foot in Alexandria, it was as a King of the Jews that he was received; it was this title which irritated the population and gave rise to endless buffooneries.[14.10] Now what could a King of the Jews be, if not the guardian of the laws and the traditions, a sovereign theocrat and persecutor? From the time of Herod the Great, under whom fanaticism was entirely repressed, until the breaking out of the war which led to the ruin of Jerusalem, there was thus a constantly augmenting progress of religious ardor. The death of Caligula (24th Jan., 41) had produced a reaction favorable to the Jews. Claudius was generally benevolent towards them,[14.11] as a result of the favorable ear he lent to Herod Agrippa and Herod King of Chalcis. Not only did he decide in favor of the Jews of Alexandria in their quarrels with the inhabitants and allow them the right of choosing an ethnarch, but he published, it is said, an edict by which he granted to the Jews throughout the whole empire that which he had granted to those of Alexandria; that is to say, the freedom to live according to their own laws, on the sole condition of not outraging other worships. Some attempts at vexations analogous to those which were inflicted under Caligula were repressed.[14.12] Jerusalem was greatly enlarged; the quarter of Bezetha was added to the city.[14.13] The Roman authority scarcely made itself felt, although Vibius Marsus, a prudent man, of wide public experience, and of a very cultivated mind,[14.14] who had succeeded Publius Petronius in the function of imperial legate of Syria, drew the attention of the authorities at Rome from time to time to the danger of these semi-independent Eastern Kingdoms.[14.15]