The species of feudality which, since the death of Tiberius, tended to establish itself in Syria and the neighboring countries,[14.16] was in fact an interruption in the imperial polity, and had almost uniformly injurious results. The "Kings" coming to Rome were personages, and exercised there a detestable influence. The corruption and abasement of the people, especially under Caligula, proceeded in great part from the spectacle furnished by these wretches, who were seen successively dragging their purple at the theatre, at the palace of the Cæsar, and in the prisons.[14.17] So far as concerns the Jews, we have seen{14.18} that autonomy meant intolerance. The Sovereign Pontificate quitted for a moment the family of Hanan, only to enter that of Boethus, no less haughty and cruel. A Sovereign anxious to please the Jews could not fail to grant them what they loved best; that is to say, severities against everything which diverged from rigorous orthodoxy.[14.19] Herod Agrippa, in fact, became towards the end of his reign a violent persecutor.[14.20] Some time before Easter of the year 44, he cut off the head of one of the principal members of the apostolical college, James son of Zebedee, brother of John. The matter was not presented as a religious one; there was no inquisitorial process before the Sanhedrim; the sentence, as in the case of John the Baptist,[14.21] was pronounced by virtue of the arbitrary power of the sovereign. Encouraged by the good effect which this execution produced upon the Jews,[14.22] Herod Agrippa was not willing to stop upon so easy a road to popularity. It was the first days of the feast of Passover, ordinarily marked by a redoubled fanaticism. Agrippa ordered the imprisonment of Peter in the tower of Antonia, and sought to have him judged and put to death with great pomp before the mass of people then assembled.