“Herod smiled at me with malignity, and with an ironical gesture departed. “The great feast of the Jews was near at hand, and their leaders determined to take advantage of the popular exaltation which is always manifested at the Paschal season. The city was crowded with a turbulent rabble, who shouted for the death of the Nazarene. My emissaries reported that the treasure of the Temple had been used to stir the popular feeling. The danger was imminent, and my very power was insulted in the person of my centurion, whom they hustled about and spat upon. “I wrote to the prefect of Syria, then at Ptolemais, and asked for one hundred horse and as many foot-soldiers, but he reiterated his former refusal. I was alone, in a mutinous city, with a few veterans, too weak to suppress the disorder, and with no choice but to tolerate it. “They had already seized Jesus, and the triumphant people, knowing that they had nothing to fear from me, and hoping, on the word of their leaders, that I would tacitly acquiesce in their designs, rushed after him through the streets, shouting: ‘Crucify him! crucify him!’ “Three powerful sects had coalesced in this plot against Jesus: first the Herodians and the Sadducees, who had a double motive—hatred against him and impatience at the Roman yoke. They had never forgiven me for entering the holy city with the banners of the empire; and although I made them an unwise concession in this matter, the sacrilege still remained in their eyes. Yet another grief stood against me, because I had wished a contribution from the treasures of the Temple towards certain buildings of public importance, and which had been coarsely refused. Then the Pharisees, who were the direct enemies of Jesus: they did not trouble themselves about the governor, but for three years they had angrily heard and endured the severe language of Jesus against their weaknesses. Too weak and pusillanimous to act alone, they eagerly embraced the quarrel of the Herodians and Sadducees. Besides these three parties, I had also to struggle against a crowd of those idle, worthless beings who are always ready to rush into a sedition out of love for disorder and a taste for blood. “Jesus was dragged before the council of priests and condemned to death; after which Caiphas, the high-priest, made a hypocritical act of submission by sending the condemned man for me to pronounce the sentence and have it executed. My answer was that as Jesus was a Galilean it did not concern me; so I sent him to Herod. The wily tetrarch pretended great humility, protesting his remarkable deference for the lieutenant of Cæsar, and left the fate of the man to be determined on by me. My palace resembled a citadel besieged by an army; for at every moment the seditious crowd was reinforced by fresh arrivals from the mountains of Nazareth, the cities of Galilee, the plains of Esdrelon. It seemed as if all Judea had invaded Jerusalem.