He was succeeded by the profligate Felix, whose government was worse than that of any of his predecessors. It was, in fact, one long scene of cruelty and treachery. He allied himself with some of the bands of robbers now infesting Judæa, and by their aid murdered, in the very precincts of the Temple, Jonathan, the high priest, who had rebuked his vices. After eleven years of misrule, he was accused by the Jews in Cæsarea of the barbarous slaughter of some of their countrymen. He was tried at Rome, but escaped through the interest of his brother, Pallas. He was, however, a vigorous ruler, and put down the notorious Egyptian Jew, who, with 30,000 followers, had raised a formidable insurrection (Acts xxi. 38). After his prefecture, and that of his more humane and upright successor Porcius Festus, the inveterate evils which afflicted the whole of Judæa continued to grow in violence and intensity. Banditti overspread the country, and carried on their lawless depredations almost with impunity. Impostors and fanatics started up on every side, and drew after them great multitudes, to whom they preached rebellion against their Roman governors as a religious duty. Riot and bloodshed, and armed encounters with the Roman soldiery, became matters of continual occurrence, which the authority of the procurator was unable to restrain. The evil was aggravated by the succession of the corrupt Albinus to the office vacated by the death of Festus; but it was not until he, in his turn, was superseded by the infamous Gessius Florus that the discontent of the unhappy Jews culminated in the rebellious outbreak which brought on their ruin. It can hardly be supposed that it was actually Florus’s object to drive the Jews into rebellion; yet the course he pursued persistently from the very commencement of his rule could have had no other result. It was not merely that he took bribes from all men who sought his favour or feared his anger. He leagued with robbers and assassins, sharing their gains and countenancing their crimes. He exacted large sums alike from public treasuries and private coffers, on the flimsiest pretexts, and often on no pretext at all. He inflamed the angry feelings, already dangerously excited, by every possible insult and outrage which lawless power could exercise; and, finally, having by pillage and butchery stirred up the infuriated Jews to refuse obedience to an authority which appeared to exist only for their destruction, he called in Cestius Gallus, the Prefect of Syria, to lead the Roman forces under his command to put down the sedition.