To the Roman historian, the incident of Gaius’ attempted erection of his statue in the temple is only an illustration of the readiness with which this nation rebelled. Tacitus[311] treats the period between insurrections as one of smouldering revolt. The incident of Gaius precipitated an outbreak (Hist. v. 9), which his death calmed, and enabled the Jews to suppress their inclinations a few years longer. _Duravit tamen patientia Iudaeis_, he tells us, _usque ad Gessium Florum procuratorem_, “The submission of the Jews lasted till the procuratorship of Gessius Florus.” The short reign of Herod’s popular grandson, Agrippa, “the great king Agrippa, friend of Caesar and the Romans,” as he calls himself on his coins and inscriptions,[312] rather confirmed Roman anxiety about the loyalty of their Jewish subjects than lightened it. It was by a complete adoption of Jewish customs—an adoption that can hardly have been sincere—that Agrippa secured and maintained his hold on their affections.[313] His deference to the religious leaders of the people was unqualified. His dealing with the Pharisee Simon, who publicly challenged his right to enter the temple precincts at all, is an illustration.[314] The Pharisaic tradition of his reign as preserved in the Talmud is that he was a pious and scrupulously observant Jew, painfully conscious that his Idumean origin made him half a stranger in Israel. But to Rome Agrippa’s methods, in spite of their success, indicated only that no real progress had been made in the subjugation of Palestine. Rome was not without experience of lands difficult to subdue. Gaul, Belgium, Germany, Britain, were all lands where insurrections might at any time be feared through the devotion of an influential minority to their ancestral customs. But in Palestine there was even less appreciable increase in Romanization or Hellenization of customs than in the countries mentioned. To an antiquary and scholar like the emperor Claudius there might be something interesting and admirable in the maintenance of an historic culture, but to the Roman administrative official, accountable for the security of the East, there was little that was admirable about it. A quarrel between the Jews of Peraea and the neighboring city of Philadelphia may have had only local significance. And the Ptolemy executed by Fadus may have been only a common highwayman.[315] But a very little later the success of a certain Theudas, an “impostor,” γόης τις ἀνήρ, Josephus calls him, in gaining adherents as a prophet is highly significant.[316] This Theudas undertook to divide the Jordan, and pass across it with his followers. It is noteworthy that every such claim to miraculous power immediately elicited drastic action on the part of the Romans. Theudas’ followers were cut down in a cavalry raid, and he himself was captured and beheaded. Roman officials apprehended danger chiefly from this source, and were particularly on their guard against it.