The virtual autonomy of the Persian period allowed the development of a well-organized ruling caste of priests, in which were perhaps included the Soferim, or Scribes, men learned in the Law, who had no definite priestly functions. The scope of the high priest’s jurisdiction, the extent of his powers, may not have been sharply defined as yet. In itself the presence of a high priest as head of the state was not at all unusual in that region. As has been said, the interference of the representative of the Persian sovereign was a variable quantity. In the second half of the fifth century a Jew, Nehemiah, held the office of tirshatha, or viceroy, an accident that was of inestimable value to the growing community, and may have finally secured the threatened political existence of Jerusalem. One other political event, of which we have dim and confused accounts, was a rebellion—whether in or of Judea—under Artaxerxes Ochus (359-338 B.C.E.). The account of Josephus speaks of feuds in the high-priestly family, the murder of a claimant in the temple precincts, and the intervention of the all-powerful eunuch Bagoas.[63] That some such thing happened there can be no reasonable doubt, although we cannot recover the details. It is, however, unwarranted to make the incident in any way typical of the fortunes of Judea during Persian rule. There was no tradition in later times of Persian oppression, nor can even this rebellion, if rebellion it was, have involved serious repressive measures, since the Greek invasion a few years later found the Jews loyal to their overlord. When the Macedonian Alexander changed the face of the East, the Jews were swept along with the rest of the loose-jointed empire built by Cyrus and Darius. Upon Alexander’s death, after uncertainties which the whole Levant shared, Palestine fell to Egypt, of which it was a natural geographical appanage as it had been for millennia before. Under the suzerainty of the Ptolemies the Jewish communities in Egypt received very considerable reinforcements, and the home-country became a real national expression, and rapidly attained a relatively high degree of material well-being, since the practical autonomy of Persian days was continued. Seized by Antiochus of Asia in the decrepitude of Egypt, Judea entered with full national consciousness into the heterogeneous kingdom ruled by a singularly fantastic royal house. A blunder in policy of the peculiarly fantastic Epiphanes provoked a revolt that was immediately successful in causing the prompt abandonment of the policy, and was helped by dynastic chaos to a still larger measure of success. [Illustration: RUINS OF THE AMPHITHEATER AT GERASA (JERASH) GILEAD, PALESTINE (c. _Underwood and Underwood_)]