The New Testament Gospels denominate Pilate the "governor" of Judea. A more exact designation is contained in the Latin phrase, _procurator Cæsaris_; the procurator of Cæsar. By this is meant that Pilate was the deputy, attorney, or personal representative of Tiberius Cæsar in the province of Judea. The powers and duties of his office were by no means limited to the financial functions of a Roman quæstor, a _procurator fiscalis_. "He was a procurator _cum potestate_; a governor with civil, criminal, and military jurisdiction; subordinated no doubt in rank to the adjacent governor of Syria, but directly responsible to his great master at Rome." A clear conception of the official character of Pilate is impossible unless we first thoroughly understand the official character of the man whose political substitute he was. A thorough understanding of the official character of Tiberius Cæsar is impossible unless we first fully comprehend the political changes wrought by the civil wars of Rome in which Julius Cæsar defeated Cneius Pompey at the battle of Pharsalia and made himself dictator and undisputed master of the Roman world. With the ascendency of Cæsar the ancient republic became extinct. But liberty was still cherished in the hearts of Romans, and the title of king was detestable. The hardy virtues and democratic simplicity of the early republic were still remembered; and patriots like Cicero had dreamed of the restoration of the ancient order of things. But Roman conquest was complete, Roman manners were corrupt, and Roman patriotism was paralyzed. The hand of a dictator guided by a single intelligence was the natural result of the progressive degradation of the Roman state. The logical and inevitable outcome of the death of Cæsar and the dissolution of the Triumvirate was the régime of Augustus, a monarchy veiled under republican forms. Recognizing Roman horror of absolutism, Roman love of liberty, and Roman detestation of kingly power, Augustus, while in fact an emperor, claimed to be only a plain Roman citizen intrusted with general powers of government. He affected to despise public honors, disclaimed every idea of personal superiority, and exhibited extreme simplicity of manners in public and private life. This was the strategy of a successful politician who sought to conceal offensive reality under the cloak of a pleasant deception. Great Cæsar fallen at the foot of Pompey's statue was a solemn reminder to Augustus that the dagger of the assassin was still ready to defend the memory of freedom, after liberty was, in reality, dead. And the refusal by the greatest of the Romans, at the feast of the Lupercal, to accept a kingly crown when it was thrice offered him by Antony, was a model of discreet behavior and political caution for the first and most illustrious of the emperors. In short, Augustus dared not destroy the laws or assault the constitution of the state. But he accomplished his object, nevertheless.