This charge was intended by the Jews to serve a double purpose: to strengthen the general accusation of high treason recorded by St. Luke; and to embitter and poison the mind of the judge against the prisoner by telling Pilate that Jesus was from Galilee. In ancient times Galilee was noted as the hotbed of riot and sedition. The Galileans were brave and hardy mountaineers who feared neither Rome nor Judea. As champions of Jewish nationality, they were the fiercest opponents of Roman rule; and in the final catastrophe of Jewish history they were the last to be driven from the battlements of Jerusalem. As advocates and preservers of the purity of the primitive Jewish faith, they were relentless foes of Pharisaic and Sadducean hypocrisy as it was manifested by the Judean keepers of the Temple. The Galileans were hated, therefore, by both Romans and Judeans; and the Sanhedrists believed that Pilate would make short work of Jesus if he learned that the prisoner was from Galilee. But a different train of thought was excited in the mind of the Roman governor. He was thinking about one thing, and they about another. Pilate showed himself throughout the trial a craven coward and contemptible timeserver. From beginning to end, his conduct was a record of cowardice and subterfuge. He was constantly looking for loopholes of escape. His heart's desire was to satisfy at once both his conscience and the mob. The mention of Galilee was a ray of light that fell across the troubled path of the cowardly and vacillating judge. He believed that he saw an avenue of escape. He asked the Jews if Jesus was a Galilean. An affirmative reply was given. Pilate then determined to rid himself of responsibility by sending Jesus to be tried by the governor of the province to which He belonged. He felt that fortune favored his design; for Herod, Tetrarch of Galilee, was at that very moment in Jerusalem in attendance upon the Passover feast. He acted at once upon the happy idea; and, under the escort of a detachment of the Prætorian Cohort, Jesus was led away to the palace of the Maccabees where Herod was accustomed to stop when he came to the Holy City. CHAPTER IX JESUS BEFORE HEROD It was still early morning when Jesus, guarded by Roman soldiers and surrounded by a jeering, scoffing, raging multitude of Jews, was conducted to the palace of the Maccabees on the slope of Zion, the official residence of Herod when he came to Jerusalem to attend the sacred festivals. This place was to the northeast of the palace of Herod and only a few streets distant from it. The journey must have lasted therefore only a few minutes.