Still another class of writers contend that there were two distinct trials. Innes thus tersely and forcibly states the proposition: "Whether it was legitimate or not for the Jews to condemn for a capital crime, on this occasion they did so. Whether it was legitimate or not for Pilate to try over again an accused whom they had condemned, on this occasion he did so. There were certainly two trials. And the dialogue already narrated expresses with a most admirable terseness the struggle which we should have expected between the effort of the Jews to get a mere countersign of their sentence, and the determination of Pilate to assume the full judicial responsibility, whether of first instance or of révision." This contention, it is believed, is right, and has been acted upon in dividing the general treatise into two volumes, and in devoting each to a separate trial of the case. Why were there two trials of Jesus? When the Sanhedrists had condemned Christ to death upon the charge of blasphemy, why did they not lead Him away to execution, and stone Him to death, as their law required? Why did they seek the aid of Pilate and invoke the sanction of Roman authority? The answer to these questions is to be found in the historic relationship that existed, at the time of the crucifixion, between the sovereign Roman Empire and the dependent province of Judea. The student of history will remember that the legions of Pompey overran Palestine in the year 63 B.C., and that the land of the Jews then became a subject state. After the deposition of Archelaus, A.D. 6, Judea became a Roman province, and was governed by procurators who were sent out from Rome. The historian Rawlinson has described the political situation of Judea, at the time of Christ, as "complicated and anomalous, undergoing frequent changes, but retaining through them all certain peculiarities which made that country unique among the dependencies of Rome. Having passed under Roman rule with the consent and by the assistance of a large party of its inhabitants, it was allowed to maintain for a while a sort of semi-independence. A mixture of Roman with native power resulted from this cause and a complication in a political status difficult to be thoroughly understood by one not native and contemporary."