Again, when the Jewish rabble tried to overcome the scruples of Pilate by shouting: “If thou let this man go thou art not Cæsar’s friend,” it was to the fear of Tiberius in Pilate’s heart that they appealed. Centurions, or captains of a hundred men in the army of Tiberius, appear in the scenes of the New Testament. It was the shadow of Tiberius over the land that was withholding from the Jews the right to put any man to death. They had to look to the Roman authorities to do this; and then it was accomplished not by the Jewish method of stoning but by the Roman method of crucifixion. Those were Roman soldiers, “the whole band of them,” at Jerusalem, who so heartlessly derided Jesus in the Governor’s hall. We read that “they stripped him and put on him a scarlet robe.” And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head and a reed in his right hand. And they bowed the knee before him and mocked him, saying: “Hail, King of the Jews!” And they spit upon him and took the reed and smote him on the head. And after they had mocked him they took the robe off from him and put his own raiment on him and led him away to Golgotha. Those were Roman soldiers that drove the nails into his hands and feet. “They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall.” They elevated him upon the cross, and then sat down to gamble for his raiment, while they cast occasionally a glance at his dying agonies. It was the Roman centurion, commanding these soldiers, who, seeing the earthquake and those things which were done, feared greatly, saying: “Truly, this was the Son of God!” Afterward it was a Roman soldier that thrust a spear into the side of the crucified, to make sure that he was dead, and it was a group of them that were placed as a watch at the sealed tomb. One wonders if the miraculous facts about the life and death and resurrection of Jesus were ever fully reported to the emperor Tiberius and whether he ever gave any consideration to their deep significance. Tiberius was not a great builder as Augustus had been. Yet he built or enlarged the imperial palace on the Palatine. It was on the north corner of the hill and overlooked the Forum. Some ruins of it remain, as well as some of the villas that he erected on the island of Capri. There are said to have been ten of the latter. Statues and other relics of them now adorn the grounds and halls of modern summer resorts near the spots which he selected. A triumphal arch was erected in his honor in the Roman Forum. After him also was named the city of Tiberias, mentioned in John vi, 23, which was built by the tetrarch, Herod Antipas, to be the Roman capital of Galilee, and which was adorned with a palace and a stadium. On the edge of that Palestinian lake, which is sometimes called in Scripture the Lake of Gennesareth, sometimes the Sea of Galilee and sometimes, from this city, the Sea of Tiberias, the traveler finds to-day its modern representative, broken and picturesque.