peace. The near-Eastern question, which, then as now, continually
threatened war and violence, irritated the Romans beyond measure, and
they came to feel towards Jerusalem as their ancestors had felt two
hundred years before towards Carthage, the great Semitic power of the
West, _delenda est Hierosolyma_. As time went on they realized that this
stubborn nation was resolved to dispute with them for the mastery, and
every agitation was regarded as an outrage on the Roman power, which
must be wiped out in blood. It was the inevitable conflict, not only
between the Imperial and the national principle, but between the ideas
of the kingdom of righteousness and the ideas of the kingdom of might.

During the reign of Tiberius, however, the Roman governors were held in
check to some extent by strong central control from Rome, and their
extortion was comparatively moderate. The worst of them was Pontius
Pilate, and the _odium theologicum_ has, perhaps, had its part in
blackening his reputation. Nevertheless, the broad religious tolerance
initiated by the first Caesar was being continually impaired. The Jewish
public worship was prohibited in Rome, and the Jews were expelled from
the city in 19 C.E.; while at Alexandria an anti-Jewish persecution was
instigated by Sejanus, the upstart freedman, who became the chief
minister of Tiberius. In Palestine, though we hear of no definite
movement, it is clear from after-events that the bitterness of feeling
between the Hellenized Syrians and the Jewish population was steadily
fomented. The Romans were naturally on the side of the Greek-speaking
people, whom they understood, and whose religion they could appreciate.
The situation may best be paralleled by the condition of Ireland in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when England supported the
Protestant population of Ulster against the hated Roman Catholics, who
formed the majority of the people.