Innumerable (μύριοι) disorders, Josephus tells us (Ant. XVII. x. 4), occurred at about the same time. Some two thousand of Herod’s soldiers engaged, as was so often the case, in plunder on their own account. Sepphoris in Galilee was seized and plundered by Judah, son of the highwayman (αρχιληστής) Hezekiah, who made the neighboring country dangerous with his band of “madmen” (ἀπονενοημένοι). At Jericho Simon, a former slave of Herod, had himself proclaimed king and sacked the palace there. But more serious than these was the band of outlaws commanded by four brothers, of whom only Athronges is mentioned. These attacked both the local troops and even Roman detachments and were not suppressed till much later.[299]
All these disorders required the presence of Varus[300] once more. He marched on Jerusalem at the head of an army, turning over the various towns on his route to be sacked by his Arabian allies, precisely as both British and French used their Indian allies during the colonial wars in America.
The effect of such conditions in so critical a place as Judea, was to call Roman attention to the country to a much greater extent than was advantageous to the Jews. The region very naturally appeared to them as a turbulent and seditious section, much as Gaul did to Julius Caesar and largely for the same reason, the instinctive love of liberty and the presence of “innovators,” νεωτερισταί, _cupidi rerum novarum_, restless and ambitious instigators of rebellion.[301] The Jerusalem Jews are, to be sure, very eager to escape the reproach of disloyalty. The rebellion was the work of outsiders (ἐπήλυδες), to wit, the Galileans and Gileadites above-mentioned.[302]
Varus crucified two thousand men, and then disbanded his auxiliary army. The latter, composed obviously of natives of the country, proceeded to plunder on their own account. Varus’ prompt action brought them to terms. The officers were seized and sent to Rome, where, however, only the relatives of Herod, who had added impiety to treason, were punished.
But the reproach of being a seditious people was resented by other Jews than those of Jerusalem. The Jews in Rome were largely descended from those who had left the country before even Antipater, Herod’s father, had become powerful there. On them, of course, the house of Herod could make no claim, and for obvious reasons closer relations with Rome seemed to them eminently desirable. The Jewish embassy which Varus had permitted the Judeans to send—how selected and led we have no information—was joined by an immense deputation from the Roman synagogues. The substance of their plea was the petition that they be made an integral part of the province of Syria. “For it will thus become evident whether they really are a seditious people, generally impatient of all forms of authority for any length of time” (Jos. Ant. XVII. ii. 2; Wars, II. vi. 2).