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One was Avitus, the child of Soæmias and Varius Marcellus, a man of the same race, he was from Apamea, who had been occupied in procuratorships, had been enrolled in the senate, and soon after died. The other was Bassianus, the child of Mammæa and Gessius Marcianus, who was himself also a Syrian, from a city called Arca, and had been assigned to various positions as procurator.
Concerning Florus The Procurator, Who Necessitated The Jews To Take Up Arms Against The Romans. The Conclusion. Now Gessius Florus, who was sent as successor to Albinus by Nero, filled Judea with abundance of miseries.
So distinguished was he as a student that, at the age of twenty-six, he was chosen delegate to Nero. When the critical juncture arose for his nation, through the rebellion excited by the cruelties of Gessius Florus, the Roman procurator, Josephus was appointed governor of Galilee The insurrection proved fatal, for Vespasian by his invasion rendered resistance hopeless.
One of these factions was led by the famous John of Gischala, another by Simon bar Gioras, and a third by Eleazar. These factions of a party which since the reduction of Judea to a Roman province soon after the death of Herod had resisted the oppression of the procurators, were now stirred to revolt by the exactions of the procurator Gessius Florus.
When he arrived in Jerusalem, in the year 65 C.E., he found his country seething with rebellion. The crisis soon came to a head. Gessius Florus, who owed his governorship, as Josephus owed the success of his errand, to the favor of the "God-fearing" Poppaea, roused the people to fury by his pillage of the Temple, and the moderates could no longer hold the masses in check.
But when Albinus heard that Gessius Florus was coming to succeed him, he was desirous to appear to do somewhat that might be grateful to the people of Jerusalem; so he brought out all those prisoners who seemed to him to be most plainly worthy of death, and ordered them to be put to death accordingly.
Nero indeed recalled Felix, and Festus, who was appointed in his place, made an attempt to mend affairs, but he died within a year, and was succeeded by two procurators that were worthy followers of Felix. The same authority says that compared with Gessius Florus, the governor under whom the Rebellion burst out, he was "most just."
Indeed these men might be seen moving among them, and from their armour and appearance it was easy to guess that they were Romans. This, in fact, was the case, since Gessius Florus, the wicked, and after him other officers, made it part of their policy to send Romans to stir up the Syrians against the Jews and to assist them in their slaughter.
Moreover, I am aged, and" here his eyes flashed "it is a good end to die fighting one's country's enemies." "How you Jews do love us to be sure!" said Marcus with a little laugh. "The nation that sends a Gessius Florus, or even an Albinus, to rule its alien subjects must needs be loved," replied Benoni with bitter sarcasm. "But let us be done with politics lest we grow angry.
"Even then," she whispered when he paused, "you do not forget!" "No! Why, these streets, that should ring for me with the footsteps of all the great from the days of David, are marked by the passage of that Prophet. I might forget that Felix and Florus and Gessius were legates in that Roman residence, but I do not fail to remember that they took that Prophet before Pilate there.
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