The Roman Procurators and the Rising Tension
Six decades of direct Roman rule: the priesthood sold, taxes extorted, provocations in the Temple — and a society breaking into hostile camps.
After Herod's death and his son Archelaus's brief rule, Judea came under direct Roman prefects and procurators seated in Caesarea. The governor treated the High Priesthood as an office in his gift, appointing and removing at will, keeping the priestly vestments in custody and issuing them for the festivals. In little over sixty years the office changed hands more than twenty times, mostly among a few wealthy families who bought it.
The procurators varied, but grew worse over time. Pontius Pilate brought Roman standards bearing images into Jerusalem and spent Temple funds on an aqueduct. Under Cumanus a Roman soldier obscenely insulted pilgrims from the portico above the Temple court; thousands died in the resulting panic. Florus simply removed seventeen talents from the treasury, and answered the outrage by handing the city over to his troops to plunder.
Society was fracturing. Part of the Sadducean aristocracy collaborated. Zealots and sicarii called for armed struggle and murdered fellow Jews as collaborators. The sages tried to hold the middle, and were heard less and less. The Talmud describes a generation in which brothers hate brothers and a son does not rise before his father. That mixture — foreign rule, a purchased priesthood, mutual hatred — prepared the explosion of 3826.