Felix, who has the honour to be pilloried in the pages of
Tacitus, contrived to make the dispeace permanent. The influence
of the two older parties, both of which were equally interested in
the maintenance of the existing order, and in that interest were
being drawn nearer to each other, diminished day by day. The
masses broke loose completely from the authority of the scribes;
the ruling nobility adapted itself better to the times; under the
circumstances which then prevailed, it is not surprising that
they became thoroughly secular and did not shrink from the
employment of directly immoral means for the attainment of their
ends. The Zealots became the dominant party. It was a combination
of noble and base elements; superstitious enthusiasts (Acts xxi.
38) and political assassins, the so-called sicarii, were conjoined
with honest but fanatical patriots. Felix favoured the sicarii in
order that he might utilise them; against the others his hostility
raged with indiscriminating cruelty, yet without being able to
check them. The anarchy which he left behind him as a legacy was
beyond the control of his able successor Porcius Festus (60-62),
and the last two procurators, Albinus (62-64) and Gessius Florus,
acted as if it had been their special business to encourage and
promote it.
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