Moreover, the rise of hellenizing elements in the administration benefited the non-Jewish inhabitants of the country while damaging the interests of the Jews. The excesses and extravagances of the court were reflected in monetary extortion in the provinces, including Judea. However, a number of factors combined to damage relations between the Jews of Eretz Israel and the Roman government. Nero’s persecutions after the fire in Rome affected only the Christians but not the Jews. His wife Poppaea Sabina, who had a certain sympathy for the Jews, had a hand in this decision. In a dispute that broke out between the leaders of the high priesthood and the Jerusalem populace on the one side, and Agrippa and the procurator Festus on the other, over the wall that had been erected to prevent Agrippa’s palace from overlooking the Temple court, he decided in favor of the former (Ant., 20:195). He also bestowed Armenia Minor upon Aristobulus, son of the Jewish king of Chalcis (Ant., 20:158). Indeed, he supported Jewish vassal rulers and extended the borders of the kingdom of Agrippa II to include Tiberias and a number of other towns (Jos., Ant., 20:159 Jos., Wars, 2:252). He seems to have had no personal enmity against the Jews. His reign saw the decline of the authority of the procurators in Judea and the outbreak of the Jewish War. Nero reigned during a critical period in the relations between the Jews of Judea and imperial Rome.
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