Philo on Gaius Caligula, Pilate and the Judean people: Legatio ad Gaium

In Legatio ad Gaium, Philo recounts the interaction between Gaius Caligula, Pilate and the Judean people. 

I can also tell you of something on which he [Gaius Caligula's grandfather, Tiberius Caesar] prided himself, although I experienced countless sufferings during his lifetime. But you love and respect the truth. Pilate was an official who had been appointed procurator of Judaea. With the intention of annoying the Jews rather than honoring Tiberius, he set up gilded shields in Herod's palace in the Holy City. They bore no figure and nothing else that was forbidden, but only the briefest possible inscription, which stated two things — the name of the dedicator and that of the person in whose honour the dedication was made. But when the Jews at large learnt of his action, which was indeed already widely known, they chose as their spokesmen the king's four sons, who enjoyed prestige and rank equal to that of kings, his other descendants, and their own officials, and besought Pilate to undo his innovation in the shape of the shields, and not to violate their native customs, which had hitherto been invariably preserved inviolate by kings and emperors alike. When Pilate, who was a man of inflexible, stubborn, and cruel disposition, obstinately refused, they shouted, 'Do not cause a revolt! Do not cause a war! Do not break the peace! Disrespect done to our ancient Laws brings no honour to the Emperor. Do not make Tiberius an excuse for insulting our nation. He does not want any of our traditions done away with. If you say that he does, show us some decree or letter or something of the sort, so that we may cease troubling you and appeal to our master by means of an embassy. This last remark exasperated Pilate most of all, for he was afraid that if they really sent an embassy, they would bring accusations against the rest of his administration as well, specifying in detail his venality, his violence, his thefts, his assaults, his abusive behavior, his frequent executions of untried prisoners, and his endless savage ferocity. So, as he was a spiteful and angry person, he was in a serious dilemma; for he had neither the courage to remove what he had once setup, nor the desire to do anything which would please his subjects, but at the same time he was well aware of Tiberius' firmness on these matters.

When the Jewish officials saw this, and realized that Pilate was regretting what he had done, although he did not wish to show it, they wrote a letter to Tiberius, pleading their case as forcibly as they could. What words, what threats Tiberius uttered against Pilate when he read it!

It would be superfluous to describe his anger, although he was not easily moved to anger, since his reaction speaks for itself. For immediately, without even waiting until the next day, he wrote to Pilate, reproaching and rebuking him a thousand times for his new-fangled audacity and telling him to remove the shields at once and have them taken from the capital to the coastal city of Caesarea (the city named Sebaste after your great-grandfather), to be dedicated in the temple of Augustus. This was duly done. In this way both the honour of the Emperor and the traditional policy regarding Jerusalem were alike preserved.

The Jews of Jamnia demolished an altar built by the Greeks resident in that town. The latter complained to Herennius Capito, the procurator of the imperial estate in which Jamnia lay, who reported the matter to Gaius. Gaius decided that, as a punishment for the Jews' action, a colossal gilded statue of himself should be made and erected in the Temple, and he sent orders to Publius Petronius, the legate of Syria, to carry this decision out, with the help of military force if necessary. Petronius sought to forestall the inevitable Jewish opposition by summoning the Jewish leaders to a conference while the statue was being made, for the purpose of informing them of his orders and of advising them to urge the rest of the population not to resist the desecration. His appeal to them was unsuccessful, and when the Jews at large got to know of the scheme, they staged mass demonstrations of protest before Petronius, who by then was in Phoenicia with an army. Their pleas impressed the legate. He wrote to Gaius apologizing for the delay over the dedication of the statue and explaining that this was due partly to the work involved in the construction of the statue and partly to the fact that it was the season of the grain-harvest, which he feared that the Jews might deliberately destroy in their frenzied opposition to the proposed desecration; there would then be danger of a famine, which would be inconvenient when Gaius traveled, as he intended to do in the near future, to Alexandria via the coasts of Syria and Palestine. In a politely worded reply Gaius concealed the irritation which he felt at Petronius' failure to carry out his orders promptly and his presumption in pleading the Jews' cause; he commended his forethought, but told him to expedite the dedication of the statue, as the harvest must by then be in. Not long afterwards, however, Gaius was persuaded by the reasoned arguments presented to him in writing by his friend, Herod Agrippa of Judaea, to rescind his order, and he sent instructions to Petronius to leave the Temple unmolested.

(Smallwood translation)