United to Samaria and Idumea, Judea formed a kind of dependency of the province of Syria, in which the senator Publius Sulpicius Quirinus, well known as consul,[6] was the imperial legate.
A series of Roman procurators, subordinate in important matters to the imperial legate of Syria--Coponius, Marcus Ambivius, Annius Rufus, Valerius Gratus, and lastly (in the twenty-sixth year of our era), Pontius Pilate[7]--followed each other, and were constantly occupied in extinguishing the volcano which was seething beneath their feet.
[Footnote 1: Jos., _Ant._, VIII.v.1, vii.

1 and 2; Luke iii.

19.] [Footnote 2: Ibid., XVIII.ii.3, iv.

5, v.

1.] [Footnote 3: Ibid., XVIII.vii.