Fighting Rome

[pikachu]

a real politician seeking support wouldn't waste his time or theirs like that.

 

The question is support from whom? You have to remember that throughout the Roman era what passed for the "public" was segregated into two major constituencies often at odds with each other: The elites who controlled Senate and the mob who controlled the streets. For the most part, Roman politicians would normally appeal to the more stable elites rather than to the volatile mob, for obvious reasons. To achieve this they had to cloak their speeches with flowery allusions that would only make sense to their compatriots. This was especially true during the Empire because the Principate was generally more popular with the lower classes. Populists like Pompeii, Caesar, and Mark Anthony were the exception, because they intended from the start to pit the mob against the elites. More level-headed and less ambitious politicians tried the opposite. In the special case of Herod Agrippa, he was counseling caution and forbearance, which from the start was not going to work with the uneducated mob he had to work with. In doing so, he foolishly ignored his people's history of prophets and hasidims whose influence with the people far exceeded that wielded by the aristocracy. Not so surprising, really. The Jewish nation was perhaps unique at the time for having such history and tradition.