III  4   Jesus and the ideal of monarchy

3.4.1.
Jesus, Antipas’ friend and governor, wanted the king to have a strong position at the cost of the Jewish elite.

He favoured the imitatio Augusti, a monarchy based on the Augustan model of the ruling system.

3.4.2.
Jesus built Tiberias, Antipas’ new capital city, as a model city for his ideal of monarchic rule in which the local elite participated in power representation, as in Rome, but not in the real exercise of power, and where the lower classes were socially secured and supported the system.