The nobles hated Joazar, the high-priest; the Separatists, on the other hand, were his zealous adherents.
When Herod's settlement went down with Archelaus, Joazar shared the fall.

Hannas, the son of Seth, was selected by the nobles to fill the great office; thereupon the allies divided.

The induction of the Sethian brought them face to face in fierce hostility.
In the course of the struggle with the unfortunate ethnarch, the nobles had found it expedient to attach themselves to Rome.
Discerning that when the existing settlement was broken up some form of government must needs follow, they suggested the conversion of Judea into a province.

The fact furnished the Separatists an additional cause for attack; and, when Samaria was made part of the province, the nobles sank into a minority, with nothing to support them but the imperial court and the prestige of their rank and wealth; yet for fifteen years--down, indeed, to the coming of Valerius Gratus--they managed to maintain themselves in both palace and Temple.
Hannas, the idol of his party, had used his power faithfully in the interest of his imperial patron.

A Roman garrison held the Tower of Antonia; a Roman guard kept the gates of the palace; a Roman judge dispensed justice civil and criminal; a Roman system of taxation, mercilessly executed, crushed both city and country; daily, hourly, and in a thousand ways, the people were bruised and galled, and taught the difference between a life of independence and a life of subjection; yet Hannas kept them in comparative quiet.