According to Josephus, the violence of the year 66 initially began at Caesarea, provoked by Greeks of a certain merchant house sacrificing birds in front of a local synagogue.[1] The Roman garrison did not intervene there and thus the long-standing Hellenistic and Jewish religious tensions took a downward spiral. In reaction, one of the Jewish Temple clerks Eleazar ben Hanania ceased prayers and sacrifices for the Roman emperor at the Temple.