Archelaus was a son of Herod the Great, named in his father's final will as king of Judea, with his brothers Antipas and Philip as tetrarchs under him. Rather than assume the crown, he sailed to Rome to have Emperor Augustus appoint him. Before leaving, he answered a planned revolt against the Herods, which was born of resentment over Herod the Great's killings, by slaughtering 3,000 Jews at Passover. While he and Antipas were abroad, the Jews rose in a revolution that destroyed several cities until Varus Sabinus, the Roman procurator of Syria, intervened. Before Augustus, Archelaus held that his father had clearly made him king. Antipas charged that he was an unfit ruler, citing the massacre, that Herod's family backed Antipas, and that Herod was insane when he wrote the final will. Augustus sided with Archelaus, having been counseled that Herod was sane when he wrote it. The emperor made him ethnarch, not king, equal in rank to his brothers. The Herodians who supported Antipas were actually only against Archelaus. He returned to Judea in 3 BC, ruled as oppressively as his father but with less political skill, and was deposed in AD 7, in his tenth year. His regions then came under direct Roman rule, and Pilate was eventually appointed procurator.