The last recorded incident in Pilateâ??s career was another conflict. Josephus says that a multitude of armed Samaritans gathered on Mount Gerizim in hopes of uncovering treasures that Moses had supposedly buried there. Pilate intervened, and his troops slew a number of the crowd. The Samaritans complained to Pilateâ??s superior, Lucius Vitellius, governor of Syria. Whether Vitellius thought that Pilate had gone too far is not stated. In any case, he ordered Pilate to Rome to answer to the emperor for his actions. Before he arrived, however, Tiberius died. â??At that point,â?? says one source, â??Pilate passes out of history into legend.â?? But many have tried to supply missing details. It has been claimed that Pilate became a Christian. Ethiopian â??Christiansâ?? made him a â??saint.â?? Eusebius, who wrote in the late third and early fourth centuries, was the first of many to say that Pilate, like Judas Iscariot, committed suicide. However, just what became of Pilate is a matter of speculation. Pilate could be obstinate, flippant, and heavy-handed. But he remained in office for ten years, whereas most prefects of Judaea had much shorter tenures. From a Roman viewpoint, therefore, Pilate was competent. He has been called a coward who reprehensibly had Jesus tortured and killed to protect himself. Others argue that Pilateâ??s duty was not so much to uphold justice as it was to promote peace and Roman interests. Pilateâ??s times were very different from our own. Yet, no judge could justly condemn a man he considered innocent.