The Shadow of Nazareth Jesus. Both Barrabas and Jesus are sentenced to die by crucifixion, but Jewish custom allows the release of a prisoner on the day of the Passover feast. Pontius Pilate, the Prefect of the Roman province of Judaea, has the authority to decide whether to free Barabbas or Jesus in honor of the Passover. However, Pilate is unwilling to make the decision himself, so he lets a crowd that has gathered before him choose who is to live. The crowd chooses Barabbas, who is set free, and Jesus, who is innocent of any wrongdoing, dies on the cross. Following the crucifixion,
Pontius Pilate places such as Tarragona in Spain and Forchheim in Germany have been proposed as Pilate's birthplace, but it is more likely that he was a Roman citizen, born in Central Italy. Eusebius, quoting early apocryphal accounts, stated that Pilate suffered misfortune in the reign of Caligula (AD 37–41), was exiled to Gaul and eventually killed himself there in Vienne. The 10th-century historian Agapius of Hierapolis, in his "Universal History", says that Pilate killed himself during the first year of Caligula's reign, in AD 37/38. Other details come from less credible sources. His body, says the "Mors Pilati" ("Death of Pilate"),