According to contemporary historians, Herod the Great "is perhaps the only figure in ancient Jewish history who has been loathed equally by Jewish and Christian posterity", depicted both by Jews and Christians as a tyrant and bloodthirsty ruler. The study of Herod's reign includes polarizing opinions on the man himself. Modern critics have described him as "the evil genius of the Judean nation", and as one who would be "prepared to commit any crime in order to gratify his unbounded ambition." His extraordinary spending spree is cited as one of the causes of the serious impoverishment of the people he ruled, adding to the opinion that his reign was exclusively negative.