But warned by his wife's dream, Pilate can avoid the conflict between justice and political expediency only by letting the crowds take responsibility for freeing Jesus. He apparently thought himself indulgent on special occasions; his otherwise brutal disposition, however, is evident in all the other brief Jewish reports of his activity that remain extant. Pilate presumably thought that it was safer to release Jesus, the "so-called Christ" (vv. 17, 22), than alternatives like Barabbas, who, like those ultimately executed with Jesus, was a "robber" (vv. 38, 44; Mk 15:7), the aristocracy's derisive title (shared by Josephus) for insurrectionists. Pilate probably saw Jesus in the terms suggested in John 18:36-38: as one of the relatively harmless wandering philosopher-kings known to him from Greco-Roman tradition. Roman officials were generally not inclined to execute (hence, perhaps, make martyrs of) those they saw as harmless fools (compare Jos. War 6.305).