Now Pilate, the procurator of Judea, moved the army from Caesarea to Jerusalem to take up their winter assignment there, in order to abolish the Jewish laws. He brought into the city the effigy of Caesar which were engraved on the standards; our law, however, forbids us from making any images. The former procurators were in the habit of coming into the city with their standards but they were not engraved with such effigies. Pilate was the first to introduce such images into Jerusalem, which he set up without anyone noticing because he accomplished it at night.
As soon as the people came to know about it, they descended in a multitude upon Caesarea to implore him to have the images removed. He refused their plead on grounds that doing so would reflect badly on Ceasar. The crowd, however, persisted in their petition.
On the sixth day, having secretly ordered his soldiers to arm themselves, Pilate came out and seated himself on his judgment-seat which was set up in the open in city but in such a way that his soldiers were disguised and ready to do their oppressive work. When the Jews petitioned him again, he gave the signal and the soldiers surrounded the people. He threatened them with immediate death unless they called off the disturbance and went off home. Instead they threw themselves to the ground, bared their necks and declared that they would willing embrace death rather than see their laws transgressed. Pilate, deeply affected by their resolution to keep their laws inviolate, presently gave the order for the offending standards to be removed from Jerusalem and returned to Caesarea.
Josephus Flavius, Antiquities of the Jews, 13.3.1