Acts 25:9

‘But Festus, desiring to gain favour with the Jews, answered Paul and said, “Will you go up to Jerusalem, and there be judged of these things before me?” '

Festus, however, wished to conciliate the Jews and be seen by the local authorities in a good light, the better to enable him successfully to carry out his duties. Thus, no doubt under continued pressure from them (for after all who did Paul represent?), he suggested that he might consider ‘going up' to Jerusalem to be tried there before him. He himself would be there to ensure that the trial was fair. This rather favourable treatment of being consulted was no doubt because he was a Roman citizen. Of course Festus was inevitably unaware of why this would cause real problems. He may well have summed up the Jewish leadership, but he probably never considered that they themselves would be involved in an assassination attempt. And he had probably not yet gathered how unscrupulous they were. A fair-minded man always has difficulty in understanding scoundrels.