When Jesus sent his disciples out he told them that they would face an amazing amount of persecution. In describing the type of persecution they would face, he said that they would be brought into the synagogues and before governors and kings. This clearly describes the 2 forms of power that would eventually oppose the disciples of Jesus - The Jewish leadership and the Roman leadership. Both sides saw Jesus and a new religion called Christianity as a threat, although Rome was late in joining the persecution.
Rome was no more noble than Israel when it came to persecution, even during Jesus' time. Rome just happened to be less affected by the new religion than Israel. Any new religion, no matter what it is, poses a threat to the powers that are closest to them.
During Jesus' ministry the Roman rulers showed very little interest in Jesus because they weren't threatened by him and they weren't threatened by Jesus because he directed his verbal attacks toward the Jewish leaders and spoke mostly in parables, thus hiding his messages from the Roman powers.
This leads us to conclude that the Roman rulers weren't any more noble with Jesus than the Jewish leaders. The only reason Pilate sought to release a Jesus, and the only reason that Rome ignored Jesus during his ministry was because Jesus avoided Roman conflict and therefore posed no threat to Pilate or to Rome - and this is the opposite of what John the Baptist did who paid the ultimate price. When Pilate finally did allow for Jesus' death, it was because the Jewish leaders turned the tables suggesting that Jesus was a threat to Caesar.
Jesus was also different than the other 1st Century prophets who carried their followers into certain doom while promising new kingdoms. They physically took their followers up mountains and toward Jerusalem to begin the Kingdom of God. They expected some great miracle of God in overthrowing the political and spiritual powers that existed and this was a direct threat to Rome's power (not to mention to Israel's elite as well). Jesus did not do what they did and wanted nothing to do with becoming the leader of some revolt. On at least one or two occasions groups of followers sought to make him their king, but Jesus escaped their attempts.
Even though Jesus avoided conflict with Rome, there was an occasion or two that stand out as exceptions. In Luke 13 a Pharisee warned Jesus that he could be killed by Herod if he didn't leave the area. The passage of scripture leaves us a bit uncertain as to whether or not that threat was real, yet Jesus did seem to take the threat seriously enough to leave the area. The fact that this particular Herod killed John the Baptist (Jesus' cousin and possible mentor) would have made Herod all the more a threat to Jesus.
In reality Herod may not have been as threatening for Jesus as the Pharisee Luke 13 suggested, for when Jesus stood befere Herod Agrippa on trial for his life, Herod wasn't interested in Jesus' political aspirations and seemed not to care about any threat Jesus posed; he only wanted to see some miracle performed by Jesus.
Note: Although Herod was a brutal ruler, he was cautious about John the Baptist and about Jesus. Sure, he killed John the Baptist for speaking out against his unlawful marriage, but he did so because his hands were tied...his wife forced him into it. Furthermore, killing John bothered Herod so much that when he heard about Jesus, he thought Jesus was the risen form of John the Baptist.
Jesus faced persecution by those powers closest to him. Jesus expected the same for his followers - and because he knew that they would be going into other regions, he knew that they would be standing before rulers in and outside of Israel. The Christian community faced persecution pretty much wherever it started and the people who persecuted were from any type of city or culture.
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