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his subjects were agreeably disappointed by his conduct. had offended the people by bringing to Rome Berenice, a Jewish princess, whom he loved and wished to marry. She was a sister of King Agrippa, and was present when St. Paul made a memorable speech before him. (See Acts of the Apostles, chapter xxv., where she is called Bernice.) The prejudice of the Romans against foreigners induced Titus to renounce her and send her away from Rome.

Titus displayed a sincere desire for the happiness of his subjects, punished informers, and assumed the office of Pontifex Maximus, with the purpose of keeping his hands free from blood. The well-filled treasury which Vespasian left enabled Titus to govern the empire without extortion or oppressive taxation. He abolished the law against treason, or at least checked all prosecutions on such charge. The senate and nobles now applauded him as a model sovereign.

During his reign a large part of Rome was destroyed by a conflagation which raged about three days and three nights. The fire swept over a space occupied by important public buildings, consumed the Pantheon, and damaged the Capitol. The generous emperor expressed a determination to indemnify with his own money all the losses caused by the fire. He completed the Flavian Amphitheatre, or Colosseum, which had been commenced by Vespasian, and which is now one of the most magnificent ruins in the world.

The short and pacific reign of Titus witnessed another great calamity, the destruction of the cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii by an eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D. The volcanic character of this mountain seems to have been unknown to the Romans before this eruption. Herculaneum was deeply buried under burning lava; and Pompeii was covered with ashes (see Vol. I., p. 396).

Soon after this disaster Rome was visited by a dreadful pestilence by which several thousand persons perished. Titus made strenuous efforts to relieve the distress caused by these calamities. Once, at the end of a day in which he had performed no beneficent act, he exclaimed, "My friends, I have lost a day!" He gave no share of the imperial power to his brother Domitian, for he had reason to fear his jealousy

and distrust his loyalty. He died in 81 A.D., leaving no child but a daughter, and was succeeded by Domitian, whose subsequent cruelty justified his brother's apprehensions.

THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM.

The government of the country of Palestine had undergone many changes since it was first conquered by the Romans under Pompeius. Julius Cæsar had cultivated the favor of the inhabitants, and M. Antonius had conferred the sovereignty of Judea upon Herodes. Augustus confirmed the independence of the Jews under this prince, whom they cherished as a native ruler. At his death, B.C. 4, his ample dominions were divided among his four children, of whom Archelaus occupied Jerusalem and Judæa. But this prince, falling into disfavor with the emperor, his kingdom was taken from him and annexed as a dependency to the Roman province of Syria. Herod Agrippa, grandson of "the Great" Herod, was allowed by the favor of Caligula, and afterwards of Claudius, to reunite the whole of his grandfather's possessions under his own sceptre; but on his death, A.D. 44, the territory was again divided, some portions being given to his brother, and afterwards to his son Agrippa, who held his government in Chalcis, on the borders of Ituræa. Judæa was resumed by the empire. Cæsarea, on the coast of the Mediterranean, was constituted the residence of the procurator of Judæa, who was content for the most part to avoid all collision with the prejudices of the Jews at the national capital of Jerusalem. The Jews were at this period in a state of political effervescence. One leader had risen after another who, under the title of Christ, had engaged their religious sympathies and excited their hopes, by an appeal to prophecies and traditions which pointed to an impending revolution, and the re-establishment of the kingdom of David. Caligula had wantonly trampled on the national prejudices, and had required the priests to place a statue of himself in the great Temple at Jerusalem. Urgent petitions against this act of desecration had been addressed to him, but without effect, and it was only by the politic delay of the procurator and the timely death of the emperor himself that a general and des

perate outbreak was averted. Claudius was not indisposed to humor these religious scruples, and the oppressions and cruelties exercised by his officers were probably unauthorized by him; but doubtless it was most difficult for any governor on the spot to maintain the peace among a population ever excitable, and ever disposed-not at Jerusalem only, but at Rome and Alexandria, and wherever they were gathered together in considerable numbers-to quarrel among themselves and with all the foreigners around them. At last, under the harsher government of Nero, the spirit of disaffection came to a head. The Jews broke out, not without deep provocation, into a general rebellion. The procurators exercised great severities, and those were avenged by great losses. It had become necessary to make a strong effort once for all, and extinguish forever, at whatever cost, the national aspirations of an unfortunate people. The spirit of the Jews was, indeed, very different from that of the Gauls or the Britous; the influence of their priests was far more powerful than that of the Druids. Their religion, their polity, and their national character were all far more instinct with life. They contended for a distinct national object; and though there were still various shades of opinion among them, though some classes leaned to Rome and counselled submission, the feeling was more general and more persistent than had ever elsewhere animated resistance to the conquerors.

The Sanhedrim, or national Senate, cast the procurator and the King Agrippa equally aside, and assumed the conduct of this national revolt. They divided the country into seven military governments. The command in Galilee, the outpost of Palestine against Syria, was confided to Josephus, the same who has recorded the history of the Jewish war, and who represents himself therein as a zealous, as well as an able commander. At a later period, indeed, in writing an account of his own life, he seems to study to ingratiate himself with the conquerors by declaring that he was all along devoted secretly to the cause of the Romans, and it is as a traitor to Judæa that he has been generally regarded by his countrymen. His defence of Galilee, however able it may have been, was graced by few successes. Vespasian was the captain to

whom the conduct of the war was intrusted by Nero. We are told, indeed, that Josephus held Iotapata for forty-seven days, and Vespasian was himself wounded in the final assault. Josephus relates a marvellous story of the way in which his own life was preserved in the slaughter which followed; but, captured by the Romaus, he became from this time a flatterer, a follower, and probably an instrument of the Roman commander.

The tactics of Vespasian were slow and cautious. The reduction of Iotapata, in Galilee, was followed by the surrender of Tiberias and the storm of Tarichea, when the Jews were made fully sensible of the remorseless cruelty with which they would be treated. The campaign of the year following was conducted on the same principle. Vespasian refrained from a direct attack upon Jerusalem, but reduced and ravaged all the country around. During the heat of the struggle for the succession in Rome these operations were relaxed, and Vespasian withdrew to Cæsarea to await the result of revolution at home. Titus, his son, was sent to Antioch to confer with Mucianus on the measures it might be expedient to take, and the fit moment for striking for the empire. His interests were diligently served by Tiberius Alexander, who commanded in Egypt; by Agrippa, king of Chalcis; and in the year 69 he was saluted emperor by his troops.

From that time he ceased himself to direct the affairs of Palestine, which he committed to Titus. The traditions of Roman discipline would not permit him, even at such a crisis, to desist from the paramount duty of securing the ascendency of the republic over her rebellious province. Titus watched through this period of suspense with his sword drawn, but he took no active measures until the fate of Vitellius was assured. In the year 70 he moved with all the forces he could command against Jerusalem itself. He united four legions in this service, together with twenty cohorts of auxiliaries and the troops maintained by various dependent sovereigns. The whole armament may have amounted to 80,000 men. To these the Jews opposed, from behind their defences, 24,000 trained soldiers, and these too were supported by a multitude of irregular combatants. The defences of Jeru

salem, both natural and artificial, were remarkably strong; but the defenders must have been fatally impeded by the crowd of worshipers, computed at some hundeds of thousands, who had collected within the walls for the celebration of the Passover, and were now unable to escape from them.

But it was by the dissensions of the Jewish factions themselves, more than by any natural obstructions, that the defence was most impeded, and finally frustrated. The reduction of Galilee and Samaria had driven crowds of reckless swordsmen into the city. The supremacy hitherto held with difficulty by the moderate party was violently wrested from them. The Zealots, under their leader Eleazar, filled the streets with tumult and disorder, seized the persons of the chiefs of the nobility and priesthood, and urged the mob to massacre them. When the better sort of people, under Ananus the high-priest, rallied in self-defence, their opponents, more prompt and audacious, seized the Temple and established themselves in its strong enclosure. The Zealots invited assistance from beyond the walls; Ananus and his friends were speedily overpowered, and the extreme party, pledged against all compromise with Rome, reigned in Jerusalem. Jehovah, they proclaimed, had manifestly declared himself on their side. The furious fanaticism of the Jewish race, at least within the walls of their sacred city, was excited to the utmost; but while it had many secret opponents within, it met with no assistance from the great Jewish communities at Alexandria, Ctesiphon, or Seleucia. The armies of Titus closed around the devoted city: the "abomination of desolation" stood in "the holy place."

But the Zealots themselves, at the moment of victory, were split into three factions. Eleazar, at the head of the residents in Jerusalem, held his strong position in the inner enclosure of the Temple; John, of Giscala, who led a less violent party, was lodged in the outer precincts; Simon Bargiora entered the city with a third army, and set himself to the defence of the ramparts. Eleazar was got rid of by assassination, and the whole of the Temple fortress fell to John; but between him and Simon there still reigned mutual jealousy