CHAP. LXI.

REVOLT OF THE JEWS.

505

great severities, and these 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 Britons: 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.

If the resources of the Jewish people were unequal to the task of resisting the concentrated energies of Rome, they were far more formidable than might have been expected from the smallness of their territory and their slender experience of war. In extent Palestine hardly equalled one of the least of European states, such as the modern Belgium or Portugal; nor was its soil naturally calculated to support a very dense population. It seems, however, that partly from artificial cultivation, partly from foreign importations, it actually maintained far more than proportionate numbers. Galilee alone, a district not larger than an English county, could boast of numerous cities. The Jews had been exempted generally from the levies imposed on the provinces: the flower of their youth had not been drained to recruit the cohorts on the distant frontiers. But their rulers had been required to maintain contingents within their own territories, and there were many bands of trained soldiers prepared to join the insurrection. To these were added numerous troops of brigands ready to swell the ranks of a national movement. A sworn band of avowed assassins under the name of Sicarii, or men of the dagger, kept both the priests and the nobles in constant terror for their lives, and urged them to desperate measures. But on the whole the enthusiasm of the Jewish people was sincere and genuine. The names of Maccabæus, of David, and of Joshua were invoked among them in no faltering accents.

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 Romans, 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, as we have seen, 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.

U.O. 823.
A.D. 70.

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

CHAP. LXI.

REVOLT OF THE JEWS.

507

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 and defiance, which were hardly smothered in the front of the common enemy.

Titus advanced from the north and planted his camp on the ridge of Scopus. He first encountered an outer wall which crowned the eminences around the city. The Jews made a spirited defence, and inflicted great loss on their assailants. But the Romans, proceeding methodically with the means and implements of regular warfare, succeeded in making a breach in these ramparts, and effected a lodgment within them. They blockaded the narrower enclosure which was now before them, but they did not cease from constant attacks upon the second wall, and especially on the citadel Antonia. In the first instance Titus had attempted conciliation, and sent Josephus to the gates with the offer of honorable terms. The enthusiasts in the city had driven away his envoy with arrows. He now repeated his offers, but with no

better success. Then at last he determined to proceed to extremities. Famine began to prevail among the Jews. The soldiers required to be served first, and the wretched citizens suffered the direst horrors. Children were eaten by their parents. The terrors of the people were excited by the report of prodigies. The fanatic Hanan traversed the streets repeating the cry of "Woe to Jerusalem," till at last, exclaiming "Woe to me also," he fell by a blow from a Roman catapult. The Romans affirmed that the gates of the Temple had burst open of their own accord, and a voice more than human had been heard exclaiming, Let us depart hence."

The fortress of Antonia was destroyed, and the Temple close at hand lay exposed to the engines of the assailants. The struggle still continued desperately, and the Romans suffered many reverses. At last the Temple was no longer tenable. John and Simon, united together in their last danger, withdrew into the upper city on Zion, breaking down the causeway which connected it with the Temple on Moriah. The Temple itself was stormed and entered over the bodies of a vast multitude of helpless defenders. Titus would have saved the Holy of Holies from the general destruction, but a soldier wantonly fired the inner doors, and the whole of the sacred edifice was soon involved in a common conflagration. Behind the walls of the upper city the last remnant of the nation stood hopelessly at bay. Once more Titus sent Josephus to parley with them; again the renegade was dismissed with imprecations. Then he came forward himself to the chasm of the broken bridge and conferred, but still in vain, with the leaders of the people. He had shown more clemency than perhaps any Roman chief before him; but his patience was now exhausted, and he vowed to effect the entire destruction of the city. The work of demolition was carried out to the end. Of the multitudes who had crowded on Zion vast numbers were slain in unavailing sallies; famine did the work of death upon many more. The remnant were captured and sold, with many thousands of their countrymen, into slavery. John and Simon concealed themselves in the subterranean galleries of the rock on which Jerusalem is founded. They attempted to work themselves a passage into the country beyond the walls. Their supplies fell short, they were compelled to issue forth, and were caught and recog nized. John was granted his life in perpetual imprisonment, Simon was reserved to be an ornament of the imperator's triumph, The Jews still maintained themselves for a moment in the for tresses of Machærus and Massada. But the final result was no longer doubtful, nor was the presence of Titus himself any further required for completing the subjugation of the country. He

CHAP. LXII.

ACCESSION OF VESPASIAN.

509

hastened to Rome, and threw himself into the arms of his father, whose jealousy might have been excited by the title of Imperator which the soldiers had fastened upon him. But Vespasian was a man of sense and feeling, and the confidence between

U.C. 823.

the father and son was never shaken. The destruction A.D. 70. of Jerusalem, the subjugation of Palestine, redounded to the glory and to the aggrandizement equally of both.

CHAPTER LXII.

The Flavian Gens of plebeian origin accepted in the place of the Julian.Character and policy of Vespasian.-Restoration of the Capitol, demolition of Nero's palace; building of the Colosseum, Arch of Titus, and Temple of Peace.-Fiscal necessities and parsimony of the emperor.- His endowment of the teachers of learning.-Quintilian the grammarian made consul.-Vespasian's policy in regard to the philosophers.-Process of Helvidius Priscus.-Succession of Titus.-His character.-Calamities in his reign: a great fire in Rome; the eruption of Vesuvius and destruction of Herculaneum and Pompeii. (A.D. 70-81.)

THE accession of Vespasian, the head of the Flavian house, to power marks an important epoch in Roman history. The Empire had been gained, indeed, by Cæsar, as the strongest in arms, and by strength in arms it had been really maintained by his successors; but in him and his descendants the Roman people had recognized the noblest of their own blood, the same blood which had been illustrated, from time immemorial, by consuls and imperators and other leaders of men, and to which additional glory had accrued, first from the undoubted genius of its greatest chief, and again from the halo of divinity which popular favor had cast around him. The family of Julius had reigned by divine right; such had been the theory tacitly admitted by the mass of the Roman people. The nobles, indeed, had denied and disparaged such a claim, and had often striven against it; the mutual jealousy of the Cæsars and the Senate had been the cause of mutual anger and bloodshed; nevertheless the theory had in the main prevailed, and become a substantial bulwark of the imperial autocracy. Even after the death of Nero and the extinction of this legitimate line of rulers, the supreme power had been grasped, even for a moment, only by men of the highest family distinction. A Sulpicius, a Salvius, or a Vitellius, if he had been successful in his own person, might have easily transferred to his own family the idolatry with which the Romans had regarded the Julian. But