enemy, from certain circumstances, had reason to think was the fact; and as the city was now blockaded, it was hoped that this want would reduce them to the necessity of capitulation, in a short time. The fertile mind of Josephus adopted an expedient to remove this impression. He ordered a great number of his men to steep their clothes in the water that remained, and hang them up from the battlements, till the wall ran down with the dripping moisture. The Romans were confounded; for men who could waste so much water out of mere wantonness, could not possibly be in the wretched state of destitution they had hoped. Vespasian, weary of blockading a city so amply supplied, returned to the assault- the mode of attack which the Jews sought.

The daring exploit of an individual, a Galilean, Eleazar by name, may also be mentioned. With an immense stone from the wall he took such sure aim, that he struck off the iron head of the Roman battering ram; he then leaped down from the wall, secured the prize and was bearing it back to the city. He was unarmed, and all the darts and arrows of the enemy were discharged at him. He was transfixed by five arrows: still, however, he passed on, regained the walls, stood boldly up, displaying his trophy in the sight of all; and then, still clinging to it with convulsive grasp, fell down and expired.

Jotapata had resisted the whole Roman army during forty-seven long days and nights, and was overcome at last only by the discovery of its critical situation, through a deserter. Vespasian followed the intimations of the perfidious wretch, and succeeded in entering into the the city. During the siege and capture, forty thousand men perished. The city was razed to the ground. Josephus, after secreting himself for some days, was found, and, upon his surrender, and apparent adhesion to the Romans, was spared, through the respect inspired by his skill and heroism. In the mean time, a neighboring city, Jafa, was attacked by Trajan, and, after a bloody combat, was taken-losing fifteen thousand of its brave defenders. A body also of Samaritans, who, strange to tell, made common cause in this insurrection, was defeated on the sacred mountain of Gerizim, by Cereales, and more than eleven thousand of them were slain. Both Trajan and Cereales had been detached by Vespasian with a strong force of horse and infantry.

The Romans, long and unexpectedly delayed by the desperate valor they had met, now proceeded with greater rapidity. Vespasian returned to Ptolemais, whence he proceeded along the coast to Cæsarea. Its Greek inhabitants, having now the whole region at their command by the massacre of their Jewish competitors, received him with every demonstration of joy. Here he made his winter-quarters for two of his legions. Soon after, he sent a considerable force against Joppa, whose inhabitants, fleeing to their boats, perished, either in the waves by means of a storm which suddenly arose, or by the arms of the enemy as they were thrown upon the shore. In the progress of the war, other places were assaulted and taken, and their defenders put to the sword without mercy, while the women and children were secured as captives. Such was the fate of Tiberias and Tarichea, cities belonging to the dominions of Herod, and early manifesting symptoms of insurrection—much against his wishes. The Jews in these places exhibited their accustomed valor, but nothing was proof against Roman prowess

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and discipline. In some instances where the insurgents were not put to the sword, they were sent by thousands to Nero, to be employed in his mad scheme of digging through the isthmus of Corinth, or were sold as slaves.

A base act of Vespasian in putting to death the soldiers who had surrendered at Tarichea, upon an assurance of amnesty, appalled the whole of Galilee; and most of the towns capitulated at once, to avoid the same barbarities. Three cities alone still defied the conqueror, Gamala, Gischala, and Itabyrium - the city which Josephus had fortified on Mount Tabor. Gamala was more inaccessible than Jotapata. It stood on a long and rugged ledge of mountains, which sloped downward at each end, and rose in the middle into a sudden ridge, like the hump of a camel — whence the name of the city. One peculiarity of its structure was, that the houses rose one above another on the steep declivity of the hill, and were crowded very thick and close. This circumstance was one of the causes of the difficulty and disaster experienced by the Roman army, after they had forced their way into the place. As it presents singular incidents in warfare, it may be related in a few of its particulars.

The Jews thronged the narrow streets, and bravely resisted the advance of the assailants. At length, overpowered by numbers, who attacked them on all sides, they were forced up the steep part of the city. There they turned, and, charging the enemy with fury, drove them down the declivities, and made great havoc among them, as they endeavored to make their way up the narrow streets and along the rugged and craggy paths. The Romans, who could not repel their enemy, thus hanging, as it were, over their heads, nor yet break through the throngs of their own men, who forced them on from beneath, took refuge in the houses of the citizens which were very low. The crowded houses could not bear the weight, and came crashing down. One, as it fell, beat down another, and so all the way down the hill. The situation of the Romans was terrific. As they felt the houses sinking, they leaped on the roofs, and fell with the tumbling buildings. Many were totally buried in the ruins; many were caught by some part of their bodies as in a trap; many were suffocated by the dust and rubbish. The Gamalites seemed to behold the hand of God in this unexpected calamity of the foe. They rushed on regardless of their own lives, struck at the enemy on the roofs, or as they were slipping about in the narrow ways, and aiming steadily from above, slew every one who fell. The ruins furnished them with stones, and the slain of the enemy with weapons. They drew the swords of the dead to plunge into the hearts of the living. Many of the Romans who had fallen from the houses killed themselves. Flight was impossible, from their ignorance of the ways and the blinding dust. Many slew each other by mistake, and fell among their own men. Those who could find the road retreated from the city. Yet the city fell at last by the perseverance of the Romans, and the exhaustion of its provisions - the twenty-third of September, A. D. 67. Nine thousand Jews perished five thousand by casting themselves

down the precipice.

The story of Itabyrium and Gischala embodies incidents scarcely less tragical and interesting; but these must be passed over. Both of the cities fell, and thousands of their inhabitants perished. In the mean while, Jerusalem, instead of aiding or being able to aid the

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other cities of the land, was torn by domestic factions, and poorly preparing herself for the fearful crisis at hand. The factions arose in reference to the question of war and peace. They who advocated the war were the most numerous, and consisted of men of the vilest character. They opposed all pacific measures with invincible obstinacy, and breathed out nothing but slaughter, rapine, and devastation. These abandoned wretches began to exercise their wanton cruelty in plundering and assassinating all who presumed to oppose them, in the vicinage of Jerusalem, and then proceeded into the capital, with Zechariah and Eleazar at their head. Here they met with a strenuous opposition, as Ananus, the late high priest, exhorted the citizens to arm in their own defence, and boldly repulse those factious men, who had seized upon the temple and made it their garrison for offensive operations against the inhabitants.

The people adopted this advice, and made so vigorous an attack upon the Zealots, as these pretended champions of the cause of God were called, that they were compelled to retreat into the inner cincture of the temple, and were there closely besieged by Ananus. John, of Gischala, under pretence of espousing the pontiff's cause, was intrusted with some proposals of peace for the besieged; but instead of executing his commission with fidelity, he persuaded them to hold out with unshaken firmness; and in the end, he was the means of bringing in twenty thousand Idumean auxiliaries. These parties, having united, immediately began to perpetrate the most horrid cruelties on those of the opposite party. Twelve thousand individuals of noble extraction, and in the flower of their age, were murdered by the most cruel methods. Not satiated with the blood of so many persons of distinction, they turned their sanguinary hands against the lower class, and literally filled Jerusalem with anguish. All who opposed them, or censured their doings, or wept for their dead, were deemed guilty of a crime to be expiated only with blood. At length, the Zealots began to turn their murderous weapons against each

other.

Vespasian well saw the advantage this state of things would bring to his own cause, and suffered it to proceed till his plans were fully matured. Being invited, in the mean time, by the inhabitants of Gadara, he sent Placidus to take possession of it. The latter accordingly fought his way thither, through several strong bodies of the rebels, and exerted himself so effectually, that, in a short space of time, all that part of Judea which lies east of the Jordan was completely reduced, except a single castle. Vespasian, in the beginning of spring, marched against Idumea, and reduced most of the towns and villages to ashes. Jerusalem now beheld the enemy at her gates: every approach to the city was cut off; every hour her wretched inhabitants expected to see the plain to the north glitter with the arms and eagles of Rome. On a sudden, however, intelligence came from the Imperial City which checked his march; and Jerusalem had yet a long period either to repent, or submit, or to prepare for effectual resistance. The result of the changes in Rome was the election of Vespasian as emperor whither he departed-A. D. 70.

But this delay of an attack was not improved by Jerusalem. Infatuation possessed her councils, and to consummate her internal evils, Simon, a man of blood, who had wasted the country around Jerusalem,

was received into the city, that he might overawe the faction headed by John. Thus there were three contending parties in the city, instead of two: no rest, no order could be enjoyed in this wretched and doomed capital. The streets ran with blood. Vespasian, having assumed the purple, delivered Josephus from his bonds, and, at the commencement of the ensuing year, turned his attention towards his rebellious province, Palestine, sending his son Titus to complete its subjugation by the conquest of its capital. It was in this deplorable condition of the city that Titus marched against it, having received powerful reënforcements from his friends. Previously to his forming a regular siege, he went in person, with a body of six hundred horse, to reconnoitre its strength and avenues. He seemed to flatter himself that the Jews would readily open their gates to him; but they made so vigorous and unexpected a sally, that he saw himself surrounded in a narrow defile, and escaped with extreme difficulty. He was obliged to cut his way fiercely through, while darts and javelins fell in showers around him.

Dissensions still prevailed in the city-a circumstance which greatly encouraged the enemy. Titus, in the mean time, had caused his troops to level all the ground, in their approach to the walls, and to make every preparation for a vigorous onset. Some proposals of peace were sent to the besieged, but they were rejected with indignation; and the Romans were consequently ordered to play their war engines against the city with all their might. The Jews were compelled to retire from those dreadful stones which the enemy threw incessantly; and the battering-rams were at full liberty to ply against the walls. A breach, at length, was made, and compelled the besieged to retire behind the enclosure. This lodgement was effected about a fortnight after the beginning of the siege.

The second wall was then immediately attempted, and the engines and battering-rams were applied so furiously that one of the towers began to shake. The Jews who occupied it, aware of their impending ruin, set it on fire, and precipitated themselves into the flames. The fall of this structure afforded an entrance to the second enclosure; but, as Titus was desirous of preserving the city from demolition, the breach and the lanes were left so narrow that a great number of his men perished for want of room, when they were attacked by Simon. Titus, however, quickly rectified this mistake, and carried the place four days after the first repulse, entering that part of the lower city which was within the wall.

A famine now raged in this afflicted place, and a pestilence followed in its track. As these calamities increased, so did the cruelty of the factions, who forced the houses in quest of provisions, punishing those with death who had any, because they had not apprised these robbers of it; they put others to the most excruciating tortures, under the pretence that they had concealed food. Titus again attempted to prevail on the Jews to surrender, by sending Josephus to represent the fatal consequences of their obstinacy-but without effect. He then caused the city to be surrounded by a high wall, to prevent their reception of any kind of succor, or their escape by flight.

Nothing was now to be seen in the streets of Jerusalem but putrescent bodies, emaciated invalids, and

objects of the deepest distress; and even those who escaped in safety to the Roman camp were murdered by the soldiers, who inferred, from certain circumstances, that they had swallowed quantities of gold. In searching for this, two thousand of them were ripped up in a single night. While the military operations against the city were making progress, the famine within made a still greater advance.

In the language of the historian, " Men would fight even the dearest friends for the most miserable morsel. The very dead were searched, as though they might contain some scrap of food. Even the robbers began to suffer severely; they went prowling about like mad dogs, or reeling, like drunken men, from weakness, and entered and searched the same house twice or thrice in the same hour. The most loathsome and disgusting food was sold at an enormous price. They gnawed their belts, shoes, and even the leathern coats of their shields; chopped hay and shoots of trees sold at high prices. Yet what are all these horrors to that which followed? There was a woman of Perea, Mary, the daughter of Eleazar. She possessed considerable wealth when she took refuge in the city. Day after day, she had been plundered by the robbers, whom she had provoked by her bitter imprecations. No one, however, would mercifully put an end to her misery; and, her mind maddened with wrong, her body preyed upon by famine, she wildly resolved on an expedient which might gratify at once her vengeance and her hunger. She had an infant that was vainly endeavoring to obtain some moisture from her dry bosom; she seized it, cooked it, ate one half, and set the other aside!

"The smoke and the smell of food quickly reached the robbers. They forced her door, and, with horrible threats, commanded her to give up what she had been feasting on. She replied, with fierce indifference, that she had carefully reserved her good friends a part of her meal. She uncovered the remains of her child. The savage men stood speechless, at which she cried out, with a shrill voice, 'Eat, for I have eaten; be ye not more delicate than a woman, more tender hearted than a mother.' They retired, pale and trembling with horror. The story spread rapidly through the city, and reached the Roman camp, where it was first heard with incredulity. afterwards with the deepest commiseration." It was upon hearing of this dreadful deed, that the Roman general swore to extirpate both city and people, at the same time taking Heaven to witness that this was not his work.

Towards the end of summer, the Romans had made themselves masters of Fort Antonia, and set fire to the gates, after a destructive encounter; yet, so blind were the Jews to their real danger, that, though nothing was left but the temple, which must soon fall, they could not persuade themselves that God would permit his holy habitation to be taken by the heathen.

On the 17th of July, the daily sacrifice ceased for the first time since its restoration by Judas Maccabeus, there being no proper person left in the temple to make the offering. The gallery that afforded a communication between the temple and Fort Antonia was now burnt down, and the Jews, having filled the western portico with combustibles, induced the Romans, by a feigned flight, to scale the battlements, and set fire to the building; so that the troops were either consumed in the flames, or dashed to pieces by leaping from the roof. Contrary to the intentions

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and orders of Titus, who wished to preserve the temple, one of his soldiers set that noble edifice on fire. Efforts were made to extinguish it, but in vain. With a view to save what he could of its contents, the commander entered the sanctuary, and the most holy place, where he found the golden candlestick, the table of show-bread, the golden altar of perfumes, and the book of the law, wrapped up in a rich tissue of gold.

A dreadful slaughter now ensued, in which many thousands perished; some by the sword, some by the flame, and others by falling from the battlements. The conquerors, exasperated by the useless obstinacy of the people, carried their fury to such a height as to massacre all whom they met, without distinction of age, sex, or quality, and even to inflict the dreadful torture of crucifixion on many wretches who fell into their hands. All the treasure houses were burnt, though they were full of the richest furniture, vestments, plate, and other valuables. In short, they persisted in their barbarous work, till the whole of the holy building was utterly demolished, except two of the gates of that part of the court which was appropriated to the women. Great preparations were made, in the mean time, for attacking the upper city, and the royal palace; and, on the 8th of September, the engines played so furiously on the iniquitous Zealots, that they were overwhelmed with confusion, and ran, like lunatics, towards Shiloah, intending to attack the wall of circumvallation, and by that means effect their escape. They were, however, repulsed by the enemy, and compelled to hide themselves in the public sinks and sewers, while all the other inhabitants were put to the sword, except some of the most vigorous, who were reserved for the victor's triumph. Among the latter were John and Simon, the two most desperate rebels.

When the slaughter had ceased for want of subjects, and the troops were satisfied with plunder, Titus gave orders for the total demolition of the remaining parts of the city, with its fortifications, palaces, towers, and sumptuous edifices, excepting a part of the western wall, and the three towers of Hippicus, Phasael, and Mariamne, which might prove to future times the astonishing strength of the city, and the valor of its conqueror.

During the whole siege, the number killed was one million one hundred thousand; that of the prisoners, ninetyseven thousand. In truth, the population, not of Jerusa lem alone, but of the adjacent districts, many who had taken refuge in the city, and more who had assembled for the feast of unleavened bread, had been shut up by the sudden formation of the siege. If the numbers in Josephus may be relied on, there must be added to this fearful list, in the contest with Rome, nearly one hundred and thirty thousand slain before the war under Vespasian, one hundred and eighteen thousand during the war in Galilee and Judea, and after the fall of Jerusalem, nearly nine thousand in other parts of the country. The prisoners who, in the whole of these wars, amounted to over one hundred thousand, were doomed to be exposed in public, to fight like gladiators, or be devoured by wild beasts; twelve thousand perished from want, either through the neglect of their keepers, or their own sullen despair. These items swell the number of victims of the war to more than a million and a half of souls.

The fortresses of Herodion, Massada, and Macharon, in different parts of the country, were left uncaptured by

Titus; but two of them, namely, Herodion and Macharon, were soon afterward reduced by Lucilius Bassus; and that of Massada was attacked with such vigor by Flavius Silva, that Eleazar, the commander of the Sicarii, persuaded the inhabitants, in the spirit of despair, to kill all their wives and children; next, to choose ten men by lot, who should despatch all the rest; and lastly, to select one out of the ten to kill them and himself. This terrible tragedy was accordingly enacted; and the Romans, preparing the next morning to scale the walls, received information of the particulars from two females who had escaped the massacre by concealing themselves in an aqueduct.

Thus terminated the final subjugation of Judea, though the embers of the war still smouldered in distant countries, where the Jews resided. An edict of the emperor to set up all the lands for sale, had been received by Bassus. The whole profits of the sale had been reserved to the imperial treasury. At the same time, all the Jews within the empire were commanded to pay a tribute of half a shekel into the same treasury -the sum which they had formerly paid for the use of the sanctuary. Vespasian also caused all the branches of the house of Judah to be cut off, to defeat their hopes of a future Messiah.

The fate of Josephus, King Agrippa, and his sister Berenice-the most important personages in the Jewish nation, may be told in a few words. They escaped from the general wreck of the country. Josephus lived in high favor at Rome, where he wrote his Histories, which Titus vouched as authentic by signing the manuscript with his own hand, when it was deposited in the public library. Agrippa, among the luxuries of this great capital, forgot the calamities of his country and the ruin of his people. He lived and died the humble and contented vassal of Rome. In him the line of the Idumean sovereigns was extinct. Berenice would have been taken to the throne by Titus, who became enamored of her beauty, had it not been for

THE great event which had been the subject of scriptural prophecy in respect to the Jews, namely, the Dispersion, took place upon the conquest of Judea and its capital, and the annihilation of its civil and ecclesiastical polity. It has continued ever since, and is not yet terminated. It may be considered, however, under its various phases, and for convenience' sake, divided into three eras, up to the present time. The first term of time is designated under the caption of the present chapter. It must necessarily constitute a very compressed narrative.

The political existence of the Jewish nation was now at an end; it was never again recognized as one of