CHAPTER L

_After the Struggle_

Nothing could be more unrestrained than the public rejoicing. The bold myriads that soon poured in, hour by hour, many of them long acquainted with Roman battle and distinguished for the successful defense of their strongholds, many of them even bearing arms taken from the enemy, or displaying honorable scars, seemed to have come, sent by Heaven. The enemy, evidently disheartened by their late losses and the destruction of the rampart which had cost them so much labor, remained collected in their camps, and access was free from every quarter. The rumors of our triumph had spread with singular rapidity through the land, and even the fearful phenomenon that wrote our undoing in the skies stimulated the national hope. No son of Abraham could believe, without the strongest repugnance, that Heaven had interposed, and yet interposed against the chosen people.

[Sidenote: The Living Torrent]

A living torrent had come, swelling into the gates, and the great avenues and public places were quickly impassable with the multitude. Jerusalem never before contained so vast a mass of population. Wherever the eye turned were tents, fires, and feasting; still the multitude wore an aspect not such as in former days. The war had made its impression on the inmost spirit of our country. The shepherds and tillers of the ground had been forced into the habits of soldiership, and I saw before me, for the gentle and joyous inhabitants of the field and garden, bands of warriors made fierce by the sullen necessities of the time.

The ruin in which they found Jerusalem increased their gloom. Groups were seen everywhere climbing among the fallen buildings to find out the dwelling of some chief of their tribe, and venting furious indignation on the hands that had overthrown it. The work of war upon the famous defenses of the city was a profanation in their eyes. Crowds rushed through the plain to trace the spot where their kindred fell and gather their bones to the tardy sepulcher. Others rushed exultingly over the wrecks of the Roman soldiery, burning them in heaps, that they might not mix with the honored dead.

But it was the dilapidation of the Temple that struck them with the deepest emotion. The singularly nervous sensibility and unequaled native reverence of the Jew were fully awakened by the sight of the humiliated sanctuary. They knelt and kissed the pavements, stained with the marks of civil feud. They sent forth deep lamentations for the dismantled beauty of gate and altar. They wrapped their mantles round their heads, and, covering themselves with dust and ashes, chanted hymns of funereal sorrow over the ruins. Hundreds lay embracing pillar and threshold as they would the corpse of a parent or a child; or, starting from the ground, gathered on the heights nearest to the enemy and poured out curses upon the “Abomination of desolation”—the idolatrous banner that flaunted over the Roman camps, and by its mere presence polluted the Temple of their fathers.

[Sidenote: Gloom and Festivity]

In the midst of this sorrow—and never was there more real sorrow—was the strange contrast of an extravagant spirit of festivity. The Passover, the grand celebration of our law, had been until now marked by a grave homage. Even its recollections of triumphant deliverance and illustrious promise were but slightly suffered to mitigate the general awe. But the character of the Jew had undergone a signal change. Desperate valor and haughty contempt of all power but that of arms were the impulse of the time. The habits of the camp were transferred to every part of life, and the reckless joy of the soldier when the battle is done, the eagerness of the multitude of the dissolute for immediate indulgence, and the rude and unhallowed resources to while away, the heavy hour of idleness, were powerfully and repulsively prominent in this final coming-up of the nation.

[Sidenote: The Varied Scene]

As I struggled through the avenues in search of the remnant of my tribe, my ears were perpetually startled by sounds of riot. I saw, beside the spot where relations were weeping over their dead, crowds drinking, dancing, and clamoring. Songs of wild exultation were mingled with the laments for their country; wine flowed, and the board, loaded with careless profusion, was surrounded by revelers, with whom the carouse was invariably succeeded by the quarrel. The pharisee and scribe, the pests of society, were once more as busy as ever, bustling through the concourse with supercilious dignity, canvassing for hearers in the market-places as of old, offering up their wordy devotions where they might best be seen, and quarreling with the native bitterness of religious faction. Blind guides of the blind, vipers and hypocrites, I think that I see them still, with their turbans pulled down over their scowling brows; their mantles gathered round them, that they might not be degraded by a profane touch; and every feature of their acrid and worldly physiognomies wrinkled with pride, put to the torture by the assumption of humility.

Minstrels, far unlike those who once led the way with sacred song to the gates of the holy city, now flocked round the tents, and companies of Greek and Syrian mimes, dancers, and flute-players, the natural and fatal growth of a period of military relaxation, were erecting their pavilions as in the festivals of their own profligate cities.

Deepening the shadows of this fearful profanation, stood forth the traders in terror: the exorcist, the soothsayer, the magician girdled with live serpents, the pretended prophet, naked and pouring out furious rhapsodies; impostors of every color and pursuit, yet some of those abhorred and frightful beings probably the dupes of their own imposture; some utterly frenzied; and some declaring, and doing, wonders that showed a power of evil never learned from man.

In depression of heart I gave up the effort to urge my way through scenes that, firm as I was, terrified me, and turned toward my home through the steep path that passed along the outer court of the Temple. There all wore the mournful silence suited to the sanctuary that was to see its altars kindled no more. But the ruins were crowded with kneeling and wo-begone worshipers, who, from morning until night, clung to the sacred soil and wept for the departing majesty of Judah. I now knelt with them and mingled my tears with theirs.

Prayer calmed my spirit, and before I left the height I stopped to look again upon the wondrous expanse below. The clear atmosphere of the East singularly diminishes distance, and I seemed to stand close by the Roman camps. The valley at my feet was living with the new population of Jerusalem, clustering thick as bees, and sending up the perpetual hum of their mighty hive. The sight was superb, and I involuntarily exulted in the strength that my country was still able to display in the face of her enemies.

Here were the elements of mutual havoc, but might they not be the elements of preservation? The thought occurred that now might be the time to make an effort for peace. We had, by the repulse of the legionaries, shown them the price which they must pay for conquest. Even since that repulse, a new national force had started forward, armed with an enthusiasm that would perish only with the last man, and increasing tenfold the difficulties of the war.

[Sidenote: The Sanhedrin Acts]

I turned again to the ruins, where I joined some venerable and influential men, who alike shuddered at the excesses of the crowd below and the catastrophe that prolonged war must bring. My advice produced an impression. The remnant of the Sanhedrin were speedily collected, and my proposal was adopted that a deputation should immediately be sent to Titus to ascertain how far he was disposed to an armistice. The regular pacification might then follow with a more solemn ceremonial.

[Sidenote: Titus Receives Jewish Envoys]

From the top of Mount Moriah we anxiously watched the passage of our envoys through the multitude that wandered over the space from Jerusalem to the foot of the enemy’s position. We saw them pass unmolested and enter the Roman lines, and from the group of officers of rank who came forward to meet them we gladly conjectured that their reception was favorable. Within an hour we saw them moving down the side of the hill on their return, and at some distance behind, a cluster of horsemen slowly advancing. The deputation had executed its task with success. It was received by Titus with Italian urbanity.[48] To its representations of the power subsisting in Judea to sustain the war he fully assented, and giving high praise to the fortitude of the people, only lamented the necessary havoc of war. To give the stronger proof of his wish for peace, his answer was to be conveyed formally by a mission of his chief councilors and officers to the Sanhedrin.

The tidings were soon propagated among the people, and proud of their strength, and irritated against the invader as they were, the prospect of relief from their innumerable privations was welcomed with undisguised joy. The hope was as cheering to the two prominent leaders of the factions as to any man among us. John of Giscala had been stimulated into daring by circumstances alone; nature never intended him for a warrior. Wily, grasping, and selfish, cruel without personal boldness, and keen without intellectual vigor, his only purpose was to accumulate money and to enjoy power. The loftier objects of public life were beyond his narrow capacity. He had been rapidly losing even his own objects; his followers were deserting him, and a continuance of the war involved equally the personal peril which he feared, and the fall of that tottering authority whose loss would leave him to insulted justice.

Simon, the son of Gioras, was altogether of a higher class of mankind. He was by nature a soldier, and, in other times, might have risen to a place among the celebrated names of war. But the fierceness of the period inflamed his spirit into savage atrocity. In the tumults of the city he had distinguished himself by that unhesitating hardihood which values neither its own life nor the lives of others, and his daring threw the hollow and artificial character of his rival deeply into the shade. But he found a different adversary in the Roman. His brute bravery was met by intelligent valor; his rashness was baffled by the discipline of the legions; and weary of conflicts in which he was sure to be defeated, he had long left the field to the irregular sallies of the tribes, and contented himself with prowess in city feud and the preservation of his authority against the dagger.

[Sidenote: The Meaning of Peace]

Peace with Rome would thus have relieved both John and Simon from the danger which threatened to overwhelm them alike; to the citizens it would have given an instant change from the terrors of assault to tranquillity; and to the nation, the hope of an existence made splendidly secure by its having been won from the master of the world.