The doomed city

The purple light of evening had fallen upon the Syrian shore as Crispus, with a quick, swinging pace, trod the well-paced road that led southwards to the stately city of Cæsarea...

Early on the morning after his arrival at Cæsarea, Crispus was waited upon at his lodgings by Gessius Florus, procurator of Judæa, who, apprised of Crispus’ coming, lost no time...

Now, while telling his story, Crispus had become suddenly alive to the presence of a very beautiful girl sitting at an adjoining triclinium. It was not so much her beauty, howev...

Tempted by the beauty of the starry night, as well as by the wish to be alone with his thoughts, Crispus passed from the banqueting hall, and sought the spacious gardens attache...

Early on the morning after the banquet there flew through Cæsarea the surprising news that the notable Zealot, Simon the Black, was to be put on his trial on the noon of that sa...

The ugly gash he had received that morning from the well-aimed missile had not enhanced his personal beauty. Berenice, as she watched him from beneath the fringe of her dark, si...

They were marching on foot to Jerusalem, a journey of some sixty miles, marching by the military road made by the Romans themselves, a highway so well and durably paved that por...

The heat of noontide had passed, and Crispus, under the guidance of Rufus, was spending his time in viewing the city. It might be thought that the Temple would be the first plac...

It was the evening of Crispus’ first day in Jerusalem, and Rufus, who, as the Roman overlord of the temple, had free access to its outer courts during any hour of the day or nig...

Following fast upon the dispatch of his letter demanding the seventeen talents, he had taken up his abode in the old palace erected by Herod the Great upon Mount Zion. This, as...

During the massacre instigated by Florus, a massacre that numbered no less than three thousand six hundred victims, Crispus, by nature of the case, had been compelled to look he...

Early next morning the Zealot chief Manahem, who, with his followers, had camped during the night upon Olivet, descended that mount, and, seated upon a chariot, entered the city...

“Is that any reason why we should imperil our lives on his account? We shall be stoned to death if the Zealots learn that we are hiding a Roman in our house. Better for us that...

The moon of a lovely autumnal night silvered the sleeping Roman camp that lay at the entrance of “the going up to Beth-horon.” Not a sound disturbed the silence, save the light...

To their surprise the encircling lines of legionaries that had been posted to the east, and to the west, and to the south, of the city were all in motion, taking their way to th...

More than two years and a half had now passed since the disastrous retreat of Cestius, and during all that time no Roman legion had come within sight of Jerusalem.

Titus was, of course, present. His office of second in command, added to the glory gained by him in the Galilæan campaign, had disposed him to adopt a somewhat lofty air towards...

It was the spring of the year A.D. 70, nearly nine months after the elevation of Vespasian to the imperial throne, and still the Roman legions, now under the sole command of Tit...

On the very edge of each agger there leaped up, as if by magic, a cloud of archers and slingers, who, setting up iron screens in front of themselves, proceeded to direct their m...

On the fourteenth day of the siege the repaired ram Nico, or the Conqueror, justified its name by effecting a breach in the northern wall; and Simon, seeing his position no long...

On the very first day of the siege the price of food had mounted so high that a bushel of wheat could not be had for less than a talent of gold,[28] but as soon as the Roman wal...

Tiberius Alexander, the apostate Jew, and Crispus, with four legionaries attending on them, stood at the foot of the city wall at the point where masonry, carried aloft to an am...

The long blockade had failed to bring about the surrender of the city; and Titus was beginning to grow weary of the delay; in fancy he could hear the patricians of Rome laughing...

Within the circumjacent cloisters, and hidden by the shadows, lay the Roman troops, sleeping on their arms, yet ready at the first blast of the trumpet to spring into life and a...

Thus was the temple burnt, and when Titus learned--for the matter was secretly reported to him--whose was the hand that had kindled the first flame, he swore by all his gods tha...

“Have you seen the new coin struck by Titus to commemorate his conquest?” asked Rufus; and, being answered in the negative, he drew forth a sesterce, and exhibited it to the gaz...

similar to that of a modern parish church, consisting as it did of a nave, and two aisles divided from it by a row of columns. At one end a portion, elevated like a daïs and rai...