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Thus, he describes the Phoenician coast when Vespasian arrives at Ptolemais, Galilee when Vespasian is besieging Tarichea, Jericho when Vespasian makes his sally to the Jordan cities. All this would be natural in a chronicler who was one of Vespasian's staff, but it is odd in the Jewish commander of Galilee.
Meanwhile, Nero was assassinated, and Vespasian was elevated to the imperial throne. He sent his son Titus to complete the subjugation which had hitherto resisted his conquering legions. Never was a city more insensible of its doom. Three distinct parties were at war with each other, shedding each others’ blood, reckless of all consequences, callous, fierce, desperate.
Mark Antony, in the pride of power, presented to Cleopatra the whole territory of Jericho. Vespasian, in the course of the sanguinary war which he prosecuted in Judea, sacked its walls, and put its inhabitants to the sword. Re-established by Adrian in the 138th year of our faith, it was doomed at no distant era to experience new disasters.
The first theatre was erected by Pompey the Great; but the Circus Maximus, where gladiatorial combats were displayed, was erected by Tarquinus Priscus; this enormous building was frequently enlarged, and in the age of Pliny could accommodate two hundred thousand spectators. A still more remarkable edifice was the amphitheatre erected by Vespasian, called, from its enormous size, the Colosse'um.
Despotism was not signally oppressive, and the regime of Augustus, of Vespasian, and Hadrian was generally maintained. The Roman governors, appointed by the emperors, ruled more wisely and beneficently than in the time of the republic. Peace, security, and law reigned, and, in consequence, the population increased, civilization advanced, and wealth was accumulated.
But to-day you must ask no man who he is or of what parents, with whom he has lived or what he has done. Every man enters where he will, so long as he be not a government spy or a beggar. As Vespasian did not smell of money,17 and cared not to know whence it came, from what hands or lands, so now they care not to know a man’s family or habits.
As to the prodigies and apparitions that happened about this time, there were many reported which none could answer for, or which were told in different ways, but one which everybody actually saw with their eyes was the statue in the capitol, of Victory carried in a chariot, with the reins dropped out of her hands, as if she were grown too weak to hold them any longer; and a second, that Caius Caesar's statue in the island of Tiber, without any earthquake or wind to account for it, turned round from west to east; and this they say, happened about the time when Vespasian and his party first openly began to put themselves forward.
The plaudits of the roaring mob, the congratulations of the Senate, the homage of the knights and subject princes, the offerings of foreign kings, all laid at the feet of Titus, filled him with a jealousy that went nigh to madness. Soothsayers had told him, it was true, that his hour would come, that he would live and reign after Vespasian and Titus had gone down, both of them, to Hades.
Black," said she, turning with a voice of honey to Vespasian, but aiming obliquely at Fullalove's heart, "would you oblige me by kicking that dog a little: he is always smelling what does not belong to him why, it is blood; oh!" and she turned pale in a moment. Sharpe thought some excuse necessary. "You see, ma'am, we haven't had time to clean the decks since."
But when Vespasian was come to Ptolemais, the chief men of Decapolis of Syria made a clamor against Justus of Tiberias, because he had set their villages on fire: so Vespasian delivered him to the king, to be put to death by those under the king's jurisdiction; yet did the king only put him into bonds, and concealed what he had done from Vespasian, as I have before related.
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