[30]—page 173.] The account given by the historian Tacitus, in his “Annals,” of the origin of the Christians, of their persecution, and of the satiating of the popular rage, is of peculiar interest as illustrating this narrative. Of the Christians, Tacitus says:
“This name was derived from one ‘Christus,’ who was executed in the reign of Tiberius by the procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate; and this accursed superstition, for a moment repressed, broke forth again, not only through Judea, the source of evil, but even through the city, whither all things outrageous and shameful flow together and find many adherents. Accordingly those were first arrested who confessed, afterward a vast number upon their information, who were convicted, not so much on the charge of causing the fire, as for their hatred to the human race. To their execution there were added such mockeries as that they were wrapped in the skins of wild beasts and torn in pieces by dogs, or crucified, or set on fire and burnt, when daylight ended, as torches by night. Nero lent his own gardens for the spectacle, and gave a chariot race, at which he mingled freely with the multitude in the garb of a driver or mounted on his chariot. As the result of all, a feeling of compassion arose for the sufferers, tho guilty and deserving of condign punishment, on the ground that they were destroyed not for the common good, but to gratify the cruelty of one man.”
[31]—page 187.] “Unconquerable fortresses” proclaimed the name and sway of Herod the Great. Among these were Essebonitis and Machærus in Peræa, and Alexandreian, Herodion, Hyrcania, and Masada in Southeastern Judea, near the shore of the Dead Sea. According to the description of Masada by Josephus:
“There was a rock not small in circumference, and very high. It was encompassed with valleys of such vast depth downward that the eye could not reach their bottoms; they were abrupt, and such as no animal could walk upon, excepting at two places of the rock, where it subsides, in order to afford a passage for ascent, tho not without difficulty. Now, of the ways that lead to it, one is that from the Lake Asphaltitis, toward the sun-rising, and another on the west, where the ascent is easier; the one of these ways called the Serpent, as resembling that animal in its narrowness and its perpetual windings; for it is broken off at the prominent precipice of the rock, and returns frequently into itself, and lengthening again by little and little, hath much ado to proceed forward; and he that would walk along it must first go on one leg, and then on the other; there is also nothing but destruction in case your feet slip; for on each side there is a vastly deep chasm and precipice, sufficient to quell the courage of everybody by the terror it infuses into the mind. When, therefore, a man had gone along this way for thirty furlongs, the rest is the top of the hill, not ending at a small point, but is no other than a plain upon the highest part of the mountain. Upon this top of the hill, Jonathan, the High Priest, first of all built a fortress and called it Masada; after which the rebuilding of this place employed the care of King Herod to a great degree.”
[32]—page 233.] It was in Masada that Herod the Great, when he fled to Rome to appeal to Antony, had left his mother, sister, and children. In later years, after he had been established in the kingdom by order of Rome, he rebuilt, strengthened, and beautified the fortress. Soon after Florus, by his extortion and cruelty, had driven the Jews to rebellion, history records that Masada was taken by surprise, and the Roman garrison put to the sword. This is the historical basis of this chapter of the story.
[33]—page 247.] Josephus follows his description of the fortress of Masada by an account of Herod’s palace, that justifies the description here given, and reveals the motive of the king in its construction:
“Moreover, he built a palace therein at the western ascent; it was within and beneath the walls of the citadel, but inclined to its north side. Now the wall of this palace was very high and strong, and had at its four corners towers sixty cubits high. The furniture, also, of the edifices, and of the cloisters, and of the baths, was of great variety and was very costly; and these buildings were supported by pillars of single stones on every side; the walls also, and the floors of the edifices were paved with stones of several colors.… As for the furniture that was within this fortress, it was still more wonderful, on account of its splendor and long continuance.… There was also found here a large quantity of all sorts of weapons of war, which had been treasured up by that king, and were sufficient for ten thousand men; there were cast-iron, and brass, and tin: which show that he had taken much pains to have all things here ready for the greatest occasions; for the report goes, how Herod thus prepared this fortress on his own account, as a refuge against two kinds of danger: the one for fear of the multitude of the Jews, lest they should depose him, and restore their former kings to the government; the other danger was greater and more terrible, which arose from Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, who did not conceal her intentions, but spake often to Antony, and desired him to cut off Herod, and entreated him to bestow the kingdom of Judea upon her. And certainly it is a great wonder that Antony did never comply with her commands in this point, as he was so miserably enslaved to his passion for her; nor should any one have been surprised if she had been gratified in such her request. So the fear of these dangers made Herod rebuild Masada, and thereby leave it for the finishing stroke of the Romans in this Jewish war.”
[34]—page 253.] The record of history at the basis of this part of the narrative is, that immediately after the capture of Masada, “Manahem—a younger son of the celebrated Judas of Galilee, who had perished in a revolt soon after the exile of Archelaus, leaving to a powerful party the watchword, ‘We have no king but God,’—proclaimed himself the leader of the zealots and marched upon Jerusalem. The outworks of the palace were mined and burned, and the garrison capitulated. The Jews and the troops of Agrippa were allowed to depart; the Roman soldiers retired to the three strong towers built by Herod, and all left in the palace were put to death. The success was followed by the execution of the High Priest Ananias and his brother, who were found hidden in an aqueduct; but these and other excesses displeased the people; and when Manahem proceeded to assume the royal diadem, he was put to death by the partizans of Eleazar. In him the insurgents lost the only hope of a competent leader. The Roman soldiers in the towers were soon compelled to surrender on promise of their lives; but they had no sooner piled their arms than they were cut to pieces. This baptism of blood, by which the zealots committed themselves to a war of extermination, which they at the same time deprived of the dignity of a patriotic struggle, was perpetrated on a Sabbath; and on the same day the Jews of Cæsarea were massacred by the Greeks to the number of 20,000. These deeds mark the character of the conflict, not only as an insurrection of Judea against the Romans, but as an internecine struggle of the Jewish and Greek races in Palestine and the neighboring lands.”—Philip Smith, “History of the World.”
[35]—page 254.] These Mosaic regulations for exemption from war are found in Deut. xx. They are unique and peculiar to the Jewish code.
[36]—page 263.] The historian records that the capture of Jerusalem brought down the Romans upon the insurgents: