The senate, overawed by the army, was compelled to ratify this foul assassination, and to declare Otho emperor. We have now reached the year of our Lord 67.
There was at this time an ambitious but able general, named Vitellius, in command of a powerful Roman army upon the Danube. He had secured the good-will of his fiendlike troops by the plunder which he allowed them, and the license in which they were permitted to indulge. He refused to recognize Otho as emperor; and, raising the standard of revolt, by a vote of the army caused the imperial dignity to be conferred upon himself. Vitellius, at the head of his army, marched upon Rome to wrest the sceptre from the hands of his rival. Otho advanced to meet him. The armies were each seventy thousand strong. They encountered each other on the plains of Lombardy, near Mantua. The battle was long and bloody. At length, the legions of Otho were utterly routed and dispersed. Dismissing most of his attendants, the ruined adventurer fell upon his own sword, and died. He had previously requested his slaves to bury him immediately. “This had been his earnest request,” writes Tacitus, “lest his head should be cut off, and be made a public spectacle.”
Vitellius, who at once compelled the senate to proclaim him emperor, was not by nature a tyrannical man; but he was luxurious and dissolute in the extreme, surrendering himself to every possible form of self-indulgence. He even equalled Nero in his unbridled, shameless profligacy. It is said that the expenses of his table alone, for a period of four months, amounted to a sum equal to about thirty million dollars.
There was little in the character of such a man to excite either respect or fear. A conspiracy was soon formed for his overthrow. There was quite a distinguished general, named Vespasian, in command of the Roman army in Judæa. He had acquired celebrity in the wars of Germany and Britain, and, having been consul at Rome, had many acquaintances of influence there. Vespasian entered into a correspondence with the conspirators. It was not difficult to induce his soldiers to proclaim him emperor.
Vespasian, remaining himself in the East, sent his army, under his ablest generals, to Rome. A terrible battle was fought beneath its walls and through its streets, during which the beautiful capitol, the pride of the city, was laid in ashes. The troops of Vespasian were triumphant, and the opposing ranks were utterly crushed. Vitellius, as cowardly as he was infamous, hid in the cabin of a slave. He was dragged forth, and paraded through the streets, with his hands bound behind him, and with a rope round his neck. After enduring hours of ignominy, derision, and torture, he was beaten to death by the clubs of the soldiers. His body was then dragged over the pavements; and the mangled mass, having lost all semblance of humanity, was thrown into the Tiber.
The obsequious senate immediately united with the victorious army in declaring Vespasian emperor. While these scenes of tumult and carnage were transpiring, and the whole Roman empire was desolated with poverty, oppression, and woe, Christianity was making rapid and noiseless progress among the masses of the people in many remote provinces of the empire too obscure or distant to attract the attentionof the emperors. The teachings of Jesus were alike adapted to one and to all, to every condition, and to every conceivable circumstance in life. The doctrines of the cross came with moral guidance and with unspeakable consolation to all who would accept them,—to the millions of bondmen; to the despised freedmen; to the soldier; to centurions, governors, and generals; to the members of the imperial palace. It said to all, “Earth is not your home: lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven. Accept life’s discipline, bear it patiently, that you may be prepared by it for honor, glory, and immortality in heaven.”
The Jews in Judæa took advantage of these civil discords to rise in rebellion against their Roman masters. Vespasian organized an army, which he placed under his son Titus, to quell the revolt. When Jesus was crucified at Jerusalem, the Jews said, “His blood be upon us and on our children.” It was a fearful imprecation, and terribly was it realized. Christ had minutely foretold the utter destruction of Jerusalem, so “that not even one stone should be left upon another.”
“When ye shall see Jerusalem,” said Jesus, “compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which are in Judæa flee to the mountains, and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto. For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in those days! for there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations;and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles.”[169]
It was in the year of our Lord 70. Vials of woe, which even the mystic symbols of apocalyptic vision cannot exaggerate, were poured out upon the doomed city. Human nature has perhaps never before nor since endured such woes. It is impossible for the imagination to conceive more appalling horrors,or sufferings more terrible, than were then experienced. The reader will find those scenes of rage, despair, and misery, minutely detailed by the pen of Josephus. It requires strong nerves to enable any one to peruse the revolting narrative with composure.
Probably the disciples of the Saviour, warned by their divine Master, had all fled from Jerusalem and Judæa, conveying the tidings of the gospel wherever they went in their wide dispersion. Our Saviour had urged them to a precipitate flight. “When ye therefore shall see,” said he, “the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet” (referring to the Roman armies), “stand in the holy place, then let them which be in Judæa flee into the mountains; let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house; neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes: for then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time; no, nor ever shall be. And, except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved;but, for the elect’s sake, those days shall be shortened.”[170]