Petronius then hasted to Tiberias; and many thousands of the Jews met Petronius again, when he was come to Tiberias. Then Petronius said to them: ‘Will you then make war with Caesar without considering his great preparations for war and your own weakness?’ They replied: ‘We will not by any means make war with him, but still we will die before we see our laws transgressed’. So they threw themselves down upon their faces, and stretched out their throats, and said they were ready to be slain.Thus they continued in their resolution, and proposed to themselves to die willingly rather than to see the dedication of the statue[23].
FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS, 1st cent.
IN the world-wide Roman Empire it was the Jews alone who refused the erection of statues and the paying of divine honours to Caligula, and thereby saved the honour of the human race when all the other peoples slavishly obeyed the decree of the Imperial madman.
J. FUERST, 1890.
IN MEDIAEVAL ROME
IN the whole history of heroism there is nothing finer than the example of the Jews of the Roman Ghetto, a handful of men who for 1,500 years and longer remained true to their own ideals—unmoved and undazzled by the triumphant world-power of the dominant faith; and undaunted
By the torture prolonged from age to age,
By the infamy, Israel’s heritage,