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The doomed city

Chapter 30: TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:
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About This Book

The narrative follows Crispus and his circle as Roman authority collides with local factions, chronicling contested civic privileges, imperial interventions, and escalating reprisals that ignite a popular revolt. Courtly intrigues and personal ambitions intertwine with the zeal of insurgent leaders and the strategic decisions of commanders, producing a prolonged siege, desperate sorties, and scenes of urban collapse. Interleaved episodes depict festivals, betrayals, and daring rescues while characters pursue power, love, and vengeance. Throughout, the work examines how political misrule, cultural friction, and private passions converge to produce communal catastrophe and a final reckoning that foregrounds the moral and human costs of conquest.

NOTES

1 The Talmud.

2 Told by the heathen Plutarch in his Cessation of Oracles.

3 Josephus.—Vita 2.

4 Acts xxv. 16.

5 Greek Anthology.—I. 77.

6 Acts xxiii. 14.

7 Flaccus, pro-Consul of Asia, for example.—Cicero. Pro Flacco.

8 The ancient usage in the Jerusalem synagogues of anathematizing Christ and the Christians is said by some to have originated, not with Simeon, but with his father Gamaliel, a statement scarcely reconcilable with Acts v. 38.

9 A saying of Simeon’s, according to the Talmud.

10 The Talmud.

11 Jos.—Bell. Jud. vi. 5, 3. Tac.—Hist. v. 13. Luke xxi. 11.

12 Zech. xi. 1 was, according to the Talmud, referred by Johanan ben Zacchai to this mysterious opening of the temple doors.

13 Josephus.—Bell. Jud. ii. 15.

14 At this point Florus disappears from history, and therefore from these pages. It is not known what became of him.

15 Acts xxiii. 3.

16 Josephus.—Bell. Jud. ii. 17, 9.

17 Josephus.—Bell. Jud. v. 9, 4.

18 Josephus.—Bell. Jud. ii. 19, 7.

19 So writes Hegesippus, an historian almost contemporary with Bishop Simeon.

20 Josephus actually applies the Messianic prophecies to Vespasian!—Bell. Jud. vi. 5, 4.

21 Tacitus.—Hist. ii. 78.

22 Tacitus.—Hist. iv. 81.

23 Lucem caliganti reddidit mundo—“he restored light to a dark world,” was said of Vespasian.—Jortin—Eccles. Hist. i. 4.

24 Josephus.—Bell. Jud. vi. 5, 3.

25 It is singular that Josephus, who has described the siege in such detail, should have omitted the ceremony of the Evocation, which must have taken place, unless the Romans departed from all precedent.

26 Josephus.—Bell. Jud. v. 9, 4.

27 Eusebius.—Hist. Eccles. iii. 12.

28 More than £5,000 in English currency.

29 Josephus.—Bell. Jud. v. 12.

30 Josephus.—Bell. Jud. v. 13, 7.

31 Josephus.—Bell. Jud. v. 31, 1.

32 Sulpicius Severus (Chron. xxx. 11), who is believed by competent critics to be quoting from a lost portion of the History of Tacitus.

33 Josephus.—Bell. Jud. vi. 4, 3.

34 Dean Milman.—Hist. of Jews. Book xvi.

35 The Talmud.

36 Such is the statement of Epiphanius.

37 Such appears to be the belief of Renan.—Antichrist, xix.

38 Unfortunately for Crispus’ hopes, Domitian, on his accession, put Flavius Clemens to death. The fate of the two sons is unknown.

39 This history, De Judæis, has unfortunately, not come down to us.

40 “Berenicem ab urbe dimisit invitus invitam.”—Suet. in Tit. vii.

41 Satire vi. 156.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:

Punctuation errors and printing mistakes such as obviously missing letters have been silently fixed.

The following alterations have been made:
Chapter III: women to woman
Chapter IV: Jersusalem to Jerusalem
Chapter VI: Sicarri to Sicarii
Chapter XVIII: enciente to enceinte

In the following passage the two *indicated* words were illegible, transcriber’s best judgment has been applied:

Chapter V: (...) A Roman basilica presented an appearance very 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 railed off like a chancel, formed the bema (the word had passed from the Greek into *the* Syro-Chaldaic) or tribunal, where the judges sat *and* orators pleaded.