st?

27. Did Trajan suffer prosperity to make him neglectful of his duties?

SECTION II.

With fatal heat impetuous courage glows.--_Johnson_.

[Sidenote: U.C. 860. A.D. 107.]

1. It had been happy for Trajan's memory, had he shown equal clemency
to all his subjects; but about the ninth year of his reign, he was
persuaded to look upon the Christians with a suspicious eye, and great
numbers of them were put to death by popular tumults and judicial
proceedings. 2. However, the persecution ceased after some time; for
the emperor, finding that the Christians were an innocent and
inoffensive people, suspended their punishments.

3. During this emperor's reign there was a dreadful insurrection of
the Jews in all parts of the empire. This wretched people, still
infatuated, and ever expecting some signal deliverance, took the
advantage of Tra'jan's expedition to the east, to massacre all the
Greeks and Romans whom they could get into their power. 4. This
rebellion first began in Cyre'ne, a Roman province in Africa; from
thence the flame extended to Egypt, and next to the island of Cyprus.
Dreadful were the devastations committed by these infatuated people,
and shocking the barbarities exercised on the unoffending inhabitants.
5. Some were sawn asunder, others cast to wild beasts, or made to kill
each other, while the most unheard-of torments were invented and
exercised on the unhappy victims of their fury. Nay, to such a pitch
was their animosity carried, that they actually ate the flesh of their
enemies, and even wore their skins. 6. However, these cruelties were
of no long duration: the governors of the respective provinces making
head against their tumultuous fury, caused them to experience the
horrors of retaliation, and put them to death, not as human beings,
but as outrageous pests of society. In Cy'prus it was made capital for
any Jew to set foot on the island.

7. During these bloody transactions, Tra'jan was prosecuting his
successes in the east, where he carried the Roman arms farther than
they had ever before penetrated; but resolving to visit Rome once
more, he found himself too weak to proceed in his usual manner. He
therefore determined to return by sea; but on reaching the city of
Seleu'cia, he died of an apoplexy, in the sixty-third year of his age,
after a reign of nineteen years, six months, and fifteen days.

[Sidenote: A.D. 117.]

8. A'drian, the nephew of Trajan, was chosen to succeed him. He