om that time
the Jews enjoyed their freedom under the dynasty of their
priest-kings till, B.C. 63, the Romans under Pompey took possession
of Jerusalem. A period of Roman tyranny and oppression followed. In
A.D. 66-70 a great revolt of the Jews occurred. The Romans burned
Jerusalem to the ground. Josephus says the number killed in this
revolt was one million one hundred thousand, and the number of
prisoners ninety-seven thousand. Of those who survived, "all above
seventeen years old were sent to Egypt to work in the mines, or
distributed among the provinces to be exhibited as gladiators in
the public theatres and in the combats against wild beasts."

About fifty years later, A.D., 116, a tremendous uprising occurred
among the Jews of the eastern Mediterranean, in which many lives
were lost. It was quickly suppressed by the emperor Trajan, and the
punishments were similar in cruelty to those which followed the
previous insurrection.

But this dauntless people were not yet conquered. When the emperor
Hadrian, A.D., 130, arrived at Jerusalem on his tour of the empire,
he resolved that the holy city of the Jews should be rebuilt as a
Roman colony, and its name changed to AElia Capitolina; and the Jews
were forbidden to sojourn in the new city. By this and other
measures the spark of revolt was once more kindled among the
religious and patriotic spirits of the Jewish nation. The Jews in
Palestine flew to arms, A.D., 132, encouraged by the prayers, the
vows, and the material support of their compatriots in Rome,
Byzantium, Alexandria, and Babylon. The Jewish war-cry echoed
around the civilized world.

A fitting leader for the insurrectionists soon appeared in the
person of Simon Barcochebas. Julius Severus, who was in Britain
ordering the affairs of that distant province, was summoned to the
East to quell the disturbance, which had swollen to the dimensions
of a revolution and threatened to abolish Roman authority in
Palestine. The conflict which ensued lasted from A.D. 132 to 135,
and was very bitterly contested on both sides. It was not before
the Hebrew leader fell amid thousands of his followers that the
Jewish forces were defeated. We are told that in this last
revolution the Romans took fifty fortresses, nine hundred and
eighty-five vi