gone from us
forever; there are desolate plains, where green and yellow was; the
shriek of steam where gods have strayed; advertisements in sacred
groves; Baedekers in ruins that never heard an atheist's voice;
solitudes where there were splendors; the snarl of jackals where once
were birds and bees--yet, history and the arm-chair aiding, it all
returns. Any traveller may follow in Hadrian's steps; he is stayed but
once--on the threshold of the Temple of Eleusis. It is there history
gropes, impotent and blind, and it is there the interest of that
journey culminated.

Beyond the episode connected with Antinous, Hadrian's journey was
marked by another, one which occurred in Judaea. Both were infamous, no
doubt, but, what is more to the point, both mark the working of the
poison in the purple that he bore.

Since Titus had gone, despairful Judaea had taken heart again. Hope in
that land was inextinguishable. The walls of Jerusalem were still
standing; in the Temple the offices continued. Though Rome remained,
there was Israel too. Passing that way one afternoon, Hadrian mused.
The city affected him; the site was superb. And as he mused it occurred
to him that Jerusalem was less harmonious to the ear than
Hadrianopolis; that the Temple occupied a position on which a Capitol
would look far better; in brief, that Jehovah might be advantageously
replaced by Jove. The army of masons that were ever at his heels were
set to work at once. They had received similar orders and performed
similar tasks so often that they could not fancy anyone would object.
The Jews did. They fought as they had never fought before; they fought
for three years against a Nebuchadnezzar who created torrents of blood
so abundant that stones were carried for miles, and who left corpses
enough to fertilize the land for a decade. The survivors were sold.
Those for whom no purchasers could be found had their heads amputated.
Jerusalem was razed to the ground. The site of the Temple was furrowed
by the plow, sown with salt, and in place of the City of David rose
AElia Capitolina, a miniature Rome, whose gates, save on one day in the
year, Jews were forbidden under penalty of death to pass, were
forbidden to look at, and over which were images of swine, pigs with
scornful snouts, the feet turned inward, the tail twisted like a lie.

It was not honorable warfare, but it was effective; then, too, it was
Hadrianesque, the mad insult of a madman to a race as ma