are to grudge their money for the reception of Caesar?"

"On the contrary Alabarchos, their wealthy chief, has offered to defray
all the cost of the Naumachia and his co-religionist Artemion."

"Well, take their money, take their money."

"The Greek citizens feel that they are rich enough to pay all the
expenses, which will amount to many millions of sesterces, and they wish
to exclude the Jews, if possible, from all the processions and games."

"They are perfectly right."

"But allow me to ask you whether it is just to prohibit half the
population of Alexandria doing honor to their Emperor!"

"Oh! Hadrian will, with pleasure, dispense with the honor. Our
conquering heroes have thought it redounded to their glory to be called
Africanus, Germanicus and Dacianus, but Titus refused to be called
Judaicus when he had destroyed Jerusalem."

"That was because he dreaded the remembrance of the rivers of blood
which had to be shed in order to break the fearfully obstinate
resistance of that nation. The besieged had to be conquered limb by
limb, and finger by finger, before they would make up their minds to
yield."

"Again you are speaking half poetically, or have these people elected
you as their advocate?"

"I know them and make every effort to secure them justice, just as much
as any other citizen of this country which I govern in the name of
the Empire and of Caesar. They pay taxes as well as the rest of the
Alexandrians; nay more, for there are many wealthy men among them who
are honorably prominent in trade, in professions, learning and art, and
I therefore mete to them the same measure as to the other inhabitants
of this city. Their superstition offends me no more than that of the
Egyptians."

"But it really is above all measure. At Aelia Capitolina which Hadrian
had decorated with several buildings, they refused to sacrifice to the
statues of Zeus and Hera. That is to say they scorn to do homage to me
and my husband!"

"They are forbidden to worship any other divinity than their own God.
Aelia rose up on the very soil where their ruined Jerusalem had stood,
and the statues of which you speak stand in their holy places."

"What has that to do with us?"

"You know that even Caius--[Caligula]--could not reduce them by placing
his statue in the Holy of Holies of their temple; and Petronius, the
governor, had to confess that to subdue them meant to exterminate them."

"Then let them meet with the fate they des