his death, and still standing at
the foot of the Palatine Hill, on the road leading from the Colosseum to
the Forum, and is one of the most beautiful as well as the most
interesting models of Roman art. It consists of four stories of the
three orders of architecture, the Corinthian being repeated in the two
highest. Some of the bas-reliefs, still in good preservation, represent
the table of the shew-bread, the seven-branched golden candlestick, the
vessel of incense, and the silver trumpets, which were taken by Titus
from the Temple at Jerusalem, and, with the book of the law, the veil of
the temple, and other spoils, were carried in the triumph. The fate of
these sacred relics is rather interesting. Josephus says, that the veil
and books of the law were deposited in the Palatium, and the rest of the
spoils in the Temple of Peace. When that was burnt, in the reign of
Commodus, these treasures were saved, and they were afterwards carried
off by Genseric to Africa. Belisarius recovered them, and brought them
to Constantinople, A.D. 520. Procopius informs us, that a Jew, who saw
them, told an acquaintance of the emperor that it would not be advisable
to carry them to the palace at Constantinople, as they could not remain
anywhere else but where Solomon had placed them. This, he said, was the
reason why Genseric had taken the Palace at Rome, and the Roman army had
in turn taken that of the Vandal kings. Upon this, the emperor was so
alarmed, that he sent the whole of them to the Christian churches at
Jerusalem.

[783] A.U.C. 825.

[784] A.U.C. 824.

[785] A.U.C. 823, 825, 827-830, 832.

[786] Berenice, whose name is written by our author and others Beronice,
was daughter of Agrippa the Great, who was by Aristobulus, grandson of
Herod the Great. Having been contracted to Mark, son of Alexander
Lysimachus, he died before their union, and Agrippa married her to Herod,
Mark's brother, for whom he had obtained from the emperor Claudius the
kingdom of Chalcis. Herod also dying, Berenice, then a widow, lived with
her brother, Agrippa, and was suspected of an incestuous intercourse with
him. It was at this time that, on their way to the imperial court at
Rome, they paid a visit to Festus, at Caesarea, and were present when St.
Paul answered his accusers so eloquently before the tribunal of the
governor. Her fascinations were so great, that, to shield herself from
the charge of incest, she prevailed on Polemon,