visitors; now it lay in total ruins, with not "one stone upon another;" as Christ had denounced. These ruins Eusebius informs us, he beheld. And Eleazer is introduced by Josephus as exclaiming: "Where is our great city, which it was believed God inhabited." The prophet Micah, a Moor, had predicted: "Therefore shall Zion for your sakes be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the Lord's house as the high places of the forest." A captain of the army of Titus, did, in fact, plough where some part of the foundation of the temple had stood, as the Talmud records, and thus fulfilled this prediction.
Jesus Christ had foretold of this destruction, that "there should be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world." And of the event- Josephus says "If the misfortunes of all nations from the beginning of the world, were compared with those which befel the Jews, they would appear far less." Again; "No other city ever
suffered such things; as no other generation from the beginning of the world, was ever more fruitful in wickedness."
Other parts of Judea were still to be subdued. Macherus was attacked. Seventeen hundred Jews surrendered and were slain; also three thousand fugitives taken in the woods of Jardes. Titus at Cæsarea celebrated in great splendor the birth day of his brother Domitian. Here a horrid scene, according to the bloody customs of those times, was presented. To grace this occasion, more than two thousand five hundred Jews fell; some by burning—some by fighting with wild beasts—and some by mutual combat with the sword.
Massada was besieged. The Jewish commander, in despair, induced the garrison first to destroy their stores, and then themselves. They (nine hundred and sixty in number) consented to the horrid proposal. Men, women, and children took their seats upon the ground, and offered their necks to the sword. Ten men were selected to executed the fatal deed. The dreadful work was done. One of the ten was then chosen to execute the nine, and then himself. The nine being put to death, and fire being set to the place, the last man plunged his dagger into his own heart.
