llages were occupied, and that the people killed
numbered five hundred and eighty thousand. The Jews were dispersed
to every quarter of the known world and remain so to this day. The
new city of Hadrian continued to exist, but did not prosper; and
the Jews were prohibited under penalty of death from ever setting
foot in Jerusalem.

The thread of imperial life could hardly snap without a jar which would
be felt throughout the whole extent of the empire. Trajan, like
Alexander, had been cut off suddenly in the Far East, and, like
Alexander, he had left no avowed successor. Several of his generals
abroad might advance nearly equal claims to the sword of Trajan; some of
the senators at home might deem themselves not unworthy of the purple of
Nerva.

On every side there was an army or faction ready to devote itself to the
service of its favorite or its champion.

The provinces lately annexed were at the same time in a state of ominous
agitation; along one half of the frontiers Britons, Germans, and
Sarmatians were mustering their forces for invasion; a virulent
insurrection was still glowing throughout a large portion of the empire.
Nevertheless, the compact body of the Roman Commonwealth was still held
firmly together by its inherent self-attraction. There was no tendency
to split in pieces, as in the ill-cemented masses of the Macedonian
conquest; and the presence of mind of a clever woman was well employed
in effecting the peaceful transfer of power and relieving the State from
the stress of disruption.

Of the accession of Publius AElius Hadrianus, A.D., 117, to the empire;
of the means by which it was effected; of the character and reputation
he brought with him to the throne; of the first measures of his reign,
by which he renounced the latest conquests of his predecessor, while he
put forth all his power to retain the realms bequeathed him from an
earlier period--is matter for another story.

But let us turn to a review of eastern affairs; to the great Jewish
insurrection, and the important consequences which followed from it.
Trajan was surely fortunate in the moment of his death. Vexed, as he
doubtless was, by the frustration of his grand designs for incorporating
the Parthian monarchy with the Roman, and fulfilling the idea of
universal empire which had flitted through the mind of Pompius or
Julius, but had been deliberately rejected by Augustus and Vespasian,
his proud spirit would