f
discord arose. Some of the higher orders were disposed to be prudent, but
the people generally were filled with bigotry and fanaticism. Some of the
boldest of the war party one day seized the fortress of Masada, near the
Dead Sea, built by Jonathan the Maccabean, and fortified by Herod. The
Roman garrison was put to the sword, and the banner of revolt was
unfolded. In the city of Jerusalem, the blinded people refused to receive,
as was customary, the gifts and sacrifices of foreign potentates offered
in the temple to the God of the Jews. This was an insult and a declaration
of war, which the chief priests and Pharisees attempted in vain to
prevent. The insurgents, urged by zealots and assassins, even set fire to
the palace of the high priest and of Agrippa and Berenice, and also to the
public archives, where the bonds of creditors were deposited, which
destroyed the power of the rich. They then carried the important citadel
of Antonia, and stormed the palace. A fanatic, by the name of Manahem, son
of Judas of Galilee, openly proclaimed the doctrine that it was impious to
own any king but God, and treason to pay tribute to Caesar. He became the
leader of the war party because he was the most unscrupulous and zealous,
as is always the case in times of excitement and passion. He entered the
city, in the pomp of a conqueror, and became the captain of the forces,
which took the palace and killed the defenders. The high priest, Ananias,
striving to secure order, was stoned. Then followed dissensions between
the insurgents themselves, during which Manahem was killed. Eleazar,
another chieftain, pressed the siege of the towers, defended by Roman
soldiers, which were taken, and the defenders massacred. Meanwhile, twenty
thousand Jews were slain by the Greeks in Caesarea, which drove the nation
to madness, and led to a general insurrection in Syria, and a bloody
strife between the Greco-Syrians and Jews, There were commotions in all
quarters--wars and rumors of wars, so that men fled to the mountains,
Wherever the Jews had settled were commotions and massacres, especially at
Alexandria, when fifty thousand bodies were heaped up for burial.

(M268) Nero was now on the imperial throne, and stringent measures were
adopted to suppress the revolt of the Jews, now goaded to desperation by
the remembrance of their oppressions, and the conviction that every man's
hand was against them. Certius, the prefect of Syria, advanced with ten
th