ith a cruelty worthy of the worst emperors of Rome. The
pitiable tale of the captives had no effect upon him; the devotion of
the wife roused no sympathy in his heart; Sabinus had dared rebel
against Rome, no time nor circumstance could soften that flagitious
crime; without hesitation the chief was condemned to death, and instant
execution ordered.

This cruel sentence changed the tone of Eponina. She had hitherto humbly
and warmly supplicated her husband's pardon. Now that he was dead she
resolved not to survive him. With the spirit and pride of a free-born
princess she said to Vespasian, "Death has no terror for me. I have
lived happier underground than you upon your throne. You have robbed me
of all I loved, and I have no further use for life. Bid your assassins
strike their blow; with joy I leave a world which is peopled by such
tyrants as you."

She was taken at her word and ordered by the emperor for execution. It
was the darkest deed of Vespasian's life, a blot upon his character
which all his record for clemency cannot remove, and which has ever
since lain as a dark stain upon his memory.

Plutarch, who has alone told this story of love unto death, concludes
his tale by saying that there was nothing during Vespasian's reign to
match the horror of this atrocious deed, and that, in retribution for
it, the vengeance of the gods fell upon Vespasian, and in a short time
after wrought the extirpation of his entire family.

_THE SIEGE OF JERUSALEM._

Christ had not long passed away from the earth when the reign of peace
and brotherly love which He had so warmly inculcated ceased to exist on
the soil of Judaea. Forty years after He foretold the destruction of the
Temple of Jerusalem that noble edifice had ceased to exist, Jerusalem
itself was burned to the ground, and a million of people perished by
sword and flames. It is this lamentable tale which we have now to tell.

Caligula, the mad emperor, first roused the indignation of the Jews, by
demanding that his statue should be placed in that holy shrine in which
no image of man had ever been permitted. War would have followed, for
the Jews were resolute against such an impious desecration of their
Temple, had not the sword of the assassin removed the tyrant.

But the discontent of the Jews was not ended. They were resolved that no
image of the Caesars should be brought into their land, and carried this
so far that when the governor of Syria wished to marc