ere almost impregnable. Better
terms might have been extorted from Titus had John and Simon, the
leaders of the party of defence, been as brave as they were blatant. But
after refusing surrender they lost heart, and hid themselves in
subterranean vaults, leaving their deluded followers to their own
devices. The end came soon. A breach was made in the walls. The legions
entered, sword in hand, and with the rage of slaughter in heart. A
dreadful carnage followed. Neither sex nor age was spared. According to
Josephus, not less than one million one hundred thousand persons
perished during this terrible siege. Of those that remained alive the
most flagrant were put to death, some were reserved to grace the
victor's triumph, and the others were sent to Egypt to be sold as
slaves. As for the city, it had been in great part consumed by flames.
Thus ended the rebellion of the Jews. To rule or ruin was the terrible
motto of Rome.

_THE DESTRUCTION OF POMPEII._

On the eastern margin of the Bay of Naples, where it serves as a
striking background to the city of that name, stands the renowned
Vesuvius, the most celebrated volcano in the world. During many
centuries before the Christian era it had been a dead and silent
mountain. Throughout the earlier period of Roman history the people of
Campania treated it with the contempt of ignorance, planting their
vineyards on its fertile slopes and building their towns and villages
around its base. Under the shadow of the silent mountain armies met and
fought, and its crater was made the fort and lurking-place of Spartacus
and his party of gladiators. But the time was at hand in which a more
terrible enemy than a band of vengeful rebels was to emerge from that
threatening cavity.

The sleeping giant first showed signs of waking from his long slumber in
63 A.D., when earthquake convulsions shook the surrounding lands. These
tremblings of the earth continued at intervals for sixteen years, doing
much damage. At length, on the 24th of August of the year 79, came the
culminating event. With a tremendous and terrible explosion the whole
top of the mountain was torn out, and vast clouds of steam and volcanic
ashes were hurled high into the air, lit into lurid light by the crimson
gleams of the boiling lava below.

The scene was a frightful one. The vast, tree-like cloud, kindled
throughout its length by almost incessant flashes of lightning; the
fiery glare that gleamed upward from th