enote:--14--] Fifty of their most important garrisons and nine hundred
and eighty-five of their most renowned towns were blotted out. Fifty-eight
myriads of men were slaughtered in the course of the invasions and
battles, and the number of those that perished by famine and disease and
fire was past all investigating. Thus nearly the whole of Judaea was made
desolate, an event of which the people had had indications even before the
war. The tomb of Solomon, which these men regarded as one of their sacred
objects, fell to pieces of itself and collapsed and many wolves and hyenas
rushed howling into their cities.

Many Romans, moreover, perished in the war. Wherefore Hadrian in writing
to the senate did not employ the opening phrase commonly affected by the
emperors: "If you and your children are in health, it shall be well: I and
the armies are in health."

[Sidenote: A.D. 134(?)] Severus [Footnote: Not the same person as is
mentioned in the previous chapter.] he sent into Bithynia, which needed no
force of arms but a governor and presiding officer who was just and
prudent and had a reputation. All these qualifications Severus possessed.
And he managed and administered both their private and their public
affairs in such a way that we [Footnote: i.e., "we natives of Bithynia"
(Dio's country).] are still, even to-day wont to remember him. [Pamphylia
in place of Bithynia was given into the jurisdiction of the senate and the
lot.]

[Sidenote:--15--] This, then, was the ending that the war with the Jews
took. A second war was started among the Alani (they are Massagetae) by
Pharasmanes. On Albanis and Media he inflicted severe injury and then laid
hold on Armenia and Cappadocia, after which, as the Alani were on the one
hand persuaded by gifts from Vologaesus and on the other stood in dread of
Flavius Arrianus, the governor of Cappadocia, he stopped. [Envoys were
sent from Vologaesus and from the Iazygae; the former made some charges
against Pharasmanes and the latter wanted to confirm the peace. [?]
[Footnote: It is impossible to determine, from the date of this fragment,
whether the subject should be Hadrian or Antoninus Pius.] introduced them
to the senate and was empowered by that body to return appropriate
answers; and accordingly he prepared and read to them his responses.]

[Sidenote:--16--] Hadrian completed the Olympieum in Athens, in which his
own statue also stands, and consecrated there a serpent, which was broug