e blind.

Vespasian met with further wonders when he entered the temple of Serapis
to consult the god as to the state and fortunes of the empire. He went
into the inner sanctuary alone, and, to his surprise, there he beheld
the old Basilides, the freedman of Claudius, one of the chief men of
Alexandria, whom he knew was then lying dangerously ill, and several
days' journey from the city. He inquired of the priests whether
Basilides had been in the temple, and was assured that he had not. He
then asked whether he had been in Alexandria; but nobody had seen him
there. Lastly, on sending messengers, he learned that he was on his
death-bed eighty miles off. With this miracle before his eyes, he could
not distrust the answers which the priests gave to his questions.

From Alexandria Vespasian sent back Titus to finish the siege of
Jerusalem. The Jewish writer Joseph, the son of Matthias, or Flavius
Josephus, as he called himself when he entered the service of the
emperor, was then in Alexandria. He had been taken prisoner by
Vespasian, but had gained his freedom by the betrayal of his country's
cause. He joined the army of Titus and marched to the overthrow of
Jerusalem. Notwithstanding the obstinate and heroic struggles of the
Jews, Judaea was wholly conquered by the Romans, and Jerusalem and its
other fortresses either received Roman garrisons or were dismantled.
The Temple was overthrown in the month of September, A.D. 70. Titus made
slaves of ninety-seven thousand men, many of whom he led with him into
Egypt, and then sent them to work in the mines. These were soon followed
by a crowd of other brave Jews, who chose rather to quit their homes
and live as wanderers in Egypt than to own Vespasian as their king. They
knew no lord but Jahveh; to take the oaths or to pay tribute to Caesar
was to renounce the faith of their fathers. But they found no safety in
Egypt. Their Greek brethren turned against them, and handed six hundred
of them up to Lupus, the governor of Egypt, to be punished; and their
countryman Josephus brands them all with the name of Sicarii. They tried
to hide themselves in Thebes and other cities less under the eyes of the
Roman governor. They were, however, followed and taken, and the courage
with which the boys and mere children bore their sufferings, sooner than
acknowledge Vespasian for their king, drew forth the praise of even the
time-serving Josephus.

The Greek Jews of Egypt gained nothing by this