treachery towards
their Hebrew brethren; they were themselves looked down upon by the
Alexandrians, and distrusted by the Romans. The emperor ordered Lupus to
shut up the temple at Onion, near Heliopolis, in which, during the last
three hundred years, they had been allowed to have an altar, in rivalry
to the Temple of Jerusalem. Even Josephus, whose betrayal of his
countrymen might have saved him from their enemies, was sent with many
others in chains to Rome, and was only set free on his making himself
known to Titus. Indeed, when the Hebrew Jews lost their capital and
their rank as a nation, their brethren felt lowered in the eyes of their
fellow-citizens, in whatever city they dwelt, and in Alexandria they
lost all hope of keeping their privileges; although the emperor refused
to repeal the edict which granted them their citizenship, an edict to
which they always appealed for protection, but often with very little
success.

The Alexandrians were sadly disappointed in Vespasian. They had been
among the first to acknowledge him as emperor while his power was yet
doubtful, and they looked for a sum of money as a largess; but to their
sorrow he increased the taxes, and re-established some which had fallen
into disuse. They had a joke against him, about his claiming from one of
his friends the trifling debt of six oboli; and, upon hearing of their
witticisms, he was so angry that he ordered this sum of six oboli to be
levied as a poll-tax upon every man in the city, and he only remitted
the tax at the request of his son Titus. He went to Rome, carrying with
him the nickname of Cybiosactes, _the scullion_, which the Alexandrians
gave him for his stinginess and greediness, and which they had before
given to Seleucus, who robbed the tomb of Alexander the Great, at
Alexandria, of its famous golden sarcophagus.

Titus saw the importance of pleasing the people; and his wish to humour
their ancient prejudices, at the ceremony of consecrating a new bull
as Apis, brought some blame upon him. He there, as became the occasion,
wore the state crown, and dazzled the people of Memphis with his regal
pomp; but, while thus endeavouring to strengthen his father's throne, he
was by some accused of grasping at it for himself.

The great temple of Kneph, at Latopolis, which had been the work of many
reigns and perhaps many centuries, was finished under Vespasian. It is
a building worthy of the best times of Egyptian architecture. It has a