. The city was totally destroyed, and nearly half a million of
the Jews perished in the siege. Those who survived, being forbidden to
rebuild their city, were scattered over the empire, and each Jew was
compelled to pay a yearly tax of two drachmae, which was appropriated to
rebuilding the Capitoline Temple. The Arch of Titus, which still exists
at Rome, was erected in commemoration of the fall of Jerusalem.

Vespasian's generals repressed an insurrection of the Germans, and in
A.D. 71 C. Julius Agricola, father-in-law of the historian Tacitus,
entered Britain as legate to Petilius Cerialis. He was made governor of
the province in A.D. 77, and led his victorious armies as far north as
the Highlands of Scotland. This excellent character, by his justice and
moderation, reconciled the Britons to the Roman yoke.

By his first wife, Flavia Domatilla, Vespasian had three
children--Titus, Domitian, and Domatilla. When she died he formed an
inferior kind of marriage with Coenis, a woman of low station, who,
however, seems to have deserved his esteem. He died 23d of June, A.D.
79, at the age of seventy. Although never a refined or cultivated man,
Vespasian, by his hardy virtues, restored the vigor of the Roman
government, and gave peace and prosperity to his subjects; while he who
founded a library and established schools of rhetoric can not have been
so wholly illiterate as some writers have imagined.

REIGN OF TITUS, A.D. 79-81.

Titus was one of the most accomplished and benevolent of men. Eloquent,
warlike, moderate in his desires, he was called _Amor et deliciae humani
generis_, "The love and the delight of the human race." In early life he
had been thought inclined to severity, and his treatment of the Jews, at
the fall of their city, does not seem in accordance with his character
for humanity. But no sooner had he ascended the throne than he won a
general affection. Such was the mildness of his government that no one
was punished at Rome for political offenses. Those who conspired against
him he not only pardoned, but took into his familiarity. He was so
generous that he could refuse no request for aid. He was resolved, he
said, that no one should leave his presence sorrowful; and he thought
that day lost in which he had done no good deed. Titus wrote poems and
tragedies in Greek, and was familiar with his native literature. During
his reign, A.D. 79, occurred a violent eruption of Vesuvius, together
with an earthqua