exclusive prerogative which they enjoyed, as the worshippers of the true God; nor could an injury be offered them, which called forth keener resentment, or more obstinate resistance, than the slightest attempt to pollute the purity of their worship, by any mixture of pagan idolatry. The Jews, who inhabited Alexandria and Egypt, from Lybia to the confines of Æthiopia, amounted, as Philo informs us, to the astonishing number of one million*. The pollution of the Jewish synagogues in the city would necessarily prove the signal for a similar attack in the provinces, and in all the great towns of the empire, as soon as the news of it should arrive. The governor was fully sensible of this dreadful consequence; and yet he rather encouraged than repressed a violence, which was equally abhorrent from justice, and the hitherto liberal maxims of the Roman government; and which he knew, as our author justly remarks, was likely to fill the whole habitable world with intestine wars. After this indignity, we can be surprised at no violence, however outrageous, offered to the persons and property of the Jews. The descend * Ουκ αποδέουσι μυριάδων ἑκατὸν οἱ την Αλεξάνδρειαν και την χώραν, απο του προς Λιβυην καταβαθμου μέχρι των όριων Αιθιοπίας. ants of Abraham had received from Alexander the free privileges of citizens in Alexandria, and they enjoyed those privileges without interruption, and unmolested, from that period to the present, during the long space of four hundred years. In a few days Flaccus published an edict, in which he branded the Jews as intruders and strangers* in Alexandria. By this outrage, they were deprived of their civil rights and protection of the laws, without appeal, and even without any offence being alleged against them, a proceeding the most cruel and arbitrary; the governor, to use the language of our author, being at once their enemy, their prosecutor, their. judge, and their executioner. I will relate the sequel, as near as I can, in the words of Philo. "Flaccus after this permitted every one who had a mind, to plunder. and destroy the Jews, as if they were captives taken in war. And what was the conduct of those who received this permission? The city being divided into five parts, two of these were * Ολίγαις ύσερον ἡμεραις τίθησι προγραμμα, δι' ἐν ξένους και επήλυδας ήμας απεκαλεί, μηδε λόγου μεταδους, αλλα ακριτως καταδικαζων· όυ τι αν ειη τυραννίδος επαγ γελμα μείζον; αυτός γενόμενος τα παντα, κατηγορος, εχθρος, μαρτυς, δικαςης, κολαςης. Ρ. 973. appropriated chiefly by the Jews, nor were the three other destitute of Jewish inhabitants. Of these they were deprived, and forced into one very small portion, which being able to contain but comparatively a few, the multitude rushed in torrents to the shores, into burying-grounds and into desert places, there to abide, though now deprived of all their goods. Their enemies finding the houses thus defenceless, entered and plundered them, and divided the goods among themselves, without any restraint or compunction. They also broke open the shops and workhouses; and carrying out whatever things they found valuable, divided them in the marketplace, as if they were the rightful owners, consequence of this cruelty, the Jews were unable to follow their daily business; and they were exposed to famine, not less by being deprived of their goods, than by being prevented to enjoy the fruits of their accustomed employments." In The sufferings of the Jews in this situation, according to our author, exceeded all description: and these sufferings were aggravated by the consideration, that the want, under which they laboured, was surrounded by plenty, the country that year having been unusually productive, and that they were caused by a people who a little before were their friends, and who became their enemies by those very means, which ought to have perpetuated their friendship. "Being unable," continues he, " any longer to bear hunger, some went about to their friends and relatives, begging a little bread; others disdaining to beg, as ignoble and servile, ventured to the market-place to purchase necessaries for themselves and their families. These unhappy people were immediately seized and destroyed by the mob, being trampled to death, or dragged through the streets till their bodies were torn to pieces, and scattered so that not a limb remained to be interred." "Thousands perished in various other ways, equally cruel and savage, their persecutors raving, as if they had assumed the nature of ferocious beasts. For wherever any of the Jews appeared, they wounded them with stones or clubs, taking care not to strike them in a vital part, lest instantaneous death might relieve them from the sense of pain. Some of these persecutors confident of impunity, and actuated by passion, disdained the use of blunter weapons, and had récourse to fire and iron, burning some and slaying many more with the sword. Whole families, children with their parents, husbands with their wives, were consumed by flames in the midst of the city, no compassion being taken on the aged, the young, or on innocent children, by their most unmerciful enemies. When wood was wanting, they collected fuel, and caused the sufferers to perish more frequently by the * smoke than by the flames, thus artfully effecting a most painful and lingering death to their unhappy victims, whose bodies, in heaps, lay half consumed, a shocking and most painful spectacle. If those sent to gather fuel were slow, they set fire to the utensils, which had been plundered, and on these burnt their owners. Many of those who still lived, they tied by the leg above the ancle, dragging them, and treading upon them, till they met that cruel death which was meditated against them. Nor did they satiate their fury by this treatment of the living; but pursued with unrelenting vengeance even the bodies which they had deprived of life, having torn their skin, flesh, and sinews, and dissevered their limbs by hawling them along the ground*.” ·· εκ των τεττα * Ειτα δυσι τοις προτέροις και το τρίτον προσέθηκεν, εφεις ώς εν άλώσει τοις εθέλουσι πορθειν τους Ιουδαίους" οι δε λαβοντες αδειαν, τι πραττουσιν; ρων γραμμάτων εξωκισαν τους Ιουδαίους, και συνηλασαν εις ένας μοιραν βραχυτάτην δι δε εξέχεοντο δια το πληθος εις αιγιαλους, και κοπρίας, και μνήματα, παντων σερούμενοι των ίδιων. Εκείνοι δε τας ερήμους οικίας καταδραμόντες, εφ άρπαγην ετράποντο, και ώς εκ πολεμου λειαν διενέμοντο, μηδενος κωλυοντος και τα εργατηρια των |