Page:Historical Works of Venerable Bede vol. 2.djvu/330

 258 Rome, at the instigation of Herodias, to court the favour of Caius; but, being accused by Agrippa, he lost the tetrarchy, and, retiring to Spain with Herodias, there died of grief. Pilate, who had condemned Christ to destroys death, was treated with such severity by Caius, that he perished by his own hand. Caius, numbering himself among the gods, profanes the holy places of the Jews with the pollutious of idols. Matthew wrote his gospel while preaching in Judæa.

A.M. 4007 [56].

Claudius reigned 14 years, 7 months, and 28 days. The apostle Peter founded the church of Antioch, and after wards went to Rome, where he occupied the episcopal chair for twenty-five years, until the last year of Nero. Mark was sent by Peter into Egypt, where he preached the gospel which he had written at Rome. A severe famine, mentioned by Luke [Acts xi. 28,] took place in the fourth year of Claudius. In the same year Claudius went to Britan, whither no one had ventured before or since the days of Julius Cæsar; and in a very few days he reduced the greater part of the island without any fighting or bloodshed. He also added the Orkneys to the Roman empire, and returned to Rome after an absence of six months In the 9th year of his reign he banished the restless and seditious Jews from Rome, as Luke [Acts xviii. 2,] narrates. In the following year Rome was distressed by a most grievous famine.

A.M. 4021 [70].

Nero reigned 14 [13] years, 7 months, and 27 days. In the second year of his reign Festus succeeded Felix as procurator of Judæa: he sent Paul bound to Rome, where he remained two years at large, though a prisoner;