Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/527

Rh Pompey, Gadara was chosen for a purpose which obviously required, and which therefore establishes its being, a great center of Hebrew or Mosaic population.

—Having shown that Gadara was important as a center of population which was either Jewish in blood or governed by the Jewish law, I will next show that Gadara was also formidable as a seat of Jewish military power. The time came when Vespasian had to contemplate operations against Jerusalem. And now, says Josephus, "it was necessary for him to subdue what remained unsubdued, and to leave nothing behind him which might prevent his prosecution of the siege."

Accordingly, he marched to the point of danger. This was Gadara, the strong metropolis of Peræa, which had once, against Jannæus, stood a siege of ten months. The rich, who were numerous there, escaping the notice of their opponents, had invited him. On the approach of Vespasian, the party disposed to war found itself (and no wonder) in a minority, and fled; but not till they had massacred Dolesus, the author of the invitation to the Roman general. In their absence, the people received Vespasian with acclamations. But they pulled down the walls of their own accord; and he then left with them a garrison of horse and foot to defend them against the return of the expelled party. Why were the walls pulled down, except to prevent the population from holding the city against the Romans? Why, although the wealthy and the local governing power was friendly, yet was a Roman garrison left behind, but because the dominant force in the city, apart from foreign intervention, was a Hebrew or antiRoman, and not a Gentile, force? And does not this passage, even if it stood alone, abundantly suffice to show that, whatever the division of parties may have been, Gadara was not, "to all intents and purposes, a Gentile city"? It was a city from which Vespasian apprehended an attack in his rear; and to prevent this he makes it an open city, and leaves a force in it in order that his partisans might continue to have the upper hand.

But let us not suppose that these partisans were necessarily Gentiles. I must again press the proposition that the Jews of that era, or the population observing the Mosaic law, were largely divided into peace party and war party, and that we may find the peace party acting with the Gentiles against their fellow-countrymen, in order to avoid the alternative of war. I will now refer to a passage which shows this in a manner quite conclusive. Gischala appears to have been a city of the extreme war party, though it, too, had partisans of peace. However, it broke away, and was in consequence assailed and destroyed by a composite force of Tyrians, Sogarenes, Gadarenes, and Gabarenes. It seems