Page:Selections. Translated by H. St. J. Thackeray (1919).djvu/137

 skilfully conducted. In a word, had Ananus lived, they would undoubtedly either have come to terms—for he was an effective speaker, whose words carried weight with the people, and was already gaining control over those who thwarted him—or else, had hostilities continued, they would, under such a general, have greatly retarded the victory of the Romans.

With him was linked Jesus, who, though not comparable with Ananus, excelled the rest of his contemporaries.

It was, I suppose, because God had, for its pollutions, condemned the city to destruction and desired to purge the sanctuary by fire, that He thus cut off those who clung to it with such tender affection. So they who but lately were clad in the sacred vestments, had led the ceremonies of world-wide significance and were reverenced by visitors to the city from every quarter of the earth, were now seen cast out naked, to be devoured by dogs and beasts of prey. Virtue herself, I think, groaned over these men's fate, lamenting that she should have been so completely defeated by Vice. Such, then, was the end of Ananus and Jesus.

Having disposed of them, the Zealots with the mass of the Idumæans fell upon and butchered the people as though they had been a herd of unclean animals

The Mock Trial and Murder of Zacharias

Having now come to loathe indiscriminate massacre, the Zealots instituted mock trials and courts of justice. They had determined to put to death Zacharias, son of Baris, one of the most eminent of the citizens. His pronounced hatred of wrongdoing and love of liberty