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Rh the 'History' will probably be that in which Tacitus treats of the Jewish people and the commencement of the siege of Jerusalem,—and to that we now turn.

Bearing in mind the historian's relation to Vespasian and Titus, the conquerors of Judæa, to whom he owed his first advancement in public life, his account of the origin, the religion, the manners and customs of the Jewish people, is inexplicable, and, indeed, considering his opportunities for informing himself on the subject, without any apparent excuse. It cannot have been for want of means of inquiry or materials for truth that he thus misrepresents this "peculiar people." Their annals were not like those of Egypt, carved on stone, or written in symbols or an unknown tongue, both of which a century ago were unintelligible to the learned of modern Europe; nor were they stamped on bricks, like the archives of Nineveh and Babylon, which we are now only learning to read. Every educated Roman, and most Roman officials, from governors of provinces to farmers of the taxes, read and spoke Greek as easily as they did their native Latin; and the annals, the ritual, the theology of the Jews were communicated to strangers in the pages of the Septuagint more than three centuries before the time of Tacitus. The capital as well as the provinces swarmed with Jews or proselytes to Judaism, and in any one of the fourteen "regions" of Rome there were Rabbins, learned in the laws of Moses, and in the chronicles of the judges, kings, and high priests of Israel and Judah. With such resources at hand, the most inquisitive and sceptical of ancient historians contented himself with hearsay and idle traditions, and denied to an ancient race possessing a written story—to say nothing of sub-