of them up to Lupus, the governor of Egypt, to be punished; and their countryman Josephus brands them all with the name of Sicarii.  They tried to hide themselves in Thebes and other cities less under the eyes of the Roman governor.  They were, however, followed and taken, and the courage with which the boys and mere children bore their sufferings, sooner than acknowledge Vespasian for their king, drew forth the praise of even the time-serving Josephus.

The Greek Jews of Egypt gained nothing by this treachery towards their Hebrew brethren; they were themselves looked down upon by the Alexandrians, and distrusted by the Romans.  The emperor ordered Lupus to shut up the temple at Onion, near Heliopolis, in which, during the last three hundred years, they had been allowed to have an altar, in rivalry to the Temple of Jerusalem.  Even Josephus, whose betrayal of his countrymen might have saved him from their enemies, was sent with many others in chains to Rome, and was only set free on his making himself known to Titus.  Indeed, when the Hebrew Jews lost their capital and their rank as a nation, their brethren felt lowered in the eyes of their fellow-citizens, in whatever city they dwelt, and in Alexandria they lost all hope of keeping their privileges; although the emperor refused to repeal the edict which granted them their citizenship, an edict to which they always appealed for protection, but often with very little success.

The Alexandrians were sadly disappointed in Vespasian.  They had been among the first to acknowledge him as emperor while his power was yet doubtful, and they looked for a sum of money as a largess; but to their sorrow he increased the taxes, and re-established some which had fallen into disuse.  They had a joke against him, about his claiming from one of his friends the trifling debt of six oboli; and, upon hearing of their witticisms, he was so angry that he ordered this sum of six oboli to be levied as a poll-tax upon every man in the city, and he only remitted the tax at the request of his son Titus.  He went to Rome, carrying with him the nickname of Cybiosactes, the scullion, which the Alexandrians gave him for his stinginess and greediness, and which they had before given to Seleucus, who robbed the tomb of Alexander the Great, at Alexandria, of its famous golden sarcophagus.

Titus saw the importance of pleasing the people; and his wish to humour their ancient prejudices, at the ceremony of consecrating a new bull as Apis, brought some blame upon him.  He there, as became the occasion, wore the state crown, and dazzled the people of Memphis with his regal pomp; but, while thus endeavouring to strengthen his father’s throne, he was by some accused of grasping at it for himself.

The great temple of Kneph, at Latopolis, which had been the work of many reigns and perhaps many centuries, was finished under Vespasian.  It is a building worthy of the best times of Egyptian architecture.  It has a grand portico, upheld by four rows of massive columns, with capitals in the form of papyrus flowers.  On the ceiling is a zodiac, like that at Tentyra; and, though many other kings’ names are carved on the walls, that of Vespasian is in the dedication over the entrance.