began, with great tumult and uproar, to demand, that the ftatues of Caius might be placed in the Jewish oratories, or places of prayer; of which there were many in Alexandria, and all over Egypt. Flaccus not offering to oppofe, but feeming rather to approve the defign, the rabble thronged immediately to the oratories, cut down the groves and trees about them, levelled fome of them with the ground, and fet fire to others; which, together with the oratories, confumed feveral noble monuments erected by the emperors in honour of the Jews, and a great many adjoining houses. Such oratories as the ioters could not demolish, because the Jews, who lived near them, were very numerous, they prophaned, by placing in them the Emperor's. ftatues. In the largest of them all, they erected a ftatue of brafs, reprefenting Caius in a chariot drawn by four horfes, which had been formerly confecrated to Cleopatra, the great grandmother of the last queen of that name. They did not, as Philo obferves, fhew great refpect for Caius, in dedicating to him what had been formerly dedicated to a woman. But the merit, on which they laid the chief stress, was their increafing the number of temples confecrated to his pretended deity; though, even in that, they did not fo much regard his honour, as the fatisfying their own hatred to the Jews. The Alexandrians took care to acquaint the Emperor with the tranfactions of each day, who is faid to have read their ac counts with incredible fatisfaction, partly be cause he hated the Jews, and partly because he believed the Alexandrians chiefly actuated, in afflicting the Jews, by a fincere zeal for his honour. The example of Alexandria was followed by all the other cities of Egypt; in which province there were at this time a million of Jews, and a vast number of oratories, of which the largest and most beautiful were ftyled Synagogues all which were either demolished, or confumed by fire, or profaned with the Emperor's ftatues. A few days after the Jews had been thus ftript of their oratories, Flaccus published an edict, declaring all the Jews aliens at Alexandria, without allowing them time to make good their claim to the rights of citizens, which they had long enjoyed undisturbed. The Jews, who were never famous for bearing injuries with patience, when they could prevent or revenge them, made, in all likelihood, fome efforts towards the maintaining of their rights; which, though Philo has not thought fit to mention, gave, probably, occafion to greater diforders. For the Alexandrians, confidering them as men abandoned by the Emperor to their mercy, laid hold of this opportunity to vent their rage upon a people whom they had ever abhorred, and looked upon as enemies to the rest of mankind. The city of Alexandria was at that time divided into five quarters, which took their names from the first five letters of the alphabet. In each of these fome Jews dwelt; but two were almost entirely peopled by them, and thence called the quarters of the Jews. They were, therefore, by the outragious multitude, violently driven out of all the other parts of the city, and confined to one quarter; the houses from which they they had been driven, were plundered, and all their effects feized, as if they had been conquered in war. The rioters did not, fays Philo, commit these robberies like thieves in the night, who are afraid of being brought to justice, but in the face of the fun, fhewing what they had taken to all they met, with as much confidence, as if it had been an inheritance or purchase: nay, they publickly: divided the fpoil in the market-place, in the prefence of thofe very perfons whom they had plundered, adding mockery to their violence... As Flaccus never offered to check or reftrain them, they broke open the fhops and warehouses of the Jewish merchants, which. were then shut on account of the publick mourning for the death of Drufilla, the Em-peror's fifter; and thence conveyed away, and fold to the best bidder all their effects. Thus: were the Jews at once driven from their habitations, reduced to beggary, and cooped up in a narrow corner of the city; where the Alexandrians doubted not but they would foon perish, either by the inconveniencies of the place, for most of them were obliged to ly in the open air; or by famine, for they were allowed to carry no provifions along with them; or by the infection of the air, and want of free refpiration, many thousands of men, women, and children, being fhut up in fo clofe and fmothering a place. The Alexandrians watched them narrowly night and day, to prevent them from making their efcape. But, in the end, hunger prevailing over fear, feve ral found means to withdraw, either to the fea-fide, or to fome remote burying-places; but Q.3.1. fuch fuch of them as were difcovered, were tortu red in a most cruel manner, put to death, and their bodies ignominioully dragged through the streets of the city. Thofe Jews who, rot having any notice of the uproar, happened to come to the city from their country-houfes, were treated with the fame cruelty, and hurried away to the torture, or torn in pieces by the enraged multitude. Some of the rioters lay night and day on the banks of the ri ver, waiting there for the Jewish merchants; and as foon as any veffel arrived belonging to that nation, they leaped into it, feized the ef fects, and then burnt it, together with the owners. In short, when the Jews appeared in any part of the city, except the narrow quarter alloted to them, they were fure of being tortured in a moft barbarous manner, and maffacred. The least inhumane among the rioters difpatched them with the fword, or with fire, often burning whole families, with out refpecting the old men, or pitying the infants; and employing for fuel fuch of their effects as no one thought worth purchafing. Others, more cruel, to prolong the torments of thofe unhappy wretches, having tied them to ftakes, kindled round them fires of moist and green wood; fo that, after they had long borne the torment of a flow fire, they perish. ed at length, fuffocated with the smoke, when their bodies were but half burnt. Others, with ropes faflened to their feet, were drag ged through the streets and publick places of the city; the populace infulting their bodies even after they were dead, trampling them under foot, and mangling them with fuch brutal cruelty, cruelty, that not one member remained entire, to intitle them to a funeral. They then, by way of mockery, pretended to bewail thofe they had thus inhumanely butchered: But, if any of their friends or relations lamented them in earnest, they were immediately feized, whipt without mercy, and, after fuffering all the torments which cruelty itfelf could invent, condemned to the ignominious punishment of the crofs.. FLACCUS might, with one word, have. put a top to the fury of the populace; but he, the whole time, pretended ignorance of the very things he faw and heard. However, he fent at laft for the leading men amongst the Jews, as if he defigned to make up all differences between them and the people of Alexandria. The Jews had at Alexandria an ethnarch, or chief of their nation, whom Jofephus calls, as is commonly believed, alabarch. They had likewife a council, which was eftablished by Auguftus; and out of this Flaccus caufed thirty eight perfons to be feized, to be bound like criminals, fome with cords, others with chains, and, in that condition, to be dragged through the great marketplace to the theatre, where the people were celebrating the birth-day of Caius; and there, in the prefence of their enemies, to be whipt fo unmercifully, that fome of them died foon after. In inflicting this punishment, he chofe the most ignominious method, (for different methods were then in use), treating them as publick thieves and robbers. Those who outlived this cruel punishment were imprisoned, and |