A Child's History of the WorldHillyer, V. M. (Virgil Mores)
History
A Child's History of the World
Hillyer, V. M. (Virgil Mores)
World history -- Juvenile literature
The Jews crowded into their city of Jerusalem to make a last stand
against the Romans. But Titus destroyed that city completely and the
Jews in it, a million of them, it is supposed. Then he robbed the great
temple of all its valuable ornaments and brought them back to Rome.
To celebrate this victory over Jerusalem an arch was built in the Forum
at Rome, and through this arch Titus and his army marched in triumph.
On this arch was carved a procession, showing Titus leaving the city
of Jerusalem with these ornaments. Chief among these ornaments was a
golden seven-branched candlestick he had taken from the temple. To-day
we see many copies in brass of this famous seven-branched candlestick.
Perhaps you may have one in your home on the mantelpiece.
The city was rebuilt later, but most of the Jews who were left have
ever since been living in all the other countries of the earth.
Titus became emperor, but in spite of the way in which he had massacred
so many Jews, he was not such a bad emperor as you might suppose. He
thought he was doing right in killing these men because they had
rebelled against Rome. But Titus had a rule of life, much like that the
Boy Scouts now have. This rule was, “Do at least one good turn a day.”
The third part of this story is the “thunder.”
In Italy there is a volcano named Vesuvius. You remember that “volcano”
came from the name “Vulcan,” the blacksmith god, and people imagined
that his forge in the heart of a volcano made the smoke and flame and
ashes. From time to time this volcano, Vesuvius, thunders and quakes
and spouts forth fire and throws up stones and gas and boils over with
red-hot melted rock called lava. It is the hot inside of the earth
exploding. Yet people build houses and towns near-by and live even
on the sides of the volcano. Every once in a while their homes are
destroyed when the volcano quakes or pours forth fire. Yet the same
people go right back and build again in the same place!
[Illustration: Vesuvius erupting, Pompeii in foreground.]
There was at the time of Titus a little town named Pompeii near the
base of Vesuvius. Wealthy Romans used to go there to spend the summer.
Suddenly, one day in the year 79 A.D., just after Titus had become
emperor, Vesuvius began to spout forth fire. The people living in
Pompeii rushed for their lives, but they hadn’t time to get away. They
were smothered with the gases from the volcano before they hardly had
time to move and, falling down dead, were buried deep in a boiling rain
of fire and ashes, just where they happened to be when the eruption, as
it was called, took place.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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