T. Flavius Vespasianus, who, with all his faults must be looked upon as the _instaurator rei publicæ_, was at that time engaged in the Jewish war. There is a dark stain upon him, which cannot be washed away; but otherwise his faults are very pardonable. The rebellion of the Jews had, even as early as the reign of Claudius, been stirred up by ill usage and usurpation. There are few struggles which so deserve the attention of posterity as this: I should like, on account of its awful greatness, to tell it at full length; but time forbids, and also what is most momentous in it belongs rather to Jewish than to Roman history. I refer you to Josephus, whose book, in spite of its many defects of language, is one of the most interesting historical works that have been left to us of antiquity. I also class it with Cæsar’s Commentaries among the most instructive, owing to the light which it throws on the tactics of the Romans, and their method of besieging places. Josephus was a Pharisee, and this he cannot throw off;—not such a bad one indeed as those of the gospel; but still the leaven of the Pharisees is in him;—besides which, he has an unbearable national vanity, to gratify which he distorts many a fact in the earlier history; this we can scarcely term anything else than falsifying. His numbers bespeak eastern magniloquence; they are evidently impossible. Everywhere he shows himself an Asiatic, notwithstanding all his Greek learning: for with the exception of some ever recurring mistakes, he writes very good Greek. He is generally spoken of as Flavius Josephus; and no doubt he was called Titus Flavius Josephus after the emperor who gave him his liberty and the Roman citizenship. Vespasian was then with a strong army in Judæa, where the Jews were making a desperate and heroic resistance. He was of low origin: his grandfather was the first of his race who had somewhat risen from obscurity, and not being vain, he had no illustrious pedigree forged for him. He himself, being then in his sixtieth year, had passed through the evil times of Caligula, Claudius, and Nero, during which he had to put up with many a hardship: he had shared in the slavery of the world, and occasionally had to play the part of an involuntary slave. As a distinguished officer, he had risen step by step without a stain of cruelty or injustice upon him; which is so much the more to his honour, as he was so very fond of money. The cradle of his race was Nursia in the high Sabine mountains, whence also Sertorius came; there the old Italian stock had been preserved purest: to both of these applies Fronto’s expression _Nursina durities_. In the Roman army, he was generally known and respected.