=5. The Jews in Revolt: their Leader.=――No Josephus has left a minute record of the last struggle between the Jews and Rome, and a great many details are altogether absent. We know generally that the Jewish resistance to Hadrian lasted three years, from 132 till 135; and that Julius Severus had to be summoned from Britain before the Roman success could be assured. The Jews fought against Hadrian as, fifty years before, they had fought against Titus, with the obstinate courage of men who valued their own lives less than the life of the nation. They were led by a man who, at the beginning of the revolt, they called, in their enthusiasm, Barcochba, son of a star; and at the end, in their despair, Barcosba, son of a lie. His real name we do not know. He fought and he died fighting, and in defence of the truth as he believed it; and so far, and although he failed, he takes his place among the heroes of history, and earns a right to the title first bestowed upon him. His claim to the second is, happily, less clear. Tradition tells of tricks he played to incline the people to believe that his powers were supernatural; and there are tales, too, told to his discredit, which, if true, might make ‘impostor’ a free translation of Barcosba. But the only facts of which we are sure are that he led the Palestinian Jews in their second revolt against Rome, from the year 132 till 135; that for a little while the forlorn hope of the people seemed possible of realisation, and that Barcochba took possession of the ruins of Jerusalem; that he and his followers were dislodged from thence, and that the last stand against the Roman enemy was made at a fortified place called Bither, which fell on the same sad anniversary, the 9th of Ab, which was already so full of fatal memories to the Jews.