=8. Hadrian’s Resolve accomplished.=――Akiba’s death was the last act in this war, which the Talmud calls ‘the war of extermination.’ Hadrian did what he had proposed to himself to do. A ploughshare was passed over what had been Jerusalem, and the foundations of a new city were laid, and it was called Ælia Capitolina――Ælia in honour of the Emperor, Capitolina in honour of Jupiter. ‘One hundred and fifty years later Jerusalem was a term of ancient geography.’[5] The Jews of Palestine were massacred by thousands. Numbers were sold as slaves at the same price as horses at the annual fair held near Hebron. Judea was left, practically, a desert. Wolves and hyenas prowled about the ruined city, and such of the people as were not sold or slaughtered lived a banished, frightened existence in the caves among the mountains. One right the Roman Emperor conceded to the Jews he had ‘crushed.’ Once a year they were given the opportunity of ‘buying their own tears,’ as the Church historian, St. Jerome, expresses it. Throughout all the long months they were forbidden, on pain of death, to approach the city. But on each anniversary of the sacking of Jerusalem all Jews who wished might come near and look upon what had been ‘the joy of the whole earth.’ The outcasts might come and lean against the bit of broken wall which was all that was left to them of all that had been theirs. They might weep and pray; but if they asked to wait and weep a little longer than the limited time by law permitted, then the Roman guard who watched could fix his own price for the privilege. He could make them ‘buy their tears.’ CHAPTER XIV. THE REVIVAL OF THE SCHOOLS: THEIR WORK.