To check the mutinous disposition, or to weaken the influence of the vanquished tribes, an edict was promulgated by their Roman masters, forbidding circumcision, the reading of the Law, and the observance of the weekly Sabbath. Still further to defeat their favourite schemes, and to blast all hopes of a restoration to civil power in Jerusalem under their Messiah, it was resolved by the government at Rome to repair to a certain extent the city of the Jews, and to establish in it a regular colony of Greeks and Latins. At this crisis appeared the notorious Barcochab, whose name, denoting the "son of a star," made him be instantly hailed by a large majority of the nation as that predicted light which was to arise out of Jacob in the latter days. Recommended by Akiba, one of the most popular of the Rabbim, to the confidence of Israel, this impostor soon saw himself at the head of a powerful army; amounting, say the Jewish annalists, to more than two hundred thousand men. In the absence of the legions now called to other parts of the East, he found little difficulty in taking possession of Jerusalem; and before a competent force, under the renowned Julius Severus, could arrive in Palestine, the false Messias had seized fifty of the strongest castles, and a great number of open towns. The details of the sanguinary campaigns which followed are given by the vanquished Jews with more minuteness than probability. Severus, who had learned all the arts of desultory warfare when employed against the barbarians of Britain, used a similar policy on the banks of the Jordan; choosing to cut off the supplies of the enemy, and attack their posts with overwhelming numbers, rather than encounter their furious fanaticism in a general engagement. Bither, a strong city, and defended by Barcochab in person, was the last to yield to the Romans. At length it was taken by storm, at the expense of much human life on either side; but as the leader of the rebellion was among the slain, the victors did not consider their success too dearly bought, as with the star whose light was extinguished in the carnage of Bither the hope of Israel fell to the earth. Dio Cassius relates, that during this war no fewer than 580,000 fell by the sword, besides those who perished by famine and disease. The whole of Judea was converted into a desert,--wolves and hyenas howled in the streets of the desolate cities,--and all the villages were consumed with fire.