The council was held in the amphitheater of the palace. The heads of families and principal men of the people had crowded into it until the council, instead of the privacy of a few chieftains, assumed the look of a great popular assembly. Tens of thousands had forced themselves into the seats; every bosom responding to every accent of the orator, a mighty instrument vibrating through all its strings to the master’s hand. Accustomed as I was, by the festivals of our nation, to the sight of great bodies of men swayed by a common impulse, I stopped in astonishment at the entrance of the colossal circle. Three-fourths of it was almost totally dark, giving a shadowy intimation of human beings by the light of a few scattered torches, or the feeble dawn that rounded the extreme height with a ring of pale and moon-like rays. But in the center of the arena a fire blazed, and showed the leaders of the deliberation seated in the splendid chairs once assigned to the Roman governors and legionary tribunes. Eleazar filled the temporary throne. [Illustration: “The archer dropped dead, with the arrow still on his bow.” [_see page 60._ Copyright, 1901, by Funk & Wagnalls Company, N. Y. and London.] [Sidenote: The Shadow of Rome] The chief man of the land of Ephraim was haranguing the assembly as I entered. “Go to war with Rome!”[14] pronounced he; “you might as well go to war with the ocean, for her power is as wide; you might as well fight the storm, for her vengeance is as rapid; you might as well call up the armies of Judea against the pestilence, for her sword is as sweeping, as sudden, and as sure. Who but madmen would go to war without allies? and where are yours to be looked for? Rome is the mistress of all nations. Would you make a war of fortresses? Rome has in her possession all your walled towns. Every tower from Dan to Beersheba has a Roman banner on its battlements. Would you meet her in the plain? Where are your horsemen? The Roman cavalry would be upon you before you could draw your swords, and would trample you into the sand. Would you make the campaign in the mountains? The Roman generals would disdain to waste a drop of blood upon you; they would only have to block up the passes and leave famine to do the rest. Harvest is not come, and if it were, you dare not descend to the plains to gather it. You are told to rely upon the strength of the country. Have the fiery sands of the desert, or the marshes of Germany, or the snows of Scythia, or the stormy waters of Britain defended _them_? Does Egypt, within your sight, give you no example? A land of inexhaustible fertility, crowded with seven millions of men passionately devoted to their country, opulent, brave, and sustained by the countless millions of Africa, with a country defended on both flanks by the wilderness, in the rear inaccessible to the Roman, exposing the narrowest and most defensible front of any nation on earth; yet Egypt, in spite of