The Palestinian Jews for a time were apparently hopelessly crushed, but the Jews of Cyrene and Alexandria were still a powerful and dangerous group. It is impossible now to indicate the precise causes of the formidable rising of A.D. 116-7. The absence of Trajan and his great army in the more distant regions of Asia, and the news that the Roman arms had met with a serious check in that distant and dangerous campaign, seem to have given the signal for an almost simultaneous Jewish uprising in the Cyrene province, in the city of Alexandria, and in Cyprus. We do not possess any very exact details here. The revolt was generally characterized by horrible cruelties on the part of the Jewish insurgents, and we read of fearful massacres perpetrated by the revolted Jews. The insurrection spread with alarming rapidity, and became a grave danger to the Empire. At first we only hear of several successes and victories. In the cities of Alexandria and Cyrene a reign of terror prevailed; but, as was ever the case when Rome in good earnest put forth her disciplined forces, the insurgents found themselves outnumbered and out-generalled. Two of the most distinguished of the imperial commanders, Marcius Turbo and Lucius Quietus, conducted the military operations. The war--for the Jewish revolt of A.D. 116-7 assumed the proportions of a grave war--lasted well-nigh two years; but the insurgents were in the end completely routed. The numbers of slain in this wild and undisciplined outburst of Jewish fury, according to the records of the historians of the war, are so great that we are tempted to suspect them exaggerated. In Cyrene and the neighbouring districts the number who perished is given as twenty-two thousand; the loss of life in Alexandria, Egypt, and Cyprus seems to have been equally terrible. But even granted that the numbers of Jews who perished in this fanatical rebellion have been, from one cause or other, exaggerated, it is certain that the numbers of the slain were enormous, that the power and influence of the Chosen People suffered a terrible check as the result of this rising, and that in the great cities of Cyrene and Alexandria the Jewish population of these centres--large and flourishing communities, possessing great wealth and influence, distinguished for their high culture and learning--were almost annihilated. The results of the insane revolts of A.D. 116-7 were indeed disastrous to the fortunes of this extraordinary and wonderful people. * * * * * But the end was not yet. Another bloody war, with all its fearful consequences, had to be waged between the Jew and the Empire before the Chosen People finally resigned itself to the new life it was destined to live through the long centuries which followed. The old spirit of restlessness, of wild visionary hopes of some great one who should arise in their midst, still lived among the more ardent and fervid members of the now scattered and diminished people.