Of Rabbi Akiba’s sincerity there are abundant proofs. His memory was ever held in the highest honour by his countrymen. He was reputed to be the most learned and eloquent of that famous generation of Jewish teachers. The strange mistake he made in recognizing the false Messiah Bar-cochab is hard to account for. As in the case of the two first famous Jewish wars, the Roman power seems at first to have underrated this rebellion, which, however, soon assumed a most formidable character. The general commanding in the Syrian provinces proving incapable, the ablest of the imperial generals, Sextus Julius Severus, was summoned from his command in distant Britain to Judæa. The Roman tactics employed were generally similar to those adopted by Trajan’s generals in the second Jewish war of A.D. 116-7. Severus avoided any so-called pitched battle, but advanced gradually, attacking and besieging each of the rebel garrisons, thus gradually wearing out the impetuosity and ardour of the fanatical insurgents. The war lasted from two to three years. The devastation, the result of this war, was evidently very awful, and the numbers of the slain seem to have been enormous. We read of 50 armed places being stormed, 985 villages and towns being destroyed; 580,000 men were said to have been slain, besides many who perished through hunger and disease: the numbers of slain in another account are, however, only given as amounting to 180,000. One cannot help coming to the conclusion that all these numbers are considerably exaggerated. Judæa, however, there is no doubt, especially in the southern districts, became literally a desert; wolves and hyenas are stated to have roamed at pleasure over the ravaged country; the south of Palestine became a vast charnel-house, and the present barren appearance of the country indicates that some terrible catastrophe has at some distant period passed over the land.[149] The sternest measures effectually to stamp out all traces of revolt on the part of the Jewish nation were adopted by the Roman government after the close of the campaign. Numbers of the fugitives were ruthlessly put to death. Many were sold into slavery. No Jew was ever allowed to approach the ruins of the Holy City. Once in the year, on “the day of weeping,” such of the hapless race who chose were suffered to come and mourn for a brief hour over the shapeless pile of stones which once had been a portion of their sacred Temple. For a time a bitter persecution throughout the Empire punished this last formidable uprising; but these rigorous measures were very soon relaxed when all fear of another outbreak had passed away, and the Jews, or what remained of the people, were suffered to live as they pleased, to worship after their own fashion, and to pursue the study of their loved Law unmolested.