Persius wrote little, and that little has all come down to us. His Latin, however, is so crabbed and difficult that he is easily the least read of Roman poets.[349] His productions are called Satires. They are less that than homilies, in which, of course, the virtues he inculcates are best illustrated by the vices he attacks. One of these vices is superstition. The mental condition that is terrified by vain and monstrous imaginings of ignorant men is set forth in the Fifth Satire:[350] But when the day of Herod comes and the lamps on the grimy sills, garlanded with violets, disgorge their unctuous smoke-clouds; when the tail of a tunny-fish fills its red dish and the white jar bursts with wine, you move your lips in silent dread and turn pale at the Sabbath of the circumcised. As a picture of Jewish life on the eve of the Sabbath, this passage is invaluable. We can readily imagine how the activities of a squalid suburb inhabited by a brawling class of men, mostly of Oriental descent, must have impressed both the grandee and the Stoic. But the passage is cited here, not merely as a genre-picture, but more especially because it is again the phase of Jewish life, so often neglected in histories, that has brought the Jews to Persius’ attention. The ordinary Roman, not saved from carnal weakness by Stoicism, is found to stand in particular dread of the strange and nameless God of the Jews, to whom he brings a reverence and awe that ought legitimately to be directed only to the gods of his ancestors. Persius wrote while the temple was still standing. In 70 the temple was destroyed. A gaping mob saw the utensils of the inner shrine carried in triumph through the city, and could feast its eyes, if it chose, on the admirable portrayal of that procession, on the Arch of Titus near the Forum. It might be supposed that the God who in Roman eyes could not save His habitation from the flames, could hope for no adherents among His conquerors. But after the destruction of the temple, in the lifetime of the very men who cheered Titus when he returned from Palestine, we see the propaganda more vigorous, if anything, than before.