Since Titus had gone, despairful Judaea had taken heart again.
Hope in that land was inextinguishable. The walls of Jerusalem
were still standing; in the Temple the offices continued. Though
Rome remained, there was Israel too. Passing that way one
afternoon, Hadrian mused. The city affected him; the site was
superb. And as he mused it occurred to him that Jerusalem was less
harmonious to the ear than Hadrianopolis; that the Temple occupied
a position on which a Capitol would look far better; in brief,
that Jehovah might be advantageously replaced by Jove. The army of
masons that were ever at his heels were set to work at once. They
had received similar orders and performed similar tasks so often
that they could not fancy anyone would object. The Jews did. They
fought as they had never fought before; they fought for three
years against a Nebuchadnezzar who created torrents of blood so
abundant that stones were carried for miles, and who left corpses
enough to fertilize the land for a decade. The survivors were
sold. Those for whom no purchasers could be found had their heads
amputated. Jerusalem was razed to the ground. The site of the
Temple was furrowed by the plow, sown with salt, and in place of
the City of David rose AElia Capitolina, a miniature Rome, whose
gates, save on one day in the year, Jews were forbidden under
penalty of death to pass, were forbidden to look at, and over
which were images of swine, pigs with scornful snouts, the feet
turned inward, the tail twisted like a lie.
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