File:The universal geography - the earth and its inhabitants (1876) (14578875718).jpg

Identifier: cu31924095158964 (find matches)
Title: The universal geography : the earth and its inhabitants
Year: 1876 (1870s)
Authors: Reclus, Elisée, 1830-1905 Ravenstein, Ernest George, 1834-1913 Keane, A. H. (Augustus Henry), 1833-1912
Subjects: Geography
Publisher: London : J.S. Virtue & Co., Ltd.
Contributing Library: Cornell University Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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, by whom its temple was destroyed and itswalls razed to the ground. After the Babylonian captivity the Jews rebuilt the House of God, but they never recovered their political independence, and theircity fell an easy prey to each passing conqueror. It was even seized by theParthians at a time when, already subject to Rome, it was ruled by a vassal of theempire. Full of coniidence in the prophecies which foretold the advent of a Saviour,heir to the throne of David, the Jews dared nevertheless to rise against Rome.Taking refuge in Jerusalem, at that time protected by a triple line of rampaits,they defended themselves with desperate valour. But famine, pestilence, incendiaryfires, and fratricidal strife were the allies of the Roman captain, Titus. Towerafter tower crumbled under the blows of his battering-rams ; quarter after quarterwas stormed by his veteran legions; the iron circle was drawn stUl closer roundthe doomed city of Zion. Deserters to the Roman camp were crucified before its
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8 i p rt PALESTINE. 417 walls, captives butchered or thrown to the flames, the bravest grew pale at horrorsunspeakable daily perpetrated within and beyond the ramparts, and when the laststronghold fell, of half a million souls, scarcely a few thousand deluded wretcheshad survived to make a Roman holiday. After another destructive siege rebuilt by Hadrian, but henceforth interdictedto the children of Israel, Jerusalem was still reserved for fresh woes, of which themost terrible was that inflicted on it by the ruthless Crusaders in the year of grace1099. At that time it was an Arab and Mussulman city. But as soon as theyhad hewn a bloody way to the Holy Sepulchre, the champions of Christendom,scarcely giving themselves breathing-time to utter a prayer of thanksgiving, begana wholesale massacre, in which sixty thousand Mohammedans were butchered.After the days of the Crusades, the capital of Palestine dwindled to the proportionsof a small town; but although still captured and recaptured

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