The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Эдвард Гиббон

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СКАЧАТЬ tom. vii. p. 237-288) of an anonymous critic, whom I believe to have been the learned Abbé de Longuerue. [Most unluckily book xviii. of the Antiquities, in which the passage occurs (c. 3, 3), is not contained in the Palatinus, the best MS. of the work. It has found defenders in recent times, and Ewald has given reasons for regarding it as not entirely spurious but tainted with interpolations. There is another noteworthy passage in xx. 9, 1, about the death of St. James, “brother of Jesus, called the Christ.”]

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      See the lives of Tacitus, by Lipsius and the Abbé de la Bléterie, Dictionnaire de Bayle à l’article Tacite, and Fabricius, Biblioth. Latin. tom. ii. p. 386, edit. Ernest.

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      Principatum Divi Nervæ et imperium Trajani, uberiorem securioremque materiam senectuti seposui. Tacit. Hist. i. [1].

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      See Tacit. Annal. ii. 61, iv. 4.

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      The player’s name was Aliturus. Through the same channel, Josephus (De Vitâ suâ, c. 3), about two years before, had obtained the pardon and release of some Jewish priests, who were prisoners at Rome.

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      The learned Dr. Lardner (Jewish and Heathen Testimonies, vol. ii. p. 102, 103) has proved that the name of Galilæans was a very ancient and, perhaps, the primitive appellation of the Christians.

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      Joseph. Antiquitat. xviii. 1, 2. Tillemont, Ruine des Juifs, p. 742. The sons of Judas were crucified in the time of Claudius. His grandson Eleazar, after Jerusalem was taken, defended a strong fortress with 960 of his most desperate followers. When the battering-ram had made a breach, they turned their swords against their wives, their children, and at length against their own breasts. They died to the last man.

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      See Dodwell. Paucitat. Mart. l. xiii. The Spanish Inscription in Gruter, p. 238, No. 9, is a manifest and acknowledged forgery, contrived by that noted impostor Cyriacus of Ancona, to flatter the pride and prejudices of the Spaniards. See Ferreras, Histoire d’Espagne, tom. i. p. 192. [Gibbon’s conjecture is not happy, and need not be considered seriously.]

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      The Capitol was burnt during the civil war between Vitellius and Vespasian, the 19th of December, ad 69. On the 10th of August, ad 70, the Temple of Jerusalem was destroyed by the hands of the Jews themselves, rather than by those of the Romans.

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      The new Capitol was dedicated by Domitian. Sueton. in Domitian. c. 5. Plutarch in Poplicola, tom. i. p. 230, edit. Bryan. The gilding alone cost 12,000 talents (above two millions and a half). It was the opinion of Martial (l. ix. Epigram 3) that, if the emperor had called in his debts, Jupiter himself, even though he had made a general auction of Olympus, would have been unable to pay two shillings in the pound.

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      With regard to the tribute, see Dion Cassius, l. lxvi. p. 1082 [c. 7], with Reimarus’s notes. Spanheim, de Usû Numismatum, tom. ii. p. 571, and Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, l. vii. c. 2.

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      Suetonius (in Domitian. c. 12) had seen an old man of ninety publicly examined before the procurator’s tribunal. This is what Martial calls, Mentula tributis damnata.

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      This appellation was at first understood in the most obvious sense, and it was supposed that the brothers of Jesus were the lawful issue of Joseph and of Mary. A devout respect for the virginity of the Mother of God suggested to the Gnostics, and afterwards to the orthodox Greeks, the expedient of bestowing a second wife on Joseph. The Latins (from the time of Jerome) improved on that hint, asserted the perpetual celibacy of Joseph, and justified, by many similar examples, the new interpretation that Jude, as well as Simon and James, who are styled the brothers of Jesus Christ, were only his first cousins. See Tillemont, Mém. Ecclésiast. tom. i. part iii., and Beausobre, Hist. Critique du Manichéisme, l. ii. c. 2.

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      Thirty-nine πλέθρα, squares of an hundred feet each, which, if strictly computed, would scarcely amount to nine acres. But the probability of circumstances, the practice of other Greek writers, and the authority of M. de Valois inclined me to believe that the πλέθρον is used to express the Roman jugerum.

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      Eusebius, iii. 20. The story is taken from Hegesippus.

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      See the death and character of Sabinus in Tacitus (Hist. iii. 74, 75). Sabinus was the elder brother, and, till the accession of Vespasian, had been considered as the principal support of the Flavian family.

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      Flavium Clementem patruelem suum contemptissimæ inertæi . . . extenuissimâ suspicione interemit. Sueton. in Domitian. c. 15.

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      The isle of Pandataria, according to Dion. Bruttius Præsens (apud Euseb. iii. 18) banishes her to that of Pontia, which was not far distant from the other. That difference, and a mistake, either of Eusebius or of his transcribers, have given occasion to suppose two Domitillas, the wife and the niece of Clemens. See Tillemont, Mémoires Ecclésiastiques, tom. ii. p. 224.

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      Dion, l. lxvii. p. 1112 [c. 14]. If the Bruttius Præsens, from whom it is probable that he collected, this account, was the correspondent of Pliny (Epistol. vii. 3), we may consider him as a contemporary writer.

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      Suet. in Domit. c. 17. Philostratus in Vit. Apollon, l. viii.

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      Dion, l. lxviii. p. 1118 [c. 1]. Plin. Epistol. iv. 22.

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      Plin. Epistol. x. 97. The learned Mosheim expresses himself (p. 147, 232) with the highest approbation of Pliny’s moderate and candid temper. Notwithstanding Dr. Lardner’s suspicions (see Jewish and Heathen Testimonies, vol. ii. p. 46), I am unable to discover any bigotry in his language or proceedings.

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      Plin. Epist. v. 8. He pleaded his first cause ad 81: the year after the famous eruptions of Mount Vesuvius, in which his uncle lost his life.

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      Plin. Epist. x. 98. [Tillemont’s date, 104; Mommsen’s, 112.] Tertullian (Apolog. c. 5) considers this rescript as a relaxation of the ancient penal laws, “quas Trajanus ex parte frustratus est”; and yet Tertullian, in another part of his Apology, exposes the inconsistency of prohibiting inquiries and enjoining punishments.

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      Eusebius (Hist. Ecclesiast. l. iv. c. 9) СКАЧАТЬ