66 MATTHEW OF WBSTMTJFSTEB. B.C. 250. the Africans ; for he asserted that they were so much broken by their disasters that they had no hope of recovering themselves, and that it was not for the advantage of the Romans that so many thousand prisoners as they had should be restored for the sake of himself, who was but one old man, and the few Roman prisoners besides, whom the Carthaginians had taken. And so he carried his point ; for no one of the Romans voted for the admission of the African ambassadors who had come to ask for peace. And after he had given that advice he was not compelled by the Romans to return to the Carthaginians, since they strove to detain him by force, but because he had sworn to the Carthaginians, he fulfilled his oath of his own accord. Regulus having returned, announced to the Carthaginians the answer of the Romans. But the Carthaginians put him to death with unheard-of and horrible tortures. For they fastened him in a narrow frame of wood in which he was com* pelled to stand, which frame was filled on all sides with sharp nails, so that he could not bend himself in any direction without the most terrible suffering, and then, cutting off his eyelids, they murdered him by excessive want of sleep. About the same time the river Picenus flowed with blood, and in Tuscany the sky was seen to be on fire, and there was an extraordinary light visible at night, three moons appearing in the heavens at the same time. CH . XII.—The kings of Judœa—Shahnaneser carries off the ten tribes—Pharaoh Necho carries off Jehoahaz to Egypt—Nebuchadnezzar carries offZedekiah to Babylon—Danieir-Shedrach, Meshach, and Abednego—End of the kingdom of Judah. HAVING now explained these matters briefly, our pen must turn back to the Jewish history. After the reign of Amaziah, king of Judah, whom I have already mentioned, the people remained without a king for thirteen years, as is proved by the books of the Kings, and by a comparison of the years of the kings of Judah and of the kings of Israel. After that interregnum, Ozias reigned fifty-two years, and after him Jotham 1 Ozias, (called by this name also, Matth. i. 8) who is also called in the Old Testament Uzziah, 2 Kings xv. 13, and Azariah, 2 Kings xv, 1. But our Chronicler appears to be mistaken as to the interregnum, which had no existence ; he was misled by 2 Kings xv. 1, where the twentyseventh year of Jeroboam's reign is spoken of, but that refers to bis partnership in the kingdom with his father ; it was only the sixteenth year of his reign as sole monarch of Israel.