Eliezer had sent to the Eomans proposing capitulation. The Jewish leader, infuriated with this act of treason, ordered the Eabbi to be instantly executed. This was done, and then, there being no longer any one to pray, the tide of battle turned, and on the fatal 9th of August the fortress of Bether was taken and the slaughter of the insurgents accomplished. The horses of the Eomans, we are told, were up to their girths in blood. An immense number fell in this war : Dio Cassius says five hundred and eighty thousand by the sword alone, not including those who fell by famine, disease, and fire. The fortress itself, when the last stand was made, whose position was long unknown, has been identified beyond a doubt by Mr. George Williams.* It appeared as if Hadrian's purpose was achieved and Judaism at last suppressed for ever. He turned Jerusalem into a Eoman colony, calling it iElia Capitolina, forbade any Jew on pain of death to appear even within sight of the city, and built a temple of Jupiter on the site of the Temple. On the site of the sepulchre of Christ, if indeed it was the site, was a temple to Venus, placed there, Eusebius would have us believe, in mockery of the Christian religion, and with a design to destroy the memory of the sepulchre. Meantime the Christians, who had suffered greatly during the revolt of Barcochebas, being tortured by the Jews and confounded with them by the Eomans, hastened to separate themselves as much as possible from further possibility of confusion by electing a Gentile convert, Marcus, to the bishopric of Jerusalem. To this period may be referred the first springing up of that hatred of the Jews which afterwards led to such great and terrible persecutions.! * ' Holy City,' vol. i. p. 210. f An account òf the Christian bishops, and of the controversies and discussion which harassed the church, will be found in Williams's ' Holy City.' It may be as well to mention that throughout this work we have studiously refrained from touching, except where it was impossible to avoid doing so, on things ecclesiastical.