the ancient glory of the temple of Jerusalem. As the Christians were firmly persuaded that a sentence of everlasting destruction had been pronounced against the whole fabric of the Mosaic law, the imperial sophist would have converted the success of his undertaking into a specious argument against the faith of prophecy, and the truth of revelation. He accordingly resolved to erect, without delay, on the commanding eminence of Moriah, a stately temple, which might eclipse the splendour of the church of the Resurrection on the adjacent hill of Calvary; to establish an order of priests, whose interested zeal would detect the arts, and resist the ambition, of their Christian rivals; and to invite a numerous colony of Jews, whose stern fanaticism would be always prepared to second, and even to anticipate, the hostile measures of the Pagan government. Among the friends of the emperor (if the names of emperor and of friend are not incompatible), the first place was assigned by Julian himself to the virtuous and learned Alypius. The humanity of Alypius was tempered by severe justice and manly fortitude; and while he exercised his abilities in the civil administration of Britain, he imitated, in his poetical compositions, the harmony and softness of the odes of Sappho.1 This minister, to whom Julian communicated, without reserve, his most careless levities and his most serious counsels, received an extraordinary commission to restore, in its pristine beauty, the temple of Jerusalem; and the diligence of Alypius required and obtained the strenuous support of the governor of Palestine. At the call of their great deliverer, the Jews, from all the provinces of the empire, assembled on the holy mountain of their fathers; and their insolent triumph alarmed and exasperated the Christian inhabitants of Jerusalem. The desire of rebuilding the temple, has, in every age, been the ruling passion of the children of Israel. In this propitious moment the men forgot their avarice, and the women their delicacy; spades and pickaxes of silver were provided by the vanity of the rich, and the rubbish was transported in mantles of silk and purple. Every purse was opened in liberal contributions, every hand claimed a share in the pious labour; and the commands of a great monarch were executed by the enthusiasm of a whole people. Yet, on this occasion, the joint efforts of power and enthusiasm were unsuccessful; and the ground of the Jewish temple, which is now covered by a Mahometan mosque, still continued Sappho, a celebrated lyric poetess of ancient Greece, B. c. 610. to exhibit the same edifying spectacle of ruin and desolation. Perhaps the absence and death of the emperor, and the new maxims of a Christian reign, might explain the interruption of an arduous work, which was attempted only in the last six months of the life of Julian. But the Christians entertained a natural and pious expectation, that, in this memorable contest, the honour of religion would be vindicated by some signal miracle. An earthquake, a whirlwind, and a fiery irruption, which overturned and scattered the new foundations of the temple, are attested, with some variations, by contemporary and respectable evidence. This public event is described by Ambrose, bishop of Milan, in an epistle to the emperor Theodosius, which must provoke the severe animadversion of the Jews; by the eloquent Chrysostom,3 who might appeal to the memory of the elder part of his congregation at Antioch; and by Gregory Nazianzen, who published his account of the miracle before the expiration of the same year. The last of these writers has boldly declared, that this preternatural event was not disputed by the infidels; and his assertion, strange as it may seem, is confirmed by the unexceptionable testimony of Ammianus Marcellinus.5 The philosophic soldier, who loved the virtues, without adopting the prejudices, of his master, has recorded, in his judicious and candid history of his own times, the extraordinary obstacles which interrupted the restoration of the temple of Jerusalem. "Whilst Alypius, assisted by the governor of the province, urged, with vigour and diligence, the execution of the work, horrible balls of fire breaking out near the foundations, with frequent and reiterated attacks, rendered the place, from time to time, inaccessible to the scorched and blasted workmen; and the victorious element continuing in this manner obstinately and resolutely bent, as it were, to drive them to a distance, the undertaking was abandoned." Such authority should satisfy a believing, and must astonish an incredulous, mind. 1. How came Julian to be called the Apostate? 3. How was this attempt frustrated? 4. Name the writers who attest this 2. When did he attempt to restore the strange occurrence, and show that they temple? are worthy of all credit. 2 St. Ambrose, born at Treves in France, A. D. 340. 3 Chrysostom, an eminent father of the church, born at Antioch, A. D. 347. 4 Gregory Nazianzen, an eloquent father of the church, born near Nazianzus, a town in Cappadocia, in the early part of the 4th century. 5 Ammianus Marcellinus, a candid and impartial Roman historian, who flourished in the early part of the 4th century. THE ARCH OF TITUS, AT ROME. THIS arch, which is still standing, was erected by the senate and people in honour of the emperor Titus, to commemorate the conquest of Jerusalem. As a record of Scripture history it is the most interesting ruin in Rome. To the Jews it is so deeply affecting, as a record of humiliating calamity, that, it is said, no Jew will ever willingly pass under it. It is a single arch of Greek marble, with fluted composite columns, and sculptures of the triumph of Titus, the most important of which is a procession bearing the spoils taken from the temple of Jerusalem; as the golden table, the silver trumpets, and the seven-branched massive gold candlestick, which fell into the Tiber from the Milvian bridge during the flight of Maxentius from the onslaught of Constantine; the size of this candlestick appears to be nearly a man's height, corresponding in size and form with the description given by Josephus, who was an eyewitness of the triumph. The sculptures were executed from the objects. themselves, which, although they were not the same sacred vessels made under the direction of Moses, had been made by persons well acquainted with their form, the general outlines of which may be traced in Exodus xxv. 3-36,-these holy instruments and vessels having been formed 3346 years ago,bearing undeniable evidence to the truth of the Mosaic history. On one of the keystones, also, is the figure of a Roman warrior, nearly entire. BATTLE OF MARATHON. (From Grote's "History of Greece.") DARIUS, king of Persia, determined to be avenged of the Athenians for the aid given by them to their brethren of the Ionian colonies. At the instigation of Hippias, a fugitive noble from Athens, he sent a powerful army into Greece under command of Datis and Artaphernes. The invaders were met and totally defeated by the Athenians at Marathon 490, B.C. A tumulus was raised over the remains of the Athenian citizens who fell in the battle, and pillars erected on the spot inscribed with their names. To this day a conspicuous mound exists in the plain, and the peasant still fancies he hears the sound of spectral cavalry sweeping by night across the plain. Tuʼmu-lus, n. (L. tumeo), a barrow | Hop'lite, n. (Gr. hopla), in ancient MARATHON, situated near to a Greece, a heavy-armed soldier. Pol'e-march (mark), n. (Gr. polemos, arche), at Athens, the third archon or chief magistrate, who originally commanded in war. bay on the eastern coast of E. from Athens, is divided by the high ridge of Mount Pentelikus from the city, with which it communicated by two roads, one to the north, another to the south of that mountain. Of these two roads, the northern, at once the shortest and the most difficult, is twenty-two miles in length; the southern-longer but more easy, and the only one practicable for chariots-is twenty-six miles in length, or about six and a half hours of computed march. It passed between Mounts Pentelikus and Hymettus, through the ancient demes of Gargêttus and Pallênê, and was the road by which Peisistratus and Hippias, when they landed at Marathon fortyseven years before, had marched to Athens. The bay of Marathon, sheltered by a projecting cape from the northward, affords both deep water and a shore convenient for landing; while "its plain (says a careful modern observer) extends in a perfect level along this fine bay, and is in length about six miles, in breadth never less than about one mile and a half. Two marshes bound the extremities of the plain: the southern is not very large, and is almost dry at the conclusion of the great heats; but the northern, which generally covers considerably more than a square mile, offers several parts which are at all seasons impassable. Both however leave a broad, firm, sandy beach between them and the sea. The uninterrupted flatness of the plain is hardly relieved by a single tree; and an amphitheatre of rocky hills and rugged mountains separates it from the rest of Attica, over the lower ridges of which some steep and difficult paths communicate with the districts of the interior." The position occupied by Miltiadês before the battle, identified as it was to all subsequent Athenians by the sacred grove of Heraklês near Marathon, was probably on some portion of the high ground above this plain, and Cornelius Nepos1 tells us that he protected it from the attacks of the Persian cavalry by felled trees obstructing the approach. The Persians occupied a position on the plain; while their fleet was ranged along the beach, and Hippias himself marshalled them for the battle. The native Persians and Sakae, the best troops in the whole army, were placed in the centre, which they considered as the post of honour, and which was occupied by the Persian king himself, when present at a battle. The right wing was so regarded by the Greeks, and the polemarch Kallimachus had the command of it; the hoplites being arranged in the order of their respec 1 Cornelius Nepos, a celebrated Roman geographer and historian of the time of Julius Cæsar and the first six years of Augustus. tive tribes from right to left, and at the extreme left stood the Plataeans. It was necessary for Miltiadês to present a front equal or nearly equal to that of the more numerous Persian host, in order to guard himself from being taken in flank: and with this view he drew up the central tribes, including the Leontis and Antiochis in shallow files and occupying a large breadth of ground; while each of the wings was in stronger and deeper order, so as to make his attack efficient on both sides. His whole army consisted of hoplites, with some slaves as unarmed or light-armed attendants, but without either bowmen or cavalry. Nor could the Persians have been very strong in this latter force, seeing that their horses had to be transported across the Ægean. But the elevated position of Miltiadês enabled them to take some measure of the numbers under his command, and the entire absence of cavalry among their enemies could not but confirm the confidence with which a long career of uninterrupted victory had impressed their generals. At length the sacrifices in the Greek camp were favourable for battle, and Miltiadês, who had everything to gain by coming immediately to close quarters, ordered his army to advance at a running step over the interval of one mile which separates the two armies. This rapid forward movement, accompanied by the war cry or paean which always animated the charge of the Greek soldier, astounded the Persian army; who construed it as an act of desperate courage little short of insanity, in a body not only small but destitute of cavalry or archers—but who at the same time felt their conscious superiority sink within them. It seems to have been long remembered also among the Greeks as the peculiar characteristic of the battle of Marathon, and Herodotus tells us that the Athenians were the first Greeks who ever charged at a run. It doubtless operated beneficially in rendering the Persian cavalry and archers comparatively innocuous, but we may reasonably suppose that it also disordered the Athenian ranks, and that when they reached the Persian front, they were both out of breath and unsteady in that line of presented spears and shields which constituted their force. On the two wings, where the files were deep, this disorder produced no mischievous effect: the Persians, after a certain resistance, were overcome and driven back. But in the centre, where the files were shallow, and where moreover the native 2 Herodotus, 'The father of history'-the most ancient Greek writer whose works are preserved, born about 484 B.C. |