[CHRIST. LXX] [VESPASIAN. I] VESPASIAN all this while was in Egypt: at Alexandria he receives tydings of his parties success, and thither is such conflux of Friends, Ambassadors, and Al∣lies to congratulate and homage him, that that City, though the second in the Empire, was little enough to entertain the company gathered thither. Vitellius his fall was in De∣cember, the later end of the last year; and Vespasian did wait in the beginning of this, but till he could settle affairs there where he was, and till he might have good weather at Sea, and then he sets for Italy: and Titus his son parting with him at Alexandria, sets for Judea, to make some end of those Wars.
And here we cannot but take in two passages for Chronology sake, which help well to measure the time that we are just now upon. The one is this of Dion Cassius, in the life of Vespasian. From the death of Nero to the reign of Vespasian, there intercurred but one year and two and twenty days. And I write this, least any should misreckon; giving the whole time to every one that reigned. For they did not succeed one another, but one reigned in the time of another: So that their years are not to be counted, by their succeeding one another, but accor∣ding to the exact course of the time it self.
The other is out of Josephus, who once again tells that the fall of Jerusalem was in the second year of Vespasian. De Bell. lib. 6. cap. 47, &c. And yet in recording the story and times of the sacking of it, he doth plainly place it in that year, that the Roman Annals write Vespasians first: as it will be obvious to observe, to any that peruseth them and him. His computation therefore must be cast by his own counters: for he accounteth the begin∣ning of his reign from the time that the Armies in the East proclaimed him, and swore fealty to him: which was in July: and in September twelvemonth after Jerusalem was taken; at which time Vespasian was entred indeed upon a second year from the time of his proclaiming; and according to this calculation it is that Josephus reckoneth: whereas Vitellius was alive and fought it out many months after Vespasian was proclaimed: there∣fore the Roman Fasti do very properly begin his first year from the beginning of January, this year that we are upon.
Titus coming into Judea, and there gathering all his forces together, marcheth against Jerusalem, and pitcheth his siege against it, when now the Passover festival had called all the people of the Country in thither: For as the turbulencies and intestine commotions in the bowels of the Empire it self the last year, had given the Jews some respite from the Roman Armies, so had they given them some boldness and security, seeing Vespasian and his Forces were now forced to turn their faces another way; and they hoped they would hardly have turned towards them again. How much they were deceived, T••us without, and Famine and all miseries within did soon shew them. What were the passages in this siege, and what Famine, Pestilence, Civil slaughters, and various kinds of death the besieged suffered in it, are so largely described by Josephus, that it were but a need∣less rehearsal to speak of them: The end was, that the Temple and City were raked up in ashes: eleven hundred thousand perished in the siege; almost an hundred thou∣sand taken prisoners, and the Nation ruined from what they had been. That this desolation is phrased in Scripture as the desolating of the whole world, [as we have had occasion to observe divers times by several passages that we have met withal refer∣ring thereunto] it will appear no wonder, if we consider that it was the destroying of the old peculiar Covenanted people; of the Lords own habitation, Ordinances, and place chosen by him above, ••ay alone of all the places of the world, to put his Name there.