from thence the flame extended to Egypt, and next to the island of Cyprus.  Dreadful were the devastations committed by these infatuated people, and shocking the barbarities exercised on the unoffending inhabitants. 5.  Some were sawn asunder, others cast to wild beasts, or made to kill each other, while the most unheard-of torments were invented and exercised on the unhappy victims of their fury.  Nay, to such a pitch was their animosity carried, that they actually ate the flesh of their enemies, and even wore their skins. 6.  However, these cruelties were of no long duration:  the governors of the respective provinces making head against their tumultuous fury, caused them to experience the horrors of retaliation, and put them to death, not as human beings, but as outrageous pests of society.  In Cy’prus it was made capital for any Jew to set foot on the island.

7.  During these bloody transactions, Tra’jan was prosecuting his successes in the east, where he carried the Roman arms farther than they had ever before penetrated; but resolving to visit Rome once more, he found himself too weak to proceed in his usual manner.  He therefore determined to return by sea; but on reaching the city of Seleu’cia, he died of an apoplexy, in the sixty-third year of his age, after a reign of nineteen years, six months, and fifteen days.

[Sidenote:  A.D. 117.]

8.  A’drian, the nephew of Trajan, was chosen to succeed him.  He began his reign by pursuing a course opposite to that of his predecessor, taking every method of declining war, and promoting the arts of peace.  His first care was to make peace with the Par’thians, and to restore Chos’roes, for he was satisfied with preserving the ancient limits of the empire, and seemed no way ambitious of extensive conquest.

9.  A’drian was one of the most remarkable of the Roman emperors for the variety of his endowments.  He was highly skilled in all the accomplishments both of body and mind.  He composed with great beauty, both in prose and verse, he pleaded at the bar, and was one of the best orators of his time. 10.  Nor were his virtues fewer than his accomplishments.  His moderation and clemency appeared by pardoning the injuries which he had received when he was yet but a private man.  One day meeting a person who had formerly been his most inveterate enemy—­“My good friend,” said he, “you have escaped; for I am made emperor.”  He was affable to his friends, and gentle to persons of meaner stations; he relieved their wants, and visited them in sickness; it being his constant maxim, that he had been elected emperor, not for his own good, but for the benefit of mankind at large.

11.  These virtues were, however, contrasted by vices of considerable magnitude; or rather, he wanted strength of mind to preserve his rectitude of character without deviation.