incident, also, has very much the appearance of a parody on the
evangelical history. But if the striking similarity of the two
narratives be thus accounted for, it is remarkable that while the priests
of Alexandria, or, perhaps, Vespasian himself from his residence in
Judaea, were in possession of such exact details of two of Christ's
miracles--if not of a third striking incident in his history--we should
find not the most distant allusion in the works of such cotemporary
writers as Tacitus and Suetonius, to any one of the still more stupendous
occurrences which had recently taken place in a part of the world with
which the Romans had now very intimate relations. The character of these
authors induces us to hesitate in adopting the notion, that either
contempt or disbelief would have led them to pass over such events, as
altogether unworthy of notice; and the only other inference from their
silence is, that they had never heard of them. But as this can scarcely
be reconciled with the plagiarism attributed to Vespasian or the Egyptian
priests, it is safer to conclude that the coincidence, however singular,
was merely fortuitous. It may be added that Spartianus, who wrote the
lives of Adrian and succeeding emperors, gives an account of a similar
miracle performed by that prince in healing a blind man.

[749] A.U.C. 823-833, excepting 826 and 831.

[750] The temple of Peace, erected A.D. 71, on the conclusion of the
wars with the Germans and the Jews, was the largest temple in Rome.
Vespasian and Titus deposited in it the sacred vessels and other spoils
which were carried in their triumph after the conquest of Jerusalem.
They were consumed, and the temple much damaged, if not destroyed, by
fire, towards the end of the reign of Commodus, in the year 191. It
stood in the Forum, where some ruins on a prodigious scale, still
remaining, were traditionally considered to be those of the Temple of