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on the passage, should connect the calamity with the eruption of 
Vesuvius is, with our present knowledge, almost a matter of course. 
But an admirable scholar and distinguished historian, the present 
Dean of Ely, seems to go somewhat further (. Romans under the 
Empire, ed. 1876, chap. lx. p. 308, note 2), and writes thus, — 
“ Haustx aut obrutse urhes ; ” “ in the one case swallowed up in streams 
of lava, in the other overwhelmed by showers of ashes.” If Dr 
Merivale means that these were the thoughts in the mind of Tacitus, 
and that contemporaries may possibly have so understood him, I am 
perfectly willing to admit it. But if I am asked to recognise this as 
the natural and obvious interpretation of the passage as it stands, I 
must (while fully conscious of my boldness in so doing) venture to 
express a respectful dissent. The “streams of lava” and the 
“ showers of ashes ” seem to me to be read into the page of Tacitus, 
but not by any grammatical or linguistic process to be fairly 
deducible from it. 
5. The two next witnesses, Josephus and Suetonius, need not 
detain us long. The Jewish historian, in the twentieth book of his 
Antiquities (cap. vii. § 2, ed. Richter), informs us that Drusilla, of 
whom we read in the Acts of the Apostles, was induced, through the 
influence of Simon Magus, to desert her husband Azizus, king of 
Emesa, and marry the Roman governor of Judaea, Felix. From this 
marriage was born a son, whom his mother called Agrippa. J osephus 
then adds : — “ How this young man with his wife disappeared at the 
time of the conflagration of mount Vesuvius, in the reign of the 
Emperor Titus, I will explain hereafter.” Like Tacitus, he left his 
promise unfulfilled. But of all my witnesses this is the first who has 
spoken at all definitely in regard to the date of the eruption. For 
as the reign of Titus lasted only two years and two months, the 
time is hereby brought within a narrow limit. Further, the 
announcement that persons of high social position disappeared in 
connection with the eruption, suggests, as a natural inference, that 
many of humbler rank and of the slaves may have perished likewise. 
For a youthful couple of the station occupied by Agrippa and his 
wife would have the best chance of escape afforded them. I am 
not, of course, forgetting that great loss of life is implied in the 
language of Statius, Plutarch, and Tacitus. But their statements 
are in this respect vague and general. 
