Books with author Alfred Church

In 70 A.D. the Roman Army stood before the walls of Jerusalem and laid siege to the city.The First Jewish-Roman War had been raging for four years by this point and the Romans were looking to make example of these rebellious subjects.But why did the Jewish War begin?How did the war develop and how did the Jews attempt to fight against one of the most effective military forces the world has ever known?Alfred J. Church’s brilliant The Story of the Last Days of Jerusalem is a fascinating history of this dramatic conflict that left the Jewish heartlands in tatters and their temple in ruins.Church was a classical scholar who used many primary sources to develop his account of this period, but he especially referred to the work of Josephus, a Jewish historian, who had fought against the Romans in the first few years of the war.This work is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of the Roman Empire as well as those who wish to learn about this famous, but tragic, event in Jewish history.Alfred J. Church was a historian and classical scholar who wrote on a number of subjects. The Story of the Last Days of Jerusalem was first published in 1881 and Church passed away in 1912.

Concerning this History I PURPOSE to write in this book the story of certain things which I have seen with my own eyes or have heard from the lips of those who were present at the doing of them. Peradventure some one may ask, and not without reason, who is this that speaks of his own knowledge of so many generations of men? A man may write of fifty or even of three-score years who, having begun to take note of the deeds and words of others as soon as he has reached years of discretion, shall continue in this work unto extreme old age, but who is this that tells the story of nigh upon two hundred years? Such questions it is fitting that I should answer, though I like not to speak of myself.I was chief keeper of the door in the palace of Pontius Pilatus, who was governor of the land of Judæa, having his authority from the Caesar of Rome. It was ill done of me who was a Jew to take such an office, but I was overcome by the greed of gain, as many have been, ever since the world was, to their own loss and ruin. I received from the treasury of the governor two silver pence by the day. And, over and above this wage, I was wont to receive monies from such as, having ends of their own to serve, desired admission to the palace at other times than were provided by the order of the place. But these were ill-gotten gains, so that having done ill in taking this office, I did yet worse in my holding of it. To them that had not the will or the power to buy my favour I bore myself proudly and unmercifully. I would keep out them that had lawful business with the governor, those who having been wronged sought redress and the like, admitting them who having made unrighteous gains, sought either to secure or to increase them. So it came to pass that I committed the grievous sin of which I bear the punishment to this very hour.

IN this tale I have closely followed the lines of Tacitus's narrative, though I have idealized the character of . Claudia, the British Princess,on whose marriage with a certain Pudens Martial writes an epigram, may, perhaps, be identified with the Claudia whose salutation St. Paul conveys in his Second Epistle to Timothy. I should have been glad to identify her husband with the Pudens whose name stands so near to hers, but the difficulty of doing so seems insuperable.

Roman life in the days of Cicero does not claim to be a life of Cicero or a history of the last days of the Roman Republic. Still less does it pretend to come into comparison with such a work as Bekker's Gallus, in which on a slender thread of narrative is hung a vast amount of facts relating to the social life of the Romans. I have tried to group round the central figure of Cicero various sketches of men and manners, and so to give my readers some idea of what life actually was in Rome, and the provinces of Rome, during the first six decades--to speak roughly--of the first century B.C.

This meeting-house of the Christians of Nicæa was really the club-house of the wool-combers of that city. The wool-combers' guild or company had, for some reason, passed to other places. Old members had died, and few or no new members had been admitted. Much of its property had been lost by the dishonesty of a treasurer. Finally the few surviving members had been glad to let the building to persons who were acting for the Christian community. No questions were asked as to the purpose for which it was to be used; but, as two or three out of the half-dozen of surviving wool-combers were Christians, it was well understood what this purpose was. It would have been, by the way, more exact to say "a burial club." This was the object for which it had been founded. Its social meetings had been funeral feasts; hence its situation in the near neighbourhood of a cemetery. This made it particularly suitable for meetings of the Christians. Assemblies held before dawn—for this was the custom—and close to a burial-ground, would be little likely to be observed.The congregation may have numbered one hundred persons, of whom at least two-thirds were men. There was a division between the sexes—that is to say, the men occupied all the seats (benches of the plainest kind) on one side of the building, and the front half of those on the other. It was easy to see that, with a very few exceptions, they were of humble rank. Many, indeed, were slaves. These wore frocks reaching down to the knees, cut square at the neck, and for the convenience of leaving the working arm free, having one sleeve only. These frocks were made of coarse black or brown serge, trimmed at the bottom with sheepskin. Two or three were sailors, clad in garments so coarse as almost to look like mats. Among the few worshippers of superior station was an aged man, who wore a dress then rarely seen, the Roman toga. The narrow purple stripe with which it was edged, and the gold ring which he wore on the forefinger of his left hand, showed that he was a knight. His order included, as is well known, the chief capitalists of Rome, and, among other speculations, was accustomed to farm the taxes. Titus Antistius—this was the old man's name—had been the agent for this purpose in Bithynia, but he had for some time retired from the occupation. His age, his blameless character, and the wealth which he dispensed with a liberal hand, helped, together with his rank, to make him the principal character in the Christian community of Nicæa. He sat on a cushioned chair, but the privilege had been conceded to him quite as much on account of his age and infirmity as of his social position.

I have found it a difficult task, and I must ask the indulgence of my readers, who will certainly miss, not only the freshness and simplicity of the great Greek epic, but those chief characteristics of Virgil, his supreme mastery of expression and the splendour of his style. I beg them to remember that I do not attempt to translate my original, that while I add nothing (except, in a very few instances, an explanatory phrase), I am constrained to leave out much; and that what I leave out, or, at the most, very inadequately render, will often be found to be that which they have been accustomed most to admire in the poet,—his brilliant rhetoric, his philosophy, his imagination, and his pathos. My chief aim has been to represent to English readers the narrative, the interest of which is, perhaps, scarcely appreciated...

For this fiction there is a slight foundation of fact. Stow, in his Chronicle (first published in 1565), says that a chapel was built in memory of those who had fallen in the battle of Barnet, about half a mile from the town. "It is now," he writes, "a dwelling-house; the top quarters remain yet." This somewhat obscure expression possibly means that, while the chapel itself had been dismantled, the priests' chamber above still remained. It has been conjectured that this dwelling-house still exists in a building known as Pymlicoe House, which stands on the west side of Hadley Green, at about the distance from Barnet specified by Stow. The name occurs in the register of Hadley parish, under date February 10, 1673-4, "a travelling woman from the pymblicoe house." I have taken the liberty of treating this conjecture as if it were a fact.The personages in this story are of course imaginary, but I have endeavoured to make their surroundings historical.The description of life at Eton is taken from a document dating from about the middle of the sixteenth century. I have ventured to ante-date it by about a hundred years. In so conservative a school the customs of 1550 might very well have been traced back for a century.I have post-dated by about as long a time the armourer whom I describe as occupying the manor-house of the Frowykes.There is no historical foundation for the description of the death of the Earl of Warwick; I fear that I cannot even plead that it is probable. The details of the escape of the Duke of Exeter are imaginary, but the outlines of the incident are real. This description of the election of an abbot has been transferred from John of Wheathampstead to his successor.I must apologize for having used a style more modern than the time to which it professes to belong. The "Paston Letters" afforded me, indeed, a model which I might have imitated; but my English would have seemed intolerably harsh to my readers, and I preferred to make my chantry priest write as he might have written had he been born a century later.I desire to express my obligations to the Rev. F. Cass, Rector of Monken Hadley, whose antiquarian knowledge has been of the greatest service to me; to Mr. Falconer Madan, one of the sub-librarians of the Bodleian, whose unfailing courtesy and kindness are known to all readers in that library; and to Mr. T. J. Jackson, of Worcester College, who communicated to me some facts about the Benedictines of Gloucester College.I am greatly indebted to the Rev. Henry Anstey's Preface to the Munimenta Academica in the Master of the Rolls' Series; to Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy Hardy's Preface to the Descriptive Catalogue of Materials Relating to the History of Great Britain and Ireland, in the same series; to the Rev. Mackenzie Walcott's Church Work and Life in English Minsters; to the Rev. Sparrow Simpson's Chapters in the History of Old St. Paul's; and to Mr. W. Blades' monograph on William Caxton. I have also drawn much from Mr. Newcome's History of St. Albans.

In these stories I have kept as close to my original as I could, but I do not profess to have translated it. Of course, nothing like criticism or correction has been attempted.I should be sorry that readers who are not acquainted with the work of the "Father of History" should carry away from this book the impression that he is nothing more than a credulous and gossiping teller of stories. That he was often deceived, and that he writes with a simplicity which is quite remote from our ways of thinking, is manifest; but those who know him best are aware that he was nevertheless a shrewd and painstaking observer, whose credit has been distinctly increased by the discoveries of modern times.I wish to express my sincere gratitude to my relative, Miss E. L. Seeley, for the pains which she has bestowed on the illustrations to this volume.HADLEY GREEN

"The Count of the Saxon Shore" was a title bestowed by Maximian (collegue of Diocletian in the Empire from 286 to 305 A.D.) on the officer whose task it was to protect the coasts of Britain and Gaul from the attacks of the Saxon pirates. It appears to have existed down to the abandonment of Britain by the Romans.So little is known from history about the last years of the Roman occupation that the writer of fiction has almost a free hand. In this story a novel, but, it is hoped, not an improbable, view is taken in an important event—the withdrawl of the legions. This is commonly assigned to the year 410, when the Emperor Honorius formally withdrew the Imperial protection from Britain. But the usurper Constantine had actually removed the British army two years before; and, as he was busied with the conquest of Gaul and Spain for a considerable time after, it is not likely that they were ever sent back.

The Iliad is typically described as one of the greatest war stories of all time. Set during the Trojan War, this timeless poem vividly conveys the horror and heroism of men and gods wrestling with towering emotions and battling amid devastation and destruction. Homer's tale is a compassionate view of human life lived under the shadow of suffering and death in the face of an often uncaring divinity. To call it a war story does not begin to describe the emotional sweep of its action and characters in the 10th and final year of the Greek siege of Troy.

I am going to tell you about some Greek children, who lived more than two thousand years ago in a city called Athens. The city stands still, and the ruins of many of its old buildings are to be seen. Most of these buildings were temples, in which the people used to worship their many gods. There was Phœbus, the sun-god; and Hera, the goddess of power; and Athené, the goddess of wisdom; and Demeter, or mother-earth. For they did not know, as did the Jews—who had, you will remember, but one temple,—that there is but one God from whom all good things come down to men. Athens was one of the richest and most beautiful cities in the world, and very powerful too; only at the particular time of which I am writing the people were in great distress. Their enemies sent an army every year into their country, and shut them up in their walls during all the spring and summer time. Thousands and thousands more than the city could properly hold were crowded into it; numbers of people had no houses to live in, and had to do as best they could under carts tilted up, and even in great barrels—any thing that could give them shelter. Even the rich felt this trouble very much, and especially the children, who had no out-door games; for the streets were, of course, not fit for them to play in, and they got sadly tired, in the hot days, of being always shut up in their nurseries.