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Once more, I venture to point out that training in the use of the weapons of precision of science may have its value in historical studies, if only in preventing the occurrence of droll blunders in geography.

In the third citation (“Wars,” IV. vii.) Josephus tells us that Vespasian marched against “Gadara,” which he calls the metropolis of Peraea (it was possibly the seat of a common festival of the Decapolitan cities), and entered it, without opposition, the wealthy and powerful citizens having opened negotiations with him without the knowledge of an opposite party, who, “as being inferior in number to their enemies, who were within the city, and seeing the Romans very near the city,” resolved to fly. Before doing so, however, they, after a fashion unfortunately too common among the Zealots, murdered and shockingly mutilated Dolesus, a man of the first rank, who had promoted the embassy to Vespasian; and then “ran out of the city.” Hereupon, “the people of Gadara” (surely not this time “Hebrews bound by the Mosaic law”) received Vespasian with joyful acclamations, voluntarily pulled down their wall, so that the city could not in future be used as a fortress by the Jews, and accepted a Roman garrison for their future protection. Granting that this Gadara really is the city of the Gadarenes, the reference, without citation, to the passage, in support of Mr. Gladstone’s contention seems rather remarkable. Taken in conjunction with the shortly antecedent ravaging of the Gadarene territory by the Jews, in fact, better proof could hardly be expected of the real state of the case; namely, that the population of Gadara (and notably the wealthy and respectable part of it) was thoroughly Hellenic; though, as in Caesarea and elsewhere among the Palestinian cities, the rabble contained a considerable body of fanatical Jews, whose reckless ferocity made them, even though a mere minority of the population, a standing danger to the city.

Thus Mr. Gladstone’s conclusion from his study of Josephus, that the population of Gadara were “Hebrews bound by the Mosaic law,” turns out to depend upon nothing better than the marvellously complete misinterpretation of what that author says, combined with equally marvellous geographical misunderstandings, long since exposed and rectified; while the positive evidence that Gadara, like other cities of the Decapolis, was thoroughly Hellenic in organisation, and essentially Gentile in population, is overwhelming.

And, that being the fact of the matter, patent to all who will take the trouble to enquire about what has been said about it, however obscure to those who merely talk of so doing, the thesis that the Gadarene swineherds, or owners, were Jews violating the Mosaic law shows itself to be an empty and most unfortunate guess. But really, whether they that kept the swine were Jews, or whether they were Gentiles, is a consideration which has no relevance whatever to my case. The legal provisions, which alone had authority over an inhabitant of the country of the Gadarenes, were the Gentile laws sanctioned by the Roman suzerain of the province of Syria, just as the only law, which has authority in England, is that recognised by the sovereign Legislature. Jewish communities in England may have their private code, as they doubtless had in Gadara. But an English magistrate, if called upon to enforce their peculiar laws, would dismiss the complainants from the judgment seat, let us hope with more politeness than Gallio did in a like case, but quite as firmly. Moreover, in the matter of keeping pigs, we may be quite certain that Gadarene law left everybody free to do as he pleased, indeed encouraged the practice rather than otherwise. Not only was pork one of the commonest and one of the most favourite articles of Roman diet; but, to both Greeks and Romans, the pig was a sacrificial animal of high importance. Sucking pigs played an important part in Hellenic purificatory rites; and everybody knows the significance of the Roman suovetaurilia, depicted on so many bas-reliefs.