Posterior to the Gospels, Vespasian fimud it one of the toparchies of Judjea {War, iii, 3, 5), but deserted by its inhabitants in a great tneasure when he encamped there (ibid, iv, 8, 2). He left a garrison on his dei)arture (not necessarily the 10th legion, wliicli is only stated to have marched throur/k Jericho) which was still there when Titus advanced upon Jerusalem. Is it asked how Jeri- cho was destroj'ed? Evidently by Vespasian ; for Jo- sephus, rightly understood, is not so silent as Dr. Robin- son (Bibl. Res. i, 566, 2d ed.) thinks. The city pillaged and burnt in Josephus (War iv, 9, 1) was clearly Jeri- cho, with its adjacent villages, and not Gerasa, as may be seen at once by comparing the language there with that of 8, 2, and the agent was Vespasian. Eusebius and Jerome (Onoinast. s. v.) say that it was destroyed when Jerusalem was besieged by the Romans. They further add that it was afterwards rebuilt — they do not say by whom — and still existed in their day; nor had the ruins of the two preceding cities been obliterated. Could Hadrian possibly have planted a colony there when he passed through Judnea and founded ^Elia? (Dion Cass. Jlist. Ixix, c. 11, ed. Sturz ; more at large Chron.Pasc/uil. p. 251, ed. Du Fresne.) The discovery which Origen made there of a version of the O. T. (the 5th in his Hex- apla), together with sundry MSS., Greek and Hebrew, suggests that it could not have been wholly without in- habitants (Euseb. A". //. vi, 16; Eiiiphiin. Lib. de Pond, et Meiisur. circa med.) ; or again, as is perhaps more prob- able, did a Christian settlement arise there imder Con- stantine, when baptisms in the Jordan began to be the rage ? That Jericho became an episcopal see about that time under Jerusalem appears from more than one ancient Notitia (Geoffraph.S.a Carolo Paulo, p. 306, and the Par- ergon appended to it ; comp. William of Tyre, Jfisf. lib. xxiii, ad f.). Its bishops subscribed t > various councils in the 4th, 5th, and 6th centuries (ibid., and Le Quien's Oriens Christian, iii, 654). Justinian, we are told, re- stored a hospice there, and likewise a church dedicated to the Virgin (Procop. De cedif. v, 0). As early as A.D. 337, when the Bordeaux pil:c'"i'n Led. Wesseling) visited it, a house existed there wliLcli wis pointed out, after the manner of those days, as the bourse of Kahab. This was roofless when Arculfus saw it ; and not only so, but the third city was likewise in ruins (Adamn. De Locis S. ap. Migne, Patrolog. C. Ixxxviii, 799). Had Jericho been visited by au earthquake, as Antoninus reports (ap. Ugo- lini 7'ApsaMr.vii,p.mccxiii, and note to c. 3), and as Syria certainly was, in the 27th year of Justinian, A.D. 553 ? If so, we can well understand the restorations already re- ferred to ; and when Antoninus adds that the house of Kahab liad now become a hospice and oratory, we might almost pronounce that this was the very hospice which had beeu restored by that emperor. Again, it may be asked, did Christian Jericho receive no injury from the Persian Romizan, the ferocious general of Chosroes II, A.D.614'? (Bar-HebnBi Chron. p. 99,Lat. v., ed. Kirsch). It would rather seem that there were more religious edi- fices in the 7th than in the 6th century round about it. According to Arculfus, one church marked the site of Gil- gal; another the spot where our Lord was supposed to have deposited his garments previously to his baptism ; a third within the precincts of a vast monastery dedica- ted to John, situated upon some rising ground overlook- ing the Jordan. Jericho meanwhile had disajipeared as a town to rise no more. Churches and monasteries sprung up around it on all sides, but only to moiUder away in their turn. The anchorite caves in the rocky flanks of the Quarentana are the most striking memorial that remains of early or metUfeval enthusiasm. Arculf- us speaks of a diminutive race — Canaanites he calls them — that inhabited the plain in great numbers in his day. They have retained possession of those fairj- meadow- lands ever since, and have made their head-quarters for some centuries round the "square tower or castle" first mentioned by ^^'illebraud (ap. Leon. ,\llat. 'S.v^ij.ukt. p.
151) in A.D. 1211, when it was inhabited by the Saracens, whose work it may be supposed to have been, though it has since been dignified by the name of the house of Zac- cliajus. Their village is by Brocardus (ap. Canis. Thesmir. iv, 16), in A.D. 1230, styled "a vile place;" by Sir J. Maundeville, in A.D. 1322, "a little vUlage;" and by Henry Maundrell, in A.D. 1697, " a poor, nasty village ;" in which verdict all modern travellers that have ever visited it must concur. (See Early Traveh in Pal. by Wright, p. 177 and 451.) They are looked upon by the Arabs as a debased race, and are probably nothing more or less than veritable (iipsies, who arc still to be met with in the neighborhood of the Frank mountain near Jerusa- lem, and on the heights round the village and convent of St. John in the desert, and arc still called'- Scomunicati" by the native Christians — one of the names applied to them when they first attracted notice in Europe in the 15th century (i.e. from feigning themselves "jjeuitents" and under censure of the pope. See Iloyland's Historical Surce;/ of the Gipsies, p. 18; also The Gipsy, a poem by A. P. Stanley).