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captivity
that adherents to the cult
of Isis and the Jewish faith
should clear out of Rome, the
Roman mob got wind of the
news and tried to lay siege
to this mysterious system of
walls, but because they had
no grasp of the whole, they
were unable to force their
way in. The Jews defended
themselves by firing arrows
and throwing javelins from
the flat rooftops.
They had to leave their homes
in Rome all the same, with
Joseph fleeing with his wife
and three-year-old Uri.
They withdrew to the hill
village of Ariccia, twenty miles
from Rome, to a stable with
a leaky roof. Joseph cleaned
out the manure and plowed,
his wife strewed straw and
litter, and Uri spent the whole
day chasing poultry. But six
months later, thanks to the
kindly Roman notable who
was their patron, the freed
Joseph being a client, the
father and family were able
to return to their ransacked,
wrecked home.
Apart from the four thousand
unmarried Jewish men who
were called up for military
service and taken off to
Sardinia, supposedly to ward
off gangs of robbers—though
the climate and homesickness
finished more of them off—
virtually all of the Jews with
families drifted back, bit by bit;
in total, a couple of hundred
were killed by the robbers in
the country , and the Emperor
Tiberius was no longer issuing
such strict edicts.
The houses were repaired, the
furnishings slowly made good.
Not that there was much to
replace, given how poor the
Jews of Rome already were.