day he happened to pass a blacksmith's forge, when the noise of the hammer soothed the gnawing at his brain. "Aha!" said Titus, "I have found a remedy at last;w and he ordered a blacksmith to hammer before him. To a Gentile for this he (for a time) paid four zuzim a day, but to a Jewish blacksmith he paid nothing, remarking to him, "It is payment enough to thee to see thy enemy suffering so painfully.
For thirty days he felt relieved, but after, no amount of hammering in the least relieved him. As to what happened after his death, we have this testimony from Rabbi Phineas, the son of Aruba: " I myself was among the Roman magnates when an inquest was held upon the body of Titus, and on opening his brain they found therein a gnat as big as a swallow, weighing two selas.M Others say it was as large as a pigeon a year old and weighed two litras.
Abaii says, " We found its mouth was of copper and its claws of iron.M Titus gave instructions that after his death his body should be burned, and the ashes thereof scattered over the surface of the seven seas, that the God of the Jews might not find him and bring him to judgment." (Gittin, fol. 56, col. 2.)