A Tale of Jerusalem

Another of the tales submitted in 1831 to the Saturday Courier, this story is a harmless buffoonery upon a very old theme. The attitude of Jews toward swine has frequently seemed amusing to those who do not share it. Poe made the most of a historical incident in which some ancient Romans played a clever trick upon the defenders of Jerusalem. Its cleverness lay in the fact that the legalistic Romans, who preferred to respect all divinities, including those of their enemies, avoided impiety, since for them a boar was a highly acceptable sacrificial victim; a boar, a ram and a bull were offered in the great purification ceremony called Suovetaurilia.