When Pompey advanced against Jerusalem (B.C. 64), the population was divided. The party of Hyrcanus opened the gates to him; but the party of Aristobulus retired to the Temple, breaking down the bridge which communicated with the city. This may have been an arch on the site of the present Wilson’s Arch. Pompey, having sent a garrison into the city itself, laid siege to the Temple, purposing to assault it from the north. He “filled up the ditch on the north side of the Temple.” That would be the artificial cutting at the north-west corner. He filled up the valley also, Josephus tells us (Wars, i. 7, 3), “and indeed it was a hard thing to fill up that valley, by reason of its immense depth, especially as the Jews used all the means possible to repel them from their superior station.” This is the valley which Warren found, crossing the present Haram area, falling away from the north side of the platform to a depth of 200 feet, and passing out into the Kedron north of the Golden Gate. Probably it was only partially filled up at this time. Pompey then erected towers upon the bank which he had made, and brought engines to bear; but it was not until the third month of the siege that he made himself master of the Temple. In B.C. 37, Herod, like all preceding generals, pitched his camp on the north side (Josephus, Wars, i. 17, 9). The Jews in this warfare made mines--perhaps in the ground banked up by Pompey--and surprised the Romans by sudden sorties from below. But the first wall was captured in forty days--(Antiq. xiv. 16, 2. This was of course the wall which we know as the second)--and the Lower City being thus taken, the Jews retired into the Upper City and into the Temple. The Upper City was taken by storm after fifteen days more. But here the destruction ceased. Herod was going to reign in Jerusalem, and did not wish to do more damage than was inevitable in the capture of the city. He sought to save the Temple, and only some of the cloisters about it got burnt down. Afterwards, to ingratiate himself with the Jews, Herod rebuilt the Temple, and enlarged the precincts of it. It would seem that Solomon’s palace had been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar’s generals and never rebuilt. Herod’s own palace was in the High Town. The area formerly occupied by Solomon’s palace was now taken into the Temple precincts, the south-west corner was raised up from its low level and added also; and along this southern front was built a royal cloister, 100 feet high. To make an approach to this cloister from the west, Robinson’s Arch was erected, and if there was no viaduct from the western hill there must have been a staircase to ascend from the valley. On the north side also the Temple precincts were enlarged, by taking in the ground which Pompey had raised to a higher level. The Baris or castle in which Nehemiah had lived was reconstructed and strengthened, renamed Antonia, and connected with the Temple.