The present chapel is dedicated to the Flagellation, and is in no way remarkable: the few remains of antiquity it possesses have been covered over with whitewash, excepting some capitals built into the side walls, which appear to be Roman work. Quitting the above place and following the road westward, we arrive at the arch of the 'Ecce Homo,' called at the time of the Crusades the 'Porta Dolorosa[474].' It is so named because it is believed that from it our Lord was shewn to the people by Pilate[475]. I have already proved[476] that the arch is much too modern to admit of this being the case; and if it were so, it seems impossible that the place should have been passed over in silence by Eusebius at the time of the Empress Helena, and by other authors after him, like Antoninus of Piacenza, Willibald, and Bernard the Monk. How is it that the writers before the time of the Crusades do not mention it? Had there been any tradition of the kind, it would never have been omitted (at least if they believed in it): so that it seems certain that the belief sprung up during the Crusades, the origin of it, no doubt, being that the arch was at first regarded as dedicated to the Passion of Christ. I have already stated, and now repeat it, that, for military reasons, the Jews would never have allowed this arch to stand during the siege, and that if they had, it would not have escaped the Romans. An author of the present day has attempted to interpret the letters carved on two stones in the north pilaster on the west side; but with regard to that, I will quote the words of the Abbé Mariti[477]. "They have assured me that about sixty years ago (i.e. before 1767) these words were read TOL...TO..., and at a still earlier period TOLLE TOLLE CRUCIFIGE EUM. Others assert that they have read thus TO. C. X. For my own part I have only been able to make out a single O in a clear Roman character; but the stones on which the letters are carved are so much injured that they will soon crumble away, and thus put a stop to all conjectures." As then only one letter could be deciphered at the time of Abbé Mariti, I hope to be believed when I say that even this is now indistinct. But even if the inscription was rightly read as above, that is no proof that the arch was standing in our Lord's life-time; it establishes no more than that some one carved the inscription in remembrance of an event which unquestionably happened in the vicinity.