The city of JerusalemConder, C. R. (Claude Reignier)
History
The city of Jerusalem
Conder, C. R. (Claude Reignier)
Jerusalem -- Antiquities; Jerusalem -- History
Eusebius speaks of Sion--the hill of the upper city--as a “ploughed
field” in fulfilment of prophecy, and Cyril of Jerusalem says the
same[403]; but Epiphanius believed that Hadrian had found seven
synagogues and a small church on Mount Sion; and the Bordeaux
Pilgrim--probably influenced by this tradition--thought that one
synagogue still remained in his own time, though the rest had
disappeared, having been covered by ploughed and sown lands. The
existence of these synagogues in Hadrian’s time is extremely unlikely.
That his wall ran over the top of the hill is further confirmed by the
fact that this was the line of defence even in 680 A. D., after the
outer wall of Eudocia had been built to include Siloam. The actual
buildings, inside the city, according to the Paschal Chronicle (though
this is rather a late authority), were pagan. The passage reads thus:
“Pulling down the shrine of the Jews in Jerusalem, he [Hadrian]
established the two markets, the theatre, the mint, the _trikameron_
[or “three-roomed” building], the _tetranumphon_ [or “four-nymph”
place], the _dodeka-pulon_ [or “twelve-gate” place], which was formerly
called the steps, and the quadrant, and he divided the city into seven
quarters.”
We cannot, unfortunately, recognise under their new names these
features of Roman Jerusalem, but the streets were on the old lines,
and these give three quarters west of the central street of pillars,
and two to its east; the sixth would be on Bezetha, and the seventh
was the Temple enclosure.[404] The principal monument of the period,
still standing, is the triumphal arch west of Antonia, now called the
Ecce Homo arch. The central archway spans the Via Dolorosa, and the
smaller one to the north is seen in the chapel of the Sisters of Zion,
while the corresponding one to the south has been destroyed. A similar
arch is still standing at Gerasa in Gilead--a city also of the second
century A. D. It is possible that the north wall of the Ḥaram, which
is of large Roman masonry, was built at this time, unless it is to
be regarded as the work of Julian or of Justinian. Other fragments of
Roman times, recently found,[405] include a Roman bath near Siloam,
with tesseræ of the 5th legion, and a fresco in a tomb near that of
Queen Helena. We may also attribute to this period the pagan epitaph in
the “Cave of St. Pelagia” on Olivet[406] reading “Courage, Dometila, no
one is immortal”--a sentiment found, in other cases, in texts of Bashan
and Syria of the same age. No doubt there are many other relics of
Hadrian’s city hidden beneath the surface of the present town, and the
wall west of “Hezekiah’s Pool”[407] may have been the west wall of Ælia
Capitolina.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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