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Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 23:42:09 +0000
Subject: A Study of Jerusalem - Part VI
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Subject: 6: Jerusalem
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INGEBORG RENNERT CENTER FOR JERUSALEM STUDIES 24 March 1997
BAR-ILAN UNIVERSITY Happy Purim!
RAMAT-GAN, ISRAEL
Internet Educational Activities <iea@netvision.net.il>
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Yisrael Shalem
Jerusalem: Life Throughout the Ages in a Holy City
6/12 Aelia Capitolina, Jerusalem as a Roman Pagan City (70-326)
In 70 C.E. the Roman Legions destroyed Jerusalem. The Temple and
its adjacent neighborhood were looted and burned, and the
forests around the city were cut down to make siege engines.
Roman soldiers took so much plunder that the value of gold
dropped by half (Josephus, Wars vi, 326). Titus's army
celebrated with a triumphal march of prisoners and loot
(including the Temple's furniture and utensils) through the
streets of Rome. The Arch of Titus in Rome depicts this victory
parade. The last battle for Jewish independence was lost when
Massada fell 3 years later.
Jerusalem's Jewish population was replaced by soldiers of the
Roman Tenth Legion, their families, and some civilians,
Hellenists from Syria and elsewhere. Vespasian, who had led the
triumphant army, was appointed emperor. He and his son Titus
marked their victory by minting a coin bearing the inscription
"Judea is captured." Until then Jews throughout the world had
sent donations to the Temple in Jerusalem. Now they were
compelled to pay a special tax to support Roman temples. With
the Jewish "gods" now safely deposited in Rome, the Romans
assumed that the Jews were vanquished.
Paradoxically, the conquest of Jerusalem might have led to the
ascent of a "Jewish" Roman emperor. During his tour of duty in
Judea Titus fell in love with Berenice, a great granddaughter of
Herod and his wife Miriam, a Hasmonean princess. Berenice stayed
with Titus in the Roman camp during the siege of Jerusalem, and
later he brought her to Rome with the intention of marrying her.
His father disapproved and compelled him to end the affair.
Berenice left Rome, but returned after Vespasian's death. Titus
became Caesar but did not resume his relationship with her.
The city was now desolate, the walls in ruins. Of all of Herod's
outstanding buildings, only part of the western retaining wall
of the Temple Mount (the "western wall") and three towers near
the present Jaffa Gate were left "to show later generations how
a proud and might city had been humbled by Rome" (Josephus, Wars
7,8,1). Before the revolt four Roman legions had been stationed
in the province of Syria, more than in any other province, but
no legions had been based in Judea. Following the revolt, the
Tenth Legion was garrisoned permanently in Jerusalem. No longer
facing any military threats, they apparently went into business
making bricks, each stamped with their symbol, a boar. Jewish
lands confiscated by the emperor were granted to the soldiers.
Jerusalem's original Christian community, led by Jesus' brother
James, was expelled from the city before the revolt, in 66. The
community was composed primarily of Jews who accepted Jesus as
the messiah. Many were observant Jews who believed that Jesus's
message was intended only for Jews. They understood the
destruction of the Temple as a sign of divine disfavor with the
Jews because they did not recognize Jesus as the messiah. Under
Roman rule, no circumcised person was allowed to reside in the
city; uncircumcised Christians converted from paganism asked for
and received permission to take up residence in Jerusalem. They
settled in the area of Mount Zion and provided civilian services
to the Roman garrison.
The Temple's destruction, the tremendous loss of life and
general devastation caused the Jews enormous despair. The role
of the high priest, ritual leader of the Jews for centuries, was
gone. The rabbis tried to find a middle ground between mourning
for the Temple and adjustment to life without it. In the days of
the Temple, the sacrifice was part of the process of atoning for
sins. Henceforth, atonement would be achieved with prayers and
good deeds.
The Jewish communities around Jerusalem quickly recovered. Many
bought back their lands from the Romans and rebuilt Jewish towns
and farms.
Tension between the Jews and their Hellenistic neighbors led to
Jewish uprisings in Egypt and Cyprus in 115-117. The revolts
were serious enough to compel the Emperor Trajan (who was at the
time leading a Roman army deep in Persia) to stop his campaign
and return to restore order. It is not clear what was taking
place in Israel while the Jews fought in surrounding lands.
Apparently the Romans sent an additional legion to Israel and
their presence, or perhaps use of force, was sufficient to
prevent attempts to revolt.
However, the quiet did not last. In 129-30 the Emperor Hadrian
toured the eastern provinces and probably visited Jerusalem. The
Jews thought he planned to rebuild Jerusalem for the Jews. They
were abruptly disabused of their hopes when it became known that
Jerusalem would be rebuilt as Aelia (in honor of his family,
Aelias) Capitolina (after the three Capitoline gods -- Jupiter,
Juno and Minerva, the designated patrons of the new city). A
temple to the gods of the city would be erected on the Temple
Mount. Hadrian also renamed the country Palestine after the
Biblical Philistines, though the Philistines had long since
disappeared. His aim was to erase all memory of the connection
between the Jews, Judea and Jerusalem.
Hadrian went a step further and outlawed circumcision. Like
Antiochus IV during the Maccabean revolt 200 years earlier, he
made the study or practice of Judaism a capital crime. The pagan
world was usually pluralistic (the Romans simply added the gods
of the peoples they conquered to their pantheon), and religious
decrees were rare. It is unclear whether Hadrian's
religious decrees provoked the revolt or were imposed in
response to it. Perhaps the rebellious nature of the Jews, the
one nation that refused to accept Roman sovereignty, provoked
the Romans to destroy the Jews' holy city, erase the name of
their country, and eliminate their religion.
According to the Talmud (Megila 6a) "if someone tells you that
Jerusalem and Caesarea are both flourishing or that both cities
are destroyed, do not believe it. But if he says that one is
flourishing and the other is destroyed, believe it." Caesarea
was the Roman capital of Palestine, and this quote expresses the
idea that coexistence of the Jewish and Roman ways of life was
impossible. A similar idea appears in Roman sources. (Today
President Ezer Weizmann maintains homes in Caesarea and in
Jerusalem.)
Hadrian's decrees provoked the Jews living near Jerusalem to
revolt. (The Galilean Jews did not take part.) Unlike previous
uprisings, this time the Jews united, under the leadership of
Shimon Bar Kochba, who enjoyed the support of many rabbis. The
most prominent of his supporters was Rabbi Akiva, who considered
him to be the messiah. Bar Kochba's base was at Herodion, 10 km.
south of Jerusalem. The revolt's goals were the liberation
Jerusalem and reconstruction of the Temple. Coins minted by Bar
Kochba, two of which were found near the Temple, were stamped
with an image of the Temple's entrance. Half the coins struck
during the revolt bore the word "Jerusalem" or "for the freedom
of Jerusalem." Did the coins reflect reality or aspiration? Many
scholars believe that Bar Kochba succeeded in liberating
Jerusalem shortly after the beginning of the revolt.
The Bar Kochba revolt lasted three years, from 132 to 135. At
first the Jews had the upper hand. Rome responded by sending ten
legions, a third of the empire's army! Four legions had been
sufficient to put down the previous revolt. The Romans suffered
heavy losses and one legion was nearly wiped out. When
celebrating his triumph in Rome at the conclusion of the war,
the commander did not use the usual formula, "I and my troops
are well."
The Roman historian Dio Cassius reported that 580,000 Jews died
in battle fighting the Romans; it was impossible to determine
the number that died of starvation. Hundreds of Jewish towns
around Jerusalem were destroyed. The destruction of Jewish
settlement following the Bar Kochba revolt was far greater than
the loss of life and property suffered after the previous
revolt. So many thousands of Jews were sold as slaves that the
price of a slave was the same as the price of one day's supply
of hay for a horse.
Jews were now forbidden to reside within a ten mile radius of
Jerusalem. Construction of Aelia Capitolina resumed. The
inscription "the colony of Aelia Capitolina has been founded"
appeared on coins together with a portrayal of the emperor
plowing a furrow along the walls, the symbol of the
establishment of a new Roman city.
Aelia Capitolina was the only city in the Roman Empire created
and settled by the army. Other cities were settled by army
veterans, but here the citizens were on active duty; the city
was, for practical purposes, an army base. Despite the
destruction of most of the Jewish villages around Jerusalem the
Romans still feared another Jewish revolt.
Aelia Capitolina was built according to the classic Roman
pattern, in the shape of a square. This Roman design is visible
to this day in Jerusalem's Old City. The city had four gates,
one of each side of town (now called Damascus, Jaffa, Zion and
Lions' Gates). The main entrance was Damascus Gate, and a new
road connected it to Caesarea. Damascus Gate was originally
built as a triumphal arch. The Romans frequently adorned their
cities with victory arches, which were sometimes located outside
the city walls, to impress visitors with the architectural skill
and power of Rome. Part of the Roman gate can be seen today
below the present Damascus Gate. Behind the gate was a pillar
which was probably adorned with a bust of the emperor. Two main
streets originating at Damascus Gate crossed the city. Part of
one of these streets, the cardo, is in the Old City's Jewish
Quarter.
The cardo, which was enhanced and extended during the Byzantine
period, extended 950 meters from Damascus Gate to Mount Zion.
The Roman engineers who strove to pave straight, level streets
had to contend with Jerusalem's hilly topography. On the
southern side of the cardo they had to lower the ground level by
cutting through the rock, while on the northern side they raised
the level. The cardo, which was 22.5 meters wide, served as the
town's shopping center. It was lined with two parallel sets of
columns five meters high adorned with capitals. The cardo is
depicted on the Medeba map, a mosaic map of the world dating
from the second half of the sixth century on the floor of a
church in Jordan. During the restoration of the Jewish Quarter
after the Six Day War, part of the cardo was discovered and
restored. All of the paving stones were dug up and replaced.
Today, it is the only cardo in Israel which is again functioning
as a shopping area.
There were three more monumental victory arches in the city. The
most famous is called Ecce Homo ("Behold the man"). Based on the
style of the arch, which has three entrances, most
archaeologists assume it was built during Hadrian's reign.
However, many contend that the arch existed in the days of
Jesus. Medieval Christian sources relate that Jesus was tried by
the Romans nearby and claim that this is the spot where the
Roman procurator Pilate presented Jesus to the people (John
19:5). Today the arch and the pavement (lithostrotos) which has
games from Roman times incised in the stones, are part of the
Via Dolorosa.
Just as David built his altar on the site of the Jebusite altar
some thousand years earlier, the Romans built two temples to
displace Jewish and Christian worship at Jerusalem's holy sites.
On the Temple Mount Hadrian built a temple to Jupiter. Literary
sources refers to two statutes on the Temple Mount, one of them
of Hadrian. An inscription which was found in secondary use on
the Mount refers to Emperor Antoninus Pius (138-161). On the
traditional site of the crucifixion Hadrian built a temple to
Aphrodite. This temple was torn down about 200 hundred years
later by the Byzantines, who reclaimed the site for Christianity
by building the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Under the church
archaeologists found retaining walls built to artificially
elevate the base of the pagan temple, just as Herod did when he
leveled and expanded the Temple Mount.
A Roman relief found near the Sheep's Pool (on the northwest
side of Jerusalem) was probably connected with the worship of
Asclepias, the Greco-Roman god of healing. Christian tradition
identifies this site as Bethesda Pool, where Jesus healed the
sick (John 5:1-15).
Jerusalem's new status as a Roman colony entitled the residents
to many tax benefits not awarded to citizens of a regular polis.
>From written sources and coins we learn that many gods were
worshipped in Jerusalem at this time: Jupiter, Aphrodite,
Asclepias, Dionysus, Tiche (the goddess of fortune) and Nemesis
(the goddess of revenge, one of the symbols of Rome). However,
neither tax breaks, the patronage of the gods, the baths,
hippodrome, nor the elegant cardos and forums built at this time
were enough to motivate people to make their homes at Aelia
Capitolina. For the Romans Aelia Capitolina was just another
town. Only as the religious center of the Jews during the days
of the Temple, or under the Byzantine Christians, did the city
flourish and draw pilgrims.
Over the years the city lost its military character. As soldiers
married local women Aelia Capitolina became less Roman and more
eastern in its character. After more than 200 years of service
in Jerusalem, in 289 the Tenth Legion was transferred to Eilat.
The emperors in the late second and early third century shared
good relations with the Jews. A small Jewish community was
established in Jerusalem and the pilgrimage to Jerusalem was
resumed on a small scale.
At the beginning of the fourth century the emperor Constantine
embraced Christianity, and in the course of the next two
centuries the Roman Empire became Christian. The 250-year
attempt to make Jerusalem over as a pagan city did not succeed.
The main impact of Roman rule in Jerusalem was in its urban
design, the division of the city into four quarters. Perhaps the
pagan designers of Aelia Capitolina also influenced the course
of the city walls. It is also possible, though the not clear, if
the walls or Jerusalem were rebuilt at the end of the third
century or later in the Byzantine period. The present walls of
the Old City were built by the Ottomans in the 16th century, but
they basically follow the course of the Roman walls.
We will see in the next class how Jerusalem developed from a
small pagan city under Roman rule to a large Christian city in
the Byzantine Empire.
The first six lectures were written by Yisrael Shalem. The next
six were prepared by David Eisenstadt.
Regards, Yisrael
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