First Jewish revolt |
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In 41 AD, new Roman emperor Galigula appointed Herod the Great's grandson Agrippa king over a large area that included Judea. Because he was of Hasmonean descent he was acceptable to the Jews; because he was a childhood friend of Galigula, he was also acceptable to the Romans. Agrippa was an able statesman who succeeded in dissuading Caligula from placing a golden statue of himself in the Temple in Jerusalem. He was also instrumental in gaining the support of the Roman senate when Claudius was named emperor by the army after Caligula's assassination. In gratitude, Judea and Samaria were added to his kingdom, which now encompassed all the areas ruled by his grandfather, Herod the Great. During Agrippa I's brief reign (41-44 AD) the first recorded incidents in the history of the church took place. Acts 1:14-15 relates that the remaining eleven disciples "joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers." They numbered "about a hundred and twenty." Then Matthias was chosen to replace the betrayer, Judas, restoring the number of apostles to twelve (Acts 1:15-28). Forty days after Jesus' Ascension the Holy Spirit came to the Apostles at the annual Jewish Feast of Pentecost, and it occurred when "they were all together in one place." Where this pivotal event took place is not otherwise specified. But the text implies a large house (Greek oikos) in Jerusalem that could accommodate a large number of "God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven." Tradition holds that it occurred in the same room as the Last Supper (below, traditional site), in the Upper City where the wealthiest citizens lived in great mansions.
The young church continued to meet daily "in the Temple courts" because the community of believers did not consider themselves to be anything other than Jews to whom the long-promised Messiah had come. By this time Jerusalem had almost doubled in area, from 230 acres to 450 acres. Likewise the population increased from about 40,000 to 80,000. Agrippa I laid the foundations for what was called the "Third Wall" to enclose the the expanded city to the northeast. But fearing the emperor's displeasure he abandoned the project. At this time, too, there was a famine which necessitated sending relief from other communities of believers to the Jerusalem church (recorded in Acts 11:27-30). A generous patron of the Temple and a strict observer of the law (at least while he was in Palestine), Agrippa was idolized by the Jews. His popularity was probably enhanced by his harsh treatment of Jesus' disciples. He was the "King Herod" who "arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them," had "James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword" and imprisoned Peter, intending to put him on trial after Passover. (Acts 12:1-5) But Peter was miraculously delivered from prison and went to the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark, thought to be the author of the Gospel of Mark. The location of this house in unknown, but tradition places it on the site now occupied by the Church of St. Mark in the small Syrian-Jacobite district of the Old City, just inside the Zion Gate in the southern city wall. With Agrippa I's death in 44 AD, his son Agrippa II continued as king, but Judea reverted to direct Roman rule under a series of incompetent, insensitive and often corrupt procurators, bringing the Jews to open rebellion. In 66 AD, the inept and callous procurator Gessius Florus seized 17 Talents from the Temple treasury in partial payment of tribute already owed the Romans. Demonstrators held a street collection for him, mocking his "poverty." The procurator Florus (64-66 AD), notorious for his cruelty, marched on Jerusalem with an army, demanding the arrest of the offenders, and imposing martial law; in subsequent riots over 3,000 Jews were killed. Floris had gone too far. He withdrew to avoid further provocations — but too late. That same year a band of Zealots ambushed the Roman garrison at Masada near the Dead Sea, and seized weapons from its armory. At the same time the populace of Jerusalem bottled up the Roman soldiers in towers of Herod's palace. Eventually they were allowed to leave unarmed, but once out of the city they were attacked and killed. Meanwhile virtually the entire Jewish community of 20,000 in Caesarea, the Roman provincial capital, was massacred. Anger swept the countryside as the governor of Syria, Cestius Gallus, marched on Jerusalem to restore order. Bezetha, the northern quarter of the city was burned, but when his soldiers reached the Temple wall and undermined it, Gallus unaccountably withdrew. His troops were ambushed northeast of the Jerusalem and large quantities of weapons fell into the hands of the rebels. War was now inevitable. To restore order, an alarmed Nero (54-68 AD) called retired general Titus Flavius Vespasianus (familiarly known as Vespasian) back to duty. After raising an army of three legions, perhaps 60,000 men, he systematically swept through Galilee. Then he moved southward and eastward, methodically destroying each town in his path. Meanwhile Nero was overthrown and committed suicide, and civil war ensued. Galba, Otho, and Vitellius succeeded one another as emperor. Vitellius was assassinated and the eastern legions proclaimed Vespasian emperor. Vespasian left for Rome and, late in 69 AD, he was affirmed by the Roman senate. He left the task of putting down the Jewish revolt to his son Titus. A spectacular victory was needed for Vespasian's prestige. Jerusalem had to be taken, but Titus faced an extremely difficult task. The city was almost impregnable with steep valleys on three sides and three lines of fortifications: one around the Lower City (the original City of David) and the Upper City, another bracketing the area immediately to the northwest of the Temple and a third, begun by Agrippa I, around the northern suburb of Bezetha, and completed by the rebels as part of their siege preparations. Additionally, the northern side of the Temple Mount was protected by the massive Antonia Fortress.
Titus advanced in the spring of 70 AD and surrounded the city with three legions on the western side and a fourth on the Mount of Olives to the east. To put pressure on the food and water supplies of the inhabitants he allowed pilgrims to enter the city to celebrate Passover, then refused to let them leave. After Jewish sallies killed a number of Roman soldiers, Titus sent Flavius Josephus*, a former Jewish commander, now loyal to Rome, to negotiate with the defenders. The Jews wounded him with an arrow and launched another sally. Titus was almost captured, but escaped. In mid-May Titus destroyed the newly built Third Wall and breached the Second Wall. He then turned his attention to the Antonia Fortress immediately north of the Temple Mount. The Romans sustained heavy casualties in street fighting with the Zealots and were forced to retreat. Josephus failed in another attempt at negotiations, and Jewish attacks prevented the construction of siege towers at the Antonia. Food, water, and other provisions dwindled. The suffering was great. Josephus recorded "innumerable corpses piled up all over the city," emitting a "pestilential stench." The defenders, he said, "devoured belts and shoes, and stripped the leather from their shields and chewed it." To prevent escapes and to keep supplies
from reaching the rebels, Titus ordered the construction of a four and a half mile wall
around the entire city. While some of the Jews attempted to disrupt
Titus' assault preparations, others filtered through the lines to scavenge
for wild plants and herbs. Many were caught and crucified — numbering 500 a day — in sight of the
city. Josephus further wrote: "The soldiers themselves through rage
and bitterness nailed up their victims in various attitudes as a grim joke,
till owing to the vast numbers there was no room for the crosses, and no
crosses for the bodies." Observing these horrors from the walls, the
defenders were under no delusions as to what defeat would mean.
Battering rams made little progress, but on Tisha B'Av, at the end of August, the very anniversary of the destruction of the First Temple by the Babylonians in 587 BC, the sanctuary was set on fire and destroyed, counter to Titus' orders. Most likely, he wanted to seize it and transform it into a pagan temple, dedicated to the Roman Emperor and the Roman pantheon. As the flames spread the Roman legions entered the residential sections of the city. Jewish resistance quickly crumbled. Most of the remaining defenders escaped through hidden underground tunnels. Some made a final stand in the Upper City, temporarily halting the Roman advance. But, by September 7 Jerusalem was completely under Roman control.
Seven hundred survivors were shipped to Rome to be paraded in a victory celebration, others were sold into slavery. A few hundred Zealots managed to escape to carry on the struggle from Herod the Great's former strongholds at Machaerus (in Perea, modern Jordan), Herodion (near Bethlehem) and Masada (by the Dead Sea). According to Josephus, the Romans left only the three great towers of Herod's palace on the western side of the city standing "in order to demonstrate to posterity what kind of city it was, and how well-fortified, which the Roman valor had subdued." The Tenth Roman Legion was stationed in Jerusalem area with standing orders to execute any Jew who claimed to be a descendant of King David. Back in Rome the following year Titus, together with his father Vespasian, celebrated the victory with a procession of seven hundred Jewish prisoners and spoils of war, including items captured from the Temple: "a golden table, many talents of weight, and a lampstand (seven-branched menorah), likewise made of gold ... after these, and last of all the spoils, was carried a copy of the Jewish Law." This event is depicted in carved relief on the Arch of Titus erected in Rome and dedicated divo Tito, "to the deified Titus," after the emperor's death in 81 AD. Today, this arch can still be seen in Rome, a melancholy reminder to the Temple that is no more. According to tradition, no Jew has ever passed beneath it.
Right, detail of the "Arch of Titus" in
Rome depicting the
Right, Judea Capta coin with a victorious Vespasian (left) and Judea (right) depicted as a mourning woman under a palm tree. |
The
immense riches looted from the Temple treasury were used to
strike coins with the legend JUDAEA CAPTA ('Judea defeated'), a
humiliating reminder to the Jews of Titus' victory. During the
four-year-long rebellion, the Romans took 97,000 prisoners.
Thousands were forced to become gladiators and were killed in
the arena fighting wild animals or fellow gladiators. Some were
burned alive. Others were brought to Seleucia (port of Antioch
in Syria) to dig a tunnel. Most of were brought to Rome and
forced to build the Coliseum and Forum of Peace in the heart of
Rome where the Temple menorah was exhibited.
Evidence of the Tenth Legion's presence
was uncovered in the courtyard of the Citadel, on the site of Herod's palace
on the west side of the Old City. It includes a few fragmentary walls and
sections of clay water drain pipe bearing stamp impressions of the letters
"LXF" (short for Legio X Fretensis, or the Tenth Roman Legion).
Additionally, numerous broken roof tiles (right) and a few bricks
impressed with stamps reading "Leg(io) X Fretensis" were found
on the western hill where the soldiers constructed wooden buildings with
ceramic-tile roofs. Josephus mistakenly called
this hill Mount Zion. By the time of his writing, it had been forgotten
that the original Zion had been located in the City of David on the lower
eastern hill. Today, this western hill is still called Mount Zion.
This museum takes visitors
downstairs to the basement of a wealthy residence in the area known in the
Second Temple period as the Upper City, where the wealthiest and most prominent
Jewish families lived. When the Romans took Jerusalem in 70 AD, they destroyed
the Temple and the Lower City. The Upper City, however, managed to hold
out against the Romans for a month after the Temple Mount was captured.
The Roman legions then rampaged through the wealthy Upper City, setting
fire to the houses, killing those sheltered inside. A coin dated to 69 AD
discovered during excavations indicated that this one of those houses. The
charred cooking pots and debris give a vivid sense of the city's fiery destruction
by the Romans. Another chilling discovery here was the skeletal lower arm
and hand of a young woman of about 20 in the home's kitchen, near the staircase
and beside the oven. Her fingers appear to be grasping for a step as she
fell in a futile attempt to escape the flames. In another room was an iron
spear leaning against a wall, where the owner could quickly grab it to defend
himself against the Romans. But, it was never used; it was buried in the
debris as the home went up in flames.
Stone weights discovered
(right) contained an inscription reading "belonging
to Bar Kathros" ("son of Kathros"). Archaeologists have identified
the occupants of the house as the Kathros family, a priestly family that,
according to one reference, abused its position through nepotism and oppression
to further its own interests. A satirical folk song refrain preserved in
the Babylonian Talmud includes the line "Woe to me because of the House
of Kathros."
The remains of Robinson's Arch — named
for American Protestant clergyman, Edward Robinson, who first called attention
to it — can be seen jutting out from the western wall of the Temple Mount
(you pass near it on the way from the Dung Gate to the Western Wall plaza).
It was once thought that it supported one end of a bridge leading across
the Tyropoeon Valley to the Upper City on the western hill. We now know
that it supported a grand staircase rising from the valley and over the
main north-south street running adjacent to the Temple Mount. In the right
foreground are the square lintels of shops that served the needs of Temple
patrons. Objects uncovered here by archaeologists include weights, pottery
and coins.
Right, view of the main
north-south street during the Second Temple period, running through the Tyropoeon Valley, alongside the southern part of the western wall of the
Temple Mount. The large stones had once composed the upper part of the massive
retaining wall. They have lain here for nearly 2,000 years since being deliberately
toppled from their original places by the Romans during their sack of Jerusalem
in 70 AD, shattering the paving stones of the street below. Both sides of
the wide street were lined with shops, but those on the wall side were crushed
by the fallen stones. Some of the shops on the opposite (west) side are
still intact. Beside the shops was a mikveh, a ritual bath used by people
to purify themselves before ascending to the Temple Mount. Jesus never walked
this street. Fresh chisel marks in the beautifully worked paving stones
indicate they were laid in the mid-60's AD, some 30 years after the time
of Jesus, but just prior to the destruction of the city in 70 AD by Titus'
legions. Jewish prisoners of war had probably been forced by the Romans
to undertake the long, tiring process of destroying the Temple and its surroundings.
For them, it was the ultimate humiliation — the destruction of their sacred
Temple at their own hands. In the extreme right of the photo is the support
base for "Robinson's Arch," the huge staircase that once led up
to the Temple Mount.
The place of trumpeting