made his approaches on the northwest corner, both from the west and from the north. And this was natural; for there, on the north, is the higher ground of Bezetha, overlooking the temple and its precincts. But in that northwest corner stood the fortress or rather acropolis of Baris; so that it was this citadel, the fortress of the temple, that Pompey chose as his main point of attack; just as Titus, more than a hundred and thirty years later, made his chief assaults upon Antonia from the same quarter. The fortress Baris was necessarily within the trench; and being the acropolis of the temple, in which the robes of the high priest were laid up, it was reckoned as part and parcel of the temple and its precincts, without being specified by name. The towers belonged doubtless to Baris; for none are ever mentioned in connection with the wall of the temple proper. The trench was that on the north of the acropolis, separating it from Bezetha. Herod's siege of Jerusalem took place in the year 37 B. C. or twenty-five years later than that by Pompey. The city was then held by Antigonus. Herod being joined by the Roman general Sosius "pitched his camp near to the northern wall;" 1 or, as the other account says, "approaching the city where it was most assailable, he pitched his camp before the temple, having determined to make an assault, as Pompey had formerly done." For this end he "sat down along the north wall of the city." The siege would seem, at first, not to have been pressed with much vigour. Herod himself was absent at Samaria for a time; nor did all the troops arrive before his return. The city is said, in one place, to have held out five months. In another place we are told, that the first (or outer) wall was taken after forty days; and the second (or temple) wall after fifteen days more. This last account refers, apparently, to the commencement of the more vigorous assault or storming of the wall. Herod thus broke through the outer wall (the second of Josephus) into the lower city; and then through another (interior) wall into the temple; that is to say, he assailed the temple from the lower city. After he had thus got possession of it, Antigonus, who still held out in Baris, descended from the acropolis and yielded himself to Sosius." Such were the three sieges of the temple, while its fortress was yet known as Baris. The others were much later. In the interval, both the temple and the fortress had been rebuilt by Herod; and Agrippa had erected the third wall of the city. 1 B. J. 1. 17. 9. Antt. 14. 15. 14. ib. 14. 16. 1, διεκάθηντο πρὸς τῷ βορείῳ τείχει τῆς πόλεως. 3 B. J. 1. 18. 2. * Antt. 14. 16. 2. * B. J. 1. 18. 2, κάτεισι μὲν ἀπὸ τῆς Bápews. Antt. 14. 16. 2. It was about A. D. 65, or not long before the siege by Cestius, that Florus, the last procurator of Judea, during a tumult in the city, sent troops to get possession of Antonia and the temple. In this he was foiled; and then the insurgents, "fearing that Florus would again come and seize upon the temple through Antonia, went up and cut off the continuous porticos of the temple towards Antonia." This led Florus to abandon his purpose. The passage obviously has no bearing upon the question here at issue. 3 The insurrectionary spirit of the Jews brought Cestius, then proconsul of Syria, with an army, to Jerusalem in A. D. 66. He entered the city without opposition; and after various delays, made an attack with chosen troops "upon the temple in its northern quarter. But the Jews fighting from the portico "kept them off, and several times drove them back as they approached the wall." The Romans now formed with their shields a testudo ; "and the soldiers, being now unharassed, undermined the wall, and made ready to set fire to the gate of the temple." Here the circumstance, that the troops could approach and undermine the wall, and set fire to a gate of the temple, is conclusive evidence that the attack was made from the lower city at the northern part of the western wall of the temple. Just there, too, some years later, the troops of Titus, it is related, attacking the temple from the west, "undermined the foundations of the northern gate." All the circumstances are incompatible with the idea of an approach from the north; where the wall was rendered inaccessible by the very deep and broad trench. In the description of the final siege and destruction of the city and temple by Titus, in A. D. 70, there are only two circumstances, which need here to be taken into account. The Jews during the siege were divided into two factions; one of which, under Simon, had possession of the upper and lower city; while the other, under John, held "the temple and the tract around it to no small extent." Titus, after taking the outer or third wall of the city, pitched his camp within it, and pressed the attack on the second wall. The Jews, still in two factions, bravely repelled the Romans from this wall; "those with John fighting from Antonia and the northern portico of the temple, εἶργον, καὶ πολλάκις μὲν ἀπεκρούσαντο τοὺς τῷ τείχει προσελθόντας. 1 B. J. 2. 15. 5, 6, οἱ δὲ στασιασταί, δείσαντες μὴ πάλιν ἐπελθὼν ὁ Φλῶρος κρατήσῃ τοῦ ἱεροῦ διὰ τῆς ̓Αντωνίας, ἀναβάντες εὐθέως τὰς συνεχεῖς στοὰς τοῦ ἱεροῦ πρὸς τὴν ̓Αντωνίαν διέκοψαν. 2 B. J. 2. 19. 5. See more fully above, p. 215. * Ibid. κατὰ τὸ προσάρκτιον ἐπιχειρεῖ κλίμα τῷ ἱερῷ. Ἰουδαῖοι δὲ ἀπὸ τῆς στοὰς 4 Ibid. μηδὲν δὲ οἱ στρατιῶται κακούμενοι τὸ τεῖχος ὑπώρυσσον, καὶ τοῦ ἱεροῦ τὴν πύ λην ὑποπιμπράναι παρεσκευάζοντο. * Β. J. 6. 4. 1, κατὰ τὴν ἑσπέριον ἐξέδραν τοῦ ἔσωθεν ἱεροῦ . . . τῆς δὲ βορείου πύλης ὑπώρυττον ἕτεροι τοὺς θεμελίους. B. J. 5. 6. 1. Now as and also before the monument of king Alexander.” 1 the Romans were not yet in the lower city, but still outside of the second wall, it is obvious that a defence made from the north portico of the temple could be directed against the enemy only as approaching from the north or northeast quarter; that is to say, on the east of the acropolis of Antonia, and of that portion of the second wall, which ran down to join the fortress. Does this necessarily imply, that the northern portico of the temple was carried along close upon the trench ? 2 În respect to the difficulty supposed to be here involved, several explanations may be given. One is, as I have formerly suggested, that the Jews of John's party, after being driven in from the third wall, may have now made the fortress Antonia and this northern portico their head-quarters, from which to conduct their further defence. A second, proposed by Schultz, regards here "the northern portico" as signifying "the portico which ran northwards;" that is, the eastern portico, from which the defence would naturally be conducted against the Roman troops on the mount of Olives. Now as the enemy would not unlikely make attempts upon the gate leading out from Antonia in this quarter, it would be natural for the Jews to fight against them, at this point, both from the eastern and northern porticos. A third explanation, which I would here suggest, depends upon the elevation of the northern portico. Herod built up all around the holy house immense porticos, more costly than the former ones;5 though it appears elsewhere, that the eastern portico was not rebuilt, but was still looked upon as the work of Solomon. These porticos formed each a double colonnade; the columns of which were five and twenty cubits high. That on the south had three colonnades; of which the two outer ones were each more than fifty feet high, and the middle one double that height. The northern portico of the temple, then, with its roof, we may assume to have had an elevation of not less than fifty feet. As we have seen above, it was probably distant from the south side of the great fosse about 516 feet; and from the northern side about 646 feet or some 215 yards. The wall on this part of Antonia, within the fosse, would not necessarily or probably be higher than at present, some twenty or twenty-five feet. Hence it would be no difficult matter for the Jews, stationed on the much loftier roof of the 1 B. J. 5. 7. 8, oi μèv tepl tòv ’Iwávvnv åñó τε τῆς ̓Αντωνίας καὶ τῆς προσαρκτίου στοᾶς τοῦ ἱεροῦ καὶ πρὸ τῶν ̓Αλεξάνδρου τοῦ βασιλέως μνημείων μαχόμενοι. Holy City, II. pp. 350, 353. Biblioth. Sacra, 1846, p. 628 sq. * Schultz, p. 69. 8 * Antt. 15. 11. 3, περιελάμβανε δὲ καὶ στοαῖς μεγίσταις τὸν ναὸν ἅπαντα, . . . καὶ τὰς δαπάνας τῶν πρὶν ὑπερβαλλόμενος. & Antt. 20. 9. 7. B. J. 5. 5. 2. northern portico, to throw missiles from their bows and engines across the whole breadth of the lower Antonia and the fosse, so as effectually to assail enemies approaching from that quarter. According to the ancient accounts, stones were sometimes thrown by the balista more than a quarter of an English mile, or double the distance above specified.A due consideration of the circumstances, therefore, seems to show, that the supposed difficulty has no foundation in fact. The other circumstance during the siege by Titus, referred to above, occurred after the Romans had broken through the second wall, and got possession of the lower city. Titus now relaxed his efforts for a little while; and meantime paraded his troops in battle-array, with much pomp and splendour, in order to terrify the Jews. "The whole old wall [on Zion] and the northern quarter of the temple were full of spectators; and one might see houses full of those looking on; nor did any part of the city appear, which was not covered by the multitude."2 Here it is not the northern portico, but the northern quarter of the temple; and as both the old wall on Zion and the houses of the city are likewise mentioned, the allusion is probably to the northwestern part of the temple and the acropolis of Antonia, as affording a view of the parade. Here too, Antonia, as the temple fortress, is apparently comprised under the general appellation of the temple. The above review of the sieges enumerated has shown, as it appears to me, that the objection thence raised against the proposed extent of Antonia is without validity. The whole discussion respecting the fortress may perhaps seem long and out of place. Yet the subject has a deep historical interest; for Antonia was the "castle" into which Paul was carried, after having been dragged out of the temple; and from the stairs the great Apostle addressed the tumultuous throng below.3 At what time, or in what way, the ancient precincts of the temple assumed the form and extent of the present Haram area, is unknown. Titus left the whole a inass of scorched and smoking ruins. Half a century later Adrian rebuilt the city; and apparently gave to its walls their present course and circuit. At the same time, he erected a temple to Jupiter on the site of the former Jewish temple; and decorated the area with statues • See the account by Josephus of the siege of Jotapata ; where, in one instance, the head of a man is said to have been taken off by a stone, and carried a distance of three stadia; B. J. 3. 7. 23. Comp. Procop. Bell. Goth. 1. 21, 23. Smith's Dict. of Antt. art Tormentum. 2 Β. J. 5. 9. 1, κατεπλήσθη γὰρ ἀφορώντων τό τε ἀρχαῖον τεῖχος ἅπαν καὶ τοῦ ἱεροῦ τὸ βόρειον κλίμα, τάς τε οἰκίας μεστὰς ἦν προκυπτόντων ὑπεριδεῖν, καὶ τῆς πόλεως οὐδὲν ὃ μὴ κεκάλυπτο πλήθει διεφαίνετο. 3 Acts 21, 31-40. In the N. T. the fortress is called Tapeμßoλń, Acts 21, 34. 37. of himself, one of them equestrian; which last was standing in the days of Jerome, late in the fourth century. Since that time, there is no reason to suppose, that any important change has taken place in the extent or limits of the area; and its present form, therefore, may be referred back in all probability to the times of Adrian. The rocky surface in the northwestern corner of the area still testifies that this portion has been artificially levelled. Here stood the acropolis. In the process of razing the foundations of Antonia, the trench between it and the higher part of Bezetha would naturally be filled up; while the eastern portion still remains and is without a parallel, whether regarded as a military defence or as a reservoir." VII. WATERS OF JERUSALEM. The various ways in which a supply of water was of old furnished to the Holy City have been fully treated of in a former volume. It remains here only to notice such information as has since come to light, and some views which have been put forward. "5 GIHON.-In a former volume I have adduced all the evidence extant relating to this fountain. The result seemed to be, that Gihon was on the west of the city, in the basin or head of the valley of Hinnom; since it is narrated of king Hezekiah, that he "stopped the upper water-course [outflow of the waters] of Gihon, and brought it down on the west to the city of David." It was thus stopped, perhaps, like the fountain near Solomon's pools; and the waters thus brought down by subterranean channels, in order to preserve them to the city in case of siege. The pool of Hezekiah so called, was probably thus fed; and also, as some suppose, the deep fountain or well near the Haram. learn too from Josephus, that an aqueduct conveyed water to the tower of Hippicus; and one is likewise spoken of in connection with the royal palace on Zion. The water here must have come from Gihon. We The general correctness of the preceding view has since been singularly attested by the discovery of an "immense conduit" beneath the surface of the ground on Zion, brought to light in digging for the foundations of the Anglican church. This edifice occupies apparently a portion of the ancient site of the royal 1 See above, p. 231 sq. * Some remarks upon the supposed identity of the fortress Baris with the Akra of Antiochus Epiphanes, which gave name to the lower city, see in Bibliotheca Sacra, Nov. 1846, pp. 629-634. See in full, Vol. I. pp. 323-349. [i 479-516.] Vol. I. p. 346 sq. [i. 512 sq.] 2 Chr. 32, 30. B. J. 5. 7. 3. ib. 2. 17. 9. |