JERUSALEM
350
JERUSALEM
flanked it with three superb towers — Hippicus, Phas-
ael, and Mariamne. He also opened the tomb of the
kings of Juda, in quest of treasure, after which, to al-
lay the popular indignation aroused by his sacrilege,
he erected a monument of white marble at the en-
trance of the tomb (Antiq. Jud., VII, xv, 3; XVI, vii,
I). Herod was nearing the end of his reign of nearly
forty-one years, when Jesus, the Divine Saviour, was
born at Bethlehem. A few months after the visit of
the three Wise Men of the East, and the Massacre of
the Innocents, he died of a hideous malady, hated
by all liis people (4 B. c).
Archelaus, his son, took the title of king, but in the course of the same year Rome left liim with only the title of Ethnarch of Judea, Samaria, and Idumea. Ten years later, he was deposed, and Judea was re- duced to the status of a Roman province. Coponius, Marcus Ambivius, Annius Rufus, Valerius Gratus (a. d. 14), and Pontius Pilate (20) were successively appointed procurators of the country. Pilate occa- sioned several seditions, which he stifled with extreme brutality. Under the administration of Pontius Pilate, Jesus Christ was arrested and put to death. The Pas- sion, Resurrection, and Ascension of the Divine Saviour have rendered Jerusalem — wMch was already glorious — the most celebrated city in all the world. The en- thusiasm with which, after the Day of Pentecost, thou- sands of Jews declared themselves disciples of Jesus Clirist provoked a violent persecution of Christians, in which the deacon Stephen was the first martyr (Acts, vi, 8-15). Pontius Pilate having one day seized the funds of the Corban to pay for the construction of an aqueduct, a violent uprising of the Jews was thus occasioned (35). Summoned to Rome to give an ac- count of his conduct, he was banished by Caligula (Antiq. Jud., XVIII, iii, 2). Two years later, the emperor made Herod Agrippa I, grandson of Herod, tetrarch of the countries beyond Jordan; in 41 Claud- ius made him King of Judea. Agrippa undertook the construction of the third wall, to the north of the city (Antiq. Jud., XIX, vii, 2; Bell. Jud., V, iv, 2). To please the Jews, he caused St. James the Greater to be beheaded, and intended the same lot for St. Peter, when an angel came and deUvered the Prince of the Apostles from his chains (Acts, xii, 1-19). Soon afterwards, early in 44, the king died miserably at Ccesarea (Acts, xii, 23; Antiq. Jud., XIX, viii, 2).
At this epoch there came to Jerusalem Saddan, who was called among the Greeks Helen, Queen of Adia- bene, a country situated on the Adiabas, which is an eastern tributary of the Tigi-is. Converted to Juilaism, together with lier numerous family, she comforted the poor with her bounty during a terrible famine (cf. Acts, xi, 28) . It was she who caused to be excavated, for herself and her family, to the north of the city, the imposing sepulchre known as the Tomb of the Kngs (Antiq. Jud., XX, ii, 6; iv, 3). At this time the Blessed Virgin died, and was buried at Gethsemani. St. Peter returned from Antioch to preside at the First Oecumenical Council (Acts, xv, 1-3). (See Ju- DAIZER8, sub-title Council of Jerusalem.) The King of Judea was replaced by a procurator, and Agrippa II, son of the preceding Agrippa, was made Prince of Chalcis and Perea, and charged with the care of the Temple of Jerusalem (Antiq. Jud., XX, ix, 7). He finished the third wall, which had been commenced hy his father, and brought the work upon the sanc- tuary to a termination in A. D. 64. Cuspius Fadus, Tiberius Alexander, and Cumanus were successively procurators, from 44 to 52. Then came Felix, Festus, and Albinus, from 52 to 66. With the last four, dis- orders and massacres occurred incessantly. Gessius I'lorus (06) surpassed the wickedness of his predeces- sors, and drove the people to revolt against the Roman domination; Agrippa and his party advocated pa- tience, and appealed to Rome against the procurator; but after several days of civil war, the insurgent party
triumphed over the pacific, massacred the Roman
garrison, and set fire to the palaces. Cestius Gallus,
President of Syria, arrived on 30 October, 00, with the
Twelfth Legion, but only met with repulses, and had
to retire (Antiq. Jud., XX, xxi; Bell. Jud., II, xvii, 6;
xix, 1-9). The Christians, recalling Christ's prophe-
cies (Luke, xix, 43, 44), withdrew beyond the Jordan
into Agrippa's territory, led by their bishop, St.
Simeon (St. Epiphanius, "De mensuris", xiv, xv).
Nero commanded his general, Vespasian, to suppress
the insurrection, and Vespasian, accompanied by his
son Titus, invaded GaUlee, in a. d. 07, with an army of
00,000 men. Most of the strong places had been cap-
tured, when the death of the emperor occasioned a
suspension of hostilities. After the ephemeral reigns
of three emperors, aggregating eighteen months, Ves-
pasian was raised to the throne in November, 69.
Titus received from liis father the command of the Army of the East, and in the following year, at the season when the Holy City was crowded with those who had come to the Feast of the Passover, he began to lay siege to it. On the 14th day of Xanthic (Bell. Jud., V, xiii, 7), or of the Hebrew month Abib^the day of the Passover, corresponding to 31 March — Titus took up liis position on Mount Scopus with the Fifth, Seventh, and Fifteenth Legions, while the Tenth Legion occupied the Mount of Olives. On the other side, John of Giscala held the Temple, the An- tonia, and the new town at Bezetha, with 11,000 men, and Simon, the son of Giora, held the upper and lower city, on the south-western hill, with 10,000 men. Attacking the third wall, on 9 April, the legions cap- tured that line of defences after fifteen days' fighting. Once master of the new town, Titus took up a position to the west, on the ground known as " the Camp of the Assyrians " (Bell. Jud., V, vii, 2). An attack upon the second wall immediately followed. Five days later, the Romans gained entrance by a breach, but were repulsed, and mastered it only after five days of fierce and incessant fighting. Titus could then approach the Antonia, which offered the only way of access to the Temple, and the citadel of Herod, which covered the first wall to the north of Mount Sion. After three days given to repose, the causeways and movable towers were made ready against the Hippicus tower and the Antonia. But on 17 May the works raised against the Antonia were mined and destroyed by the soldiers of John of Giscala, and two days later the movable towers which threatened the Hippicus were set on fire by Simon's men, while a heroic struggle was being maintained on both sides. The Roman general then employed his whole army for three days in sur- rounding the city with an earthwork of circumvalla- tion, designed to cut off all communication with the city, and so to reduce the place by famine. This soon produced terrible results (Bell. Jud., XII, v, 2).
After three weeks of fresh preparations, the batter- ing-rams effected a breach in the wall connecting the Antonia with the Temple, near the Pool of Struthius, but in vain. Two days later, the wall crumbled to pieces above a mine prepared by John of Giscala, and a handful of Roman soldiers gained entrance to the Antonia l)V surprise, at three o'clock in the morning of 20 June (Bell. Jud., VI, i, 1-7). Titus at once had the fortress demolished, in order to use the materials in constructing mounds against the Temple. For three weeks the Jews desperately defended first the outer porticoes and then the inner, which the Romans en- tered only at the cost of enormous sacrifices. At last on 23 July, a Roman soldier flung a blazing torch into one of the halls adjoining the Holy of Holies. In the midst of frightful rariiuge the fire spread to the neigh- bouring buildings, and soon the whole platform was one horrible ma.ss of corpses and ruins (Bell. Jud., VI, ii, 1-9; iii, 1, 2; iv, 1-5). The Konuins then set fire to the palace in the hollow of El Wad, and to the Ophelj next day they drove the Jews out of the Acra ana
