JERUSALEM
351
JERUSALEM
burned the lower city as far as the Pool of Siloe (Bell.
Jud., VI, vi, 3^). There still remained the third
rampart, the formidable stronghokl of the upper cit v,
where the defenders of the Acra, laden with booty,
had joined Simon's men. Eighteen days were de-
voted to the preparation of the oggeres (mounds) to
the north-west and north-east of the fortress, but
scarcely had tlie battering-rams breached the walls
when Jolin anil Simon fled secretly with their troops.
On the eightli day of Elul (1 August) the city was defi-
nitively in the power of the Romans, after a siege of
143 days. To those who congratulated him Titus re-
plied: " It is not I who have conquered. God, in His
wrath against the Jews, has made use of my arm"
(Bell. Jud., VIII, V, 2).
The walls of the Temple and those of the city were demolished. But Titus wished to preserve the for- tress of the upper city, with the three magnificiMt towers of Herod's palace. Besides, the upper city was needed as a fortified station for the Tenth Legion, which was left to garrison Jerusalem. During this siege — one of the most sanguinary recorded in history —600,000 Jews, according to Tacitus (Hist., V, xiii), or, according to Josephus, more than a million, per- ished by the sword, disease, or famine. The survivors died in gladiatorial combats or were sold into slavery.
D. Development of the Citi/ and its Chief Monuments. — (1) Sion, or the City of David, according to Tradi- tion. — " David took the castle of Sion " and " dwelt in the castle, and called it, the city of David: and built round about from Mello and inwards " (II Kings, v, 7, 9). When Solomon had completed the Temple and the House of the Forest of Lebanon, 100 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high, with a porch 30 cubits by 50, he erected the palaces and other build- ings. Lower down, towards the south, in the locality which figures in the post-Exilic texts as the Ophel, we find the Gabaonites (Jos., ix, 22) and other Nathinites — foreign races placed at the service of the Levites to furnish wood and water for the sacrifices (I Esd., ii, 58; vii, 24; viii, 20; II Esd., iii, 26; xi, 21).
Did Sion, the City of David, occupy the eastern hill or that situated to the south-west? Before the exile, the Jews could not have been ignorant of the location, for the boundary wall of Sion enclosed the sepulchres of the prophet-king and fourteen of liis successors; the last two Books of lungs repeat this thirteen times (III ICings, ii, 10; xi, 43; xv, 9, 24, etc.; IV Ivings, viii, 24, etc.), and Paralipomeuon bears similar wit- ness. On their return from exile, the old men (I Esd., iii, 12) must have remembered in what quarter of the city the burial-places of David and his descendants were situated; in point of fact, Nehemias does not hesitate to use them as a landmark (II Esd., iii, 16). Hyrcanus I and Herod the Great even opened these tombs of the kings to find treasure in them (Antiq. Jud., VII, XV, 3; XIII, vii, 4; Bell. Jud., I, ii, 5). The white marble monument erected by the latter seems to have remained standing until A. d. 133 (Dion Cassius, "Hist, of Rome", LXIX, iv). At any rate the tomb of David was well known among the Jews and the disciples of Christ in the time of St. Peter (Acts, ii, 29). Now Josephus, an eyewitness, says that the Jebusite city, which became the City of David, occu- pied the high western plateau of the south-western hill, which is now known as Mount Sion. In his time it was called " the upper city " (Antiq. Jud., XVI, vii, 1, etc.), and again the upper agora, or market (Bell. Jud., V, iv, 1. Cf. I Mach., xii, 36; xiv, 36). The word Millo (in D. V. Mello) is always translated Acra in the Septuagint and Josephus, and, according to the latter, the Millo, or Mello, occupied the high plateau on the north-east side of the same hill, and was in his time called Acra, "lower city" and "lower market" (Antiq. Jud., XVI, vii, 1; Bell. Jud., V, iv, 1; I Mach., i, 38). It was this hill, commanding the Tem- ple, that was levelled by the Hasmoneans (Antiq.
Jud., XIII, vi, 6; Bell. Jud., I, ii, 2). The Talmudists
agree with the Jewish historian as to the position of
the two markets (Neubauer, " La Geographic du Tal-
mud", p. 138). Eusebius of Csesarea (Onomasticon,
s. V. "Golgotha"), St. Jerome (Ep. cviii, "Ad Eus-
toch."), St. Epiphanius ("De mens.", xiv), and all
later writers, Jewish and Christian, locate Sion, the
City of David, upon the south-western hill, which has
never borne any other name than that of Mount Sion.
(2) Sion on Ophel. — During the last fifty years many writers have rejected tradition and sought in- formation from the Bible alone, giving some twenty different topographical theories. The theory which places Sion upon Ophel is the only one which (apart from certain discrepancies as to the sites of the Mello, the Acra, the palaces of Solomon, etc.) is worth a moment's consideration. The partisans of this theory base it upon the following passage: "This same Eze- chias was he that stopped the source of waters of Gihon, and turned them awav underneath toward the west of the city of David" (II Par., xxxii, 30). They maintain that Sion was at Ophel for the following reasons: (a) En Rogel — "the fountain Rogel" — a spring of the Valley of Cedron (Jos., xv, 7; xviii, 16) is the Bir Eyilb, or " Well of Job", situated 2300 feet to the south of the Ain Sitti Mariam, or Fountain of the Virgin, (b) In former times, as now, the Fountain of the Virgin was the only spring which flowed in the vicinity of Jerusalem, (c) The Fountain of the Virgin is, therefore, the Upper Gihon of the Bible, (d) Now it was Ezechias who made the tunnel of Siloe. (e) By this passage the king brought the waters of the Fountain of the Virgin to the west of Ophel, that is, of the City of David, (f) The Books of Machabees explicitly state that Sion was on the mountain of the Temple, or Moria.
The following objections are made: —
(a) The Bir Eyilb, that is to say, the Well of Job, is neither a spring nor a fountain (en or ain), but a well (Mr), 125 feet deep, in its present condition, and is supphed only by rain-drainage and infiltration. In the sixth century, Cyril of Scythopolis (Vita S. Sab», Ixvii), and then Eutychius of Alexandria (Annals), and Moudjir ed Din ("Hist, de Jerus.", ed. Sauvaire, p. 188) tell us that, after a great drought which lasted five years (509-14), in the twenty-third year of Ana- stasius, John, Patriarch of Jerusalem, caused a well to be dug to a depth, according to Cyril, of about 255 feet, or, according to the Arab historian, of 50 cubits (about 82 feet), but without finding any water. The Bir EyOb, therefore, is no Chanaanean fountain, and the En Rogel must necessarily be the Fountain of the Virgin, the natural peculiarities of which must have made it famous in the country and fitted it to serve as a boundary mark between the tribes of Benjamin and Juda. The grotto of this spring, too, would have afforded a good place of concealment to David's two spies, who hid at En Rogel (II Kings, xvii, 17).
(h) In the time of Ezechias there were many springs of running water in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, and the king stopped them all (II Par., xxxii, 2-5). Josephus relates that when Titus was besieging Jerusalem many springs flowed so abun- dantly that they sufficed, not only to give drinking water to the Romans, but to irrigate the gardens (Bell. Jud., V, iv, 2). West of the city the ground was covered with gardens (Bell. Jud., V, ii, 2; vii, 2), and this is why the western gate bore the name of Cennath, "Gateof the Gardens". Here Titus pitchfd his camp and here the officers of Sennacherib halted (IV Kings, .xviii, 17. Cf. Is., vii, 3). Among the living waters of Jerusalem the Babylonian Talmud commemorates the "Beth Mamila" (Neubauer, op. cit., p. 146), that is, the Birket Mamilla. Cyril of Scythopolis (loc. cit.) relates that, in the great five-years' drought "the waters of Siloe and of the Lucillians ceased to flow". Lastly, Josephus says that a conduit under the Gate
