In 66 A.D. the first Jewish Revolt against Rome broke out. The war ended in the siege and fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. The Romans pretty much leveled the city and destroyed the Second Temple. All that was left of First Century Jerusalem were three towers built by Herod the Great and the retaining or Western Wall (also Herodian) which still stands to this day. In 130 A.D. the Roman Emperor Hadrian (one of the more competent emperors) visited Judea and decided to rebuild Jerusalem only this time as a Roman city with straight streets, a market (or forum) and where the Temple once stood would be a statue of Jupiter Capitolinus. The Jews naturally reacted with outrage and after years of delivering faulty weapons to the Romans which they knew would be rejected and returned, under the leadership of a charismatic leader called Simon Bar-Kochba (a man with messianic inclinations) they launched another revolt (132 – 135 A.D.). This one was extremely brutal and deadly. After initial Judean successes (they destroyed one and possibly two Roman legions), the Romans were forced to bring legions into Judea from all over the Empire and waged a war of extermination. Slowly under their best commander (brought all the way over from Britain) Julius Severus the Romans started to gain the upper hand.
The rebels did not dare try to risk open confrontation against the Romans, but occupied the advantageous positions in the country and strengthened them with mines and walls, so that they would have places of refuge when hard pressed and could communicate with one another unobserved underground; and they pierced these subterranean passages from above at intervals to let in air and light.
The Romans too lost heavily, so heavy in fact that they never issued coins celebrating their triumph and built no arches as they had for the previous war (The Arch of Titus in Rome). It was a war that frankly the Romans preferred to forget. Hadrian completed the building of Aelia Capitolina (Aelius being his family name) and to harm the growing Christian faith he built a temple to Venus on the sight of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus (where the Church of the Holy Sepulchre now is). Hadrian did not live long enough to celebrate his triumph, he died three years after the Bar-Kochba revolt was crushed. The irony of Aelia Capitolina was that by building it on the ruins of Jerusalem (destroyed in 70 A.D.), the Romans wound up resurrecting Jerusalem. After the end of the Bar-Kochba Rebellion of 132 – 135 A.D., Hadrian in an attempt to deny the Jewish connection to Judea, renamed the province Syria-Palestina after the ancient Philistines.
Anyone visiting the Old City of Jerusalem today will in fact be seeing the remains of Aelia Capitolina.
by Nir Hasson
If you look at a map of the Old City of Jerusalem, you’ll notice something odd. While the vast majority of the Old City’s streets form a crowded casbah of winding alleyways, there are a few straight-as-a-ruler streets that bisect the city from north to south and east to west.
The best known of these straight roads are Beit Chabad and Hagai streets, exiting through the Damascus Gate; David Street, exiting the Jaffa Gate; and the Via Dolorosa.
Like the rest of the Old City’s streets, these straight roads are narrow but, unlike the others, they preserve a historical skeleton of sorts that forms the basis of the Old City we know today. This skeleton was created, most archaeologists agree, not during Jewish, Christian or Muslim rule, but during the Roman period, when the city of Aelia Capitolina was built on the ruins of Jerusalem following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD.
Ironically, it is actually the streets of this imperial and pagan city – which supposedly left behind no cultural or spiritual heritage for modern Jerusalem – that have bequeathed to the city the skeleton structure that has survived to this day.
In the history of Jewish Jerusalem, Aelia Capitolina is the very embodiment of defeat and destruction – a reminder of the humiliation of the Second Temple’s destruction, which erected a pagan temple in its place. This image has distanced Aelia Capitolina from the fathers of Israeli archaeology, who were naturally drawn to the ornate, Jewish city that preceded it. “No one concealed Aelia Capitolina, but we wanted to talk about the Second Temple,” says Dr. Ofer Sion, of the Antiquities Authority. “Aelia Capitolina was an accursed city, a city from which we were banished. It was more idealistic to excavate the Second Temple.”
Almost all of the archaeologists who study Aelia Capitolina call it “an elusive city.” As opposed to the Jerusalem of Second Temple times that preceded it, Aelia Capitolina has not been entirely unearthed during the many excavations that have been performed in the city since 1967. The residents of Aelia Capitolina did not leave written texts like the works of Flavius Josephus during the Second Temple era or of Christian travelers in the following period.
It is known that the Roman city was established by Emperor Hadrian between 130 and 140 AD. After the Bar Kochba revolt of 135, Jews were forbidden to enter the city. Its most important inhabitants were the soldiers of the 10th Legion, who would remain encamped in Jerusalem for 200 years.
Salvage operations
Following the latest wave of excavations, which began in the mid-1990s, more and more archaeologists have become convinced that Aelia Capitolina was a much larger and more important city than was once thought, and its influence on the later development of modern Jerusalem was dramatic.
Aelia Capitolina has sprung to life in a significant way through no less than four extensive excavations that have taken place in the Old City area, and in a number of other digs in other parts of Jerusalem. Most of these digs have been rescue excavations by the Antiquities Authority, salvage digs carried out before new construction and development goes ahead. In a few more years, Aelia Capitolina could again be covered over by new buildings.
In the rear section of the Western Wall plaza, in the spot where the Western Wall Heritage Foundation intends to erect a large building that it calls “the Core House,” Antiquities Authority researcher Shlomit Wexler-Bedolah discovered an ornate and broad Roman street, complete with shops on each side. This is the eastern cardo, along whose path Hagai Street would later be paved.
Three hundred meters to the south, another Antiquities Authority researcher, Dr. Doron Ben-Ami, discovered the place where the Roman street apparently ended. The corner of the street is adjacent to the Givati parking lot at the top of the Silwan valley – the spot where the Elad organization intends to build a large visitors center. In a large rescue excavation at this location in recent years, Ben-Ami exposed a large, fancy Roman villa unlike any other structure from its time in the entire country. He estimates that the villa he uncovered was the home of the regional governor or some other central authority.
In another excavation, in the tunnel under the Western Wall, Wexler-Bedolah and archaeologist Alexander Onn re-estimated the dating of a large bridge leading to the Temple Mount. As with other ancient monuments this too turned out to be of Roman origin and not from the Second Temple period. Another example is the Roman bathhouse and swimming pool discovered by Sion a year and a half ago. “It’s a tremendous spa, a country club,” Sion says, comparing the bathhouse to similar facilities found in other parts of the Roman Empire.
This increasing number of Roman-era discoveries strengthens the notion that the Temple Mount, even after its destruction, did not lie totally barren, but was used for pagan worship rites.
[.....]
The latest excavations give archaeologists much greater insight into Aelia Capitolina than was possible even a decade earlier. Experts agree the city was planned extraordinarily well, based as it was on designs of other cities in the empire and according to orders that came directly from the emperor. It included broad streets, numerous and magnificent entrance gates, temples and infrastructure, and it even housed a new elite of army officers and free soldiers who turned Aelia Capitolina into a thriving city.
“When I began to study the history of the Roman city, it was a barren field,” says Prof. Yoram Zafrir, one of Israel’s most veteran archaeologists. “Today, it is clear that the basic structure of Jerusalem is that of Aelia Capitolina.” Zafrir describes the process by which, after the Roman period, beasts of burden replaced wagons, the central government became weak and streets became “privatized.” This process led to the city that we know today.
“Similarly to the British Mandate, which lasted just 31 years but had a significant impact on modern Jerusalem, from the perspective of architecture, the Roman period established a whole new, imperial language that still holds sway today,” archaeologist Dr. Guy Stiebel concludes. Stiebel even notes the irony of history: “Aelia Capitolina effectively saved Jerusalem. It raised her once again onto the stage of history. She returned like a phoenix from the ashes.”
Read the rest – Archaeologist bringing Jerusalem’s ancient Roman city to life
Tags: Jerusalem, NIr Hasson, romans
A non political thread.
Cool thread Speranza! Thanks!!
Saw this when it went up yesterday. Fabulous stuff.
Does this mean we can talk about Russell Crowe?
m wrote:
Wasn’t Severus a pretty big persecutor of Christians?
(Not disrespecting his leadership abilities, just asking)
Bumr50 wrote:
I think you mean the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus who ruled from 193 -- 211 A.D.
father_of_10 wrote:
If we must.
@ Speranza:
Yes.
My bad.
Thanks for the post! I enjoy learning about history.
@ Speranza:
He was a terrible Emperor. From his reign, the Empire begins to decline.
Marcus Aurelius was the last good Roman Emperor until Aurelian, who reunited the Empire in the 270′s.
@ Speranza:
Yeah, a relief!
Rodan wrote:
Septimius Severus came from North Africa. His son Caracalla was a 3rd century version of Caligula.
Rodan wrote:
Actually Diocletian (who actually abdicated instead of being murdered) was the last great Roman Emperor.
Rodan wrote:
The five good emperors who followed one another (98 -- 180 A.D.)
1. Nerva
2. Trajan
3. Hadrian
4. Antoninus Pius
5. Marcus Aurelius
@ Speranza:
Although one can argue Justinian who reconquered North Africa, Italy and vassalized Spain fits the bill. Heracles had he died after the Persian wars would have been considered great, but at the end of his life, he lost Syria to the Muslims.
OT -- OK I’m listening to Rush, and he just played a soundbite from THIS MORNING where Mitt Romney said that he wants to make sure the top “one percent” (quote) pays their fair share of taxes.
@ Speranza:
The last 3 out of 4 were Spaniards!
I have to brag!!!!!!!
@ Bumr50:
No shock there, he has supported OWS before.
Rodan wrote:
Byzantine Emperors I separate from Roman ones. By that time the Western Empire was gone and the Eastern Empire was more Greek then Roman.
Rodan wrote:
I figured you would.
Speranza wrote:
This is where you really shine as a blogger and writer. It’s the article like this that you write that remind me why despite our sometimes bitter political disagreement why I both like you and enjoy your writing.
Bumr50 wrote:
So, Romney’s reaching out to OWS instead of the Tea Party?
Sounds like a winning strategy to me.
//////
Speranza wrote:
Hadrian may have been good for the Empire, but as an individual of Scot-Irish heritage I can’t say I like ole Hadrian all that much.
@ Speranza:
It’s a historical perspective. In the Anglo and French Spheres, some separate Byzantine from Roman Empire. In The Latinsphere, historians tend to view the Byzantines and One thing, the Byzantines never called themselves that. They called themselves Romaoi and their Empire Romania. Visigothic Spain as continuations of the Roman Empire.
So its a matter of perspective.
One thing, the Byzantines never called themselves that. They called themselves Romaoi and their Empire Romania.
Waldensians ruled no one
doriangrey wrote:
Well he did keep the Roman soldiers employed (and not planning rebellions) by building that wall to keep the Picts (the forerunners of the Scots) out of England.
@ doriangrey:
He built that wall to keep you guys out of the province Britannia.
Rodan wrote:
Hey, come on—the Byzant Teens were the hottest pop-music group of the Eastern Roman Empire!
@ buzzsawmonkey:
Positively unacceptable.
Rodan wrote:
They lasted until 1453 when Constantinople fell to the Turks. That year (1453) is also significant because the last battle of the Hundred Years War was fought when the French crushed the English at Castillon.
@ Speranza:
FIFY!
Rodan wrote:
Yea, I’ve never quite understood that. In truth, the Roman Empire survived until the Fall of Imperial Russia, mostly through a slow process of retreat, but it survived none the less.
doriangrey wrote:
Feeling a little Pict-on, are we?
@ Speranza:
Most people don’t know that the final 10 years, the French thoroughly kicked England’s ass in the 100 years war.
@ doriangrey:
The Spanish Empire claimed to the be Roman Empire and they had the most legit claim. Spanish were Latin like the Romans.
Although the Russians do have a claim because one of the Czars married the daughter of the last Byzantine Empress.
@ doriangrey:
Believe me I much prefer historical threads to political ones.
@ Speranza:
Same here. Although Chucky threads are a life of their own.
buzzsawmonkey wrote:
Actually I think it was Hadrian who was feeling a little Pict-on after what my ancestors did to his much vaunted Ninth Legion…
Rodan wrote:
That’s because the French King Charles VI (Joan of Arc’s Dauphin) came up with a professional full time army and his master gunner Jean Bureau developed “cannons” actually culverins to offset the English advantage of the longbows. The English like to talk about Crecy (1346), Poitiers (1358) and Agincourt (1415), but never about Formigny (1450) and Castillon (1453).
@ doriangrey:
It was lucky win. My ancestors didn’t bother with that area. It wasn’t worth much and you guys were nuts.
Have you seen the movie, The Eagle?
Bumr50 wrote:
What’s with these bozos? The 1% are not already paying their fair share of taxes . . I swear, the GOP hase no balls.
Rodan wrote:
Chuckles is always good for creating some cameraderie.
Rodan wrote:
Towards the end it was German Roman legionaires fighting German barbarians.
@ Speranza:
That final 10 years, the French broke the back of the English. The irony was that at the start of the war, the Kings of England viewed themselves as France. Then by the end of the war, the national identities of both France and England were developed.
Had the English won, England would have been the backwater of a large French speaking nation. The Kings of England wanted to be Kings of France more than anything else.
@ Speranza:
Yes, even in the Byzantine Empire, I read Justinian was actually a Goth.
The Army that reconquered Italy and North Africa, was actually Balkan Goths. Irony of history.
Rodan wrote:
ROTFLMAO… It wasn’t luck, and my ancestors weren’t nuts, they were full bore crazy on steroids… No, I haven’t seen “The Eagle”. What happened to the Ninth Legion, BTW is pretty much where redheaded Scottish and Irish women got their reputation for being bat shit crazy…
Oh, and Yes my Grandfather and my Father were both redheads. 
@ Rodan:
Chucky threads are hysterical threads. Hysteria on his part, hysterical laughter on ours.
@ doriangrey:
The Eagle is about the destruction of the 9th Legion.
Rodan wrote:
The effects of The Hundred Years War are felt to this day in the distrust and dislike between the UK and France. Also The Hundred Years War lead directly to the Wars of the Roses in England.
Speranza wrote:
I even stand side by side with Doriangrey in an anti-chuckie thread. Shoulder to shoulder even (actually, my elbow to his shoulder).
Rodan wrote:
Yea, Saxons and Normans…
Rodan wrote:
The Roman Legions at the height of the empire were comprised of Germans, Gauls, and Thracians.
father_of_10 wrote:
Well since I’m 6’1″ I guess that makes you what 10 feet tall…
@ Speranza:
It defined two nations. One of the biggest what if I have is, if the French govermmnet in WWII had accepted Churchill’s offer of a Union between The UK and France.
@ Rodan:
It was only in the 15th century when English Kings first language was not French but English. They kept the title Kings of England and France until 1802.
Rodan wrote:
I doubt that would have lasted. France was a Republic and Britain a constitutional monarchy.
Speranza wrote:
Scottish King’s on the other hand spoke gobbledygook, err I mean Gaelic…
@ doriangrey:
I read a book called Rules Britannia and it was about Parma’s Army taking over England. The Spanish rename England, Britannia after the Roman Province. Then 20 years after the conquest, they try to invade Scotland with a mostly Irish mercanary force. Man it didn’t end well for the Spanish Tercios in this book.
@ Speranza:
You should do a thread on the 100 years war. Its really a fascinating conflict and there are so many urban legends.
Wife of Assassinated Iranian Nuke Scientist: “His Ultimate Goal Was Annihilation of Israel”…
doriangrey wrote:
You mean they did not sound like Mel Gibson er William Wallace in Braveheart?
Rodan wrote:
Wave, Britannia! Britannia waves the rules….
@ Speranza:
That movie had so many historical holes in it.
waldensianspirit wrote:
Shocker…I never would have thought that. Someone tell Hillary and Obama.
Rodan wrote:
Alternate History?
I made a political comment backthread.
I don’t have time to write a post, but I believe that it deserves some attention as some sites will BURY it.
Rodan wrote:
You could have driven a Challenger tank right through it. It was well made though.
The French “princess” (the future Queen Isabel) was 6-years old at the time that the movie took place.
@ Macker:
Watchmen!!
Rodan wrote:
I would need at least three separate threads.
father_of_10 wrote:
You’re not a Nephilim, are you? 8)
Speranza wrote:
Have you ever heard anyone speaking Gaelic??? It’s almost enough to make you believe in space aliens… Hell, try understanding what a Scot speaking English is saying sometime…
@ Speranza:
And Oliver Stone’s hatching. Who says Ahmadinejad is only referring to the West Bank when he talks about pushing the Jews into the sea
@ Speranza:
They aren’t listening! They aren’t listening! (Hillary probably has her hands over her ears. They are at that level of discourse with the Israelis)
doriangrey wrote:
It is not very friendly to the ears. (I am trying to be diplomatic about it).
Iron Fist wrote:
She has been a God awful Sec. of State.
waldensianspirit wrote:
He is as dumb as his gap toothed daddy.
@ Speranza:
Well at least it isn’t Klingon… 8)
@ Bumr50:
Who is surprised? Romney would rather cultivate the Occupests than the Tea PArty. That is why defeating him is job one this year. Only after he is defeated can we wage political war on Obama.
Rodan wrote:
It took the English something like 300 years to conquer Scotland, and when they finally did succeed it was more through intermarriage than combat. Robert the Bruce damn near conquered England and would have if he hadn’t listened to his advisers who told him he would be unable to feed his army if he continued his attack.
@ Macker:
Yup.
@ doriangrey:
If you think about it, after Queen Elizabeth 1st died, James Stuart united England and Scotland. SO technically, Scotland took over England.
Speranza wrote:
I literally laughed out loud at that. One of my little brothers learned to speak Gaelic, it isn’t just hard on the ears it’s torture on the throat and tongue as well. There is an old Pict/Irish legend that the Pict’s/Irish are the descendants of a race that came from the Stars and crash landed on earth, hearing people speak Gaelic is almost enough to make you wonder if it isn’t more truth than legend…
Speaking of iran
A trial court in Iran has issued its final verdict, ordering a Christian pastor to be put to death for leaving Islam and converting to Christianity, according to sources close to the pastor and his legal team.
Rodan wrote:
Shhhhh, Don’t let the English know that…
@ doriangrey:
I saw that on ancient aliens.
Many other people have that legend as well.
@ doriangrey:
My Bad!
OK, off to
work on the race cardrink some beer…Rodan wrote:
Yea, but how many other people have a language as supportive of it as the Scot-Irish?
James I of England was already James VI of Scotland. The union of the Crowns (of England and Scotland) did not take place until 1707.
@ Speranza:
Weren’t they unofficially united though from James Stuart on? Kind of like, there was no Kingdom of Spain, but instead a Union of Castile and Aragon.
@ doriangrey:
Several Species Of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave And Grooving With A Pict…
Some say it is Pink Floyd’s weirdest song ever. Dig the Gaelic/Scots ranting at the end.
Rodan wrote:
Unofficially yes but Scotland and England had separate parliaments.
@ Speranza:
Wasn’t there supposed to be something done this year on secession for the Scots? I can see why they’d want to. Maybe rebuild Hadrian’s Wall to keep the Muzz out of Scotland…
Rodan wrote:
“The Union was a personal or dynastic union, with the Crowns remaining both distinct and separate—despite James’s best efforts to create a new “imperial” throne of “Great Britain”. England and Scotland continued to be sovereign states, despite sharing a monarch, until the Acts of Union in 1707 during the reign of the last Stuart monarch, Queen Anne.[2]”
Of course the Acts of Union were bitterly contested by the Scots Jacobites after the Hanoverians assumed the throne with the appointment of Anne’s cousin, George 1 of Hanover as King, which led to the Jacobite rebellions in Scotland of 1715 and the more famous one in 1745 led by Bonnie Prince Charlie. The defeat of the Jacobite Clans by the Duke of Cumberland led to the Highland Clearances, and the mass immigration of Scots to Canada and the American Colonies…
@ Iron Fist:
Seems like they are debating it, though I don’t know if it has anything to do with the Muslim character that England is taking on…
Iron Fist wrote:
Unfortunately modern Scotland is plagued with Leftism, especially in the Glasgow region, a legacy of the “Red Clydeside”…communist and socialist dockworkers unions in the ‘Teens, 20′s and 30′s. The “Scottish Nationalist Party” is more leftwing than the British Labor Party. Most Scots Conservatives are against devolution for this reason.
@ The Osprey:
Lovely. Leftism is a disease of dogs…
The militant labor unions destroyed the once proud Scottish shipbuilding industry. Sound familiar?
Iron Fist wrote:
Sadly, the Muzz are already there, doing what the Muzz do.
Maybe we need to raise an army of Diaspora Scots to liberate the homeland.
@ The Osprey:
On that side of the album, each band member was allowed free reign on one piece. That was Roger Waters’ contribution.
The live pieces on the other side alone make it worth buying.
@ The Osprey:
The reduction of mankind to slaves of the State, living in destitution and filth, is the real goal of the Left. They destroy thriving industries, stifle innovation, and generally make life miserable for the people that they are perporting to be trying to help. It is all a scam to amass total power in the hands of a few ruthless men. Stalin and Hitler were the ultimate expressions of the Left. They were the natural result of Leftism, not some abberration.
@ The Osprey:
End the Muslim Occupation of Scotland! Free the Hagia Sofia!
@ The Osprey:
Thanks for that.
New Thread.
Iron Fist wrote:
Who leaves haggis on the sofa?
@ Rodan:
Where?
@ buzzsawmonkey:
It is better than eating it…
@ Iron Fist:
Speaking of haggis—well, of hags—Cindy Sheehan is being sued by the feds for back taxes.
@ The Osprey:
Is that the “song” which has “Oooh, Fuck Me” in it? That’s what it sounds like to me!
@ buzzsawmonkey:
I saw that! She thinks she’s special! Doesn’t she know that you have to have a cabinet level position or be a Congresscritter to get away with not paying your taxes? Too funny!
@ Iron Fist:
Perhaps if she used TimmyTax?
Roemer to launch independent bid for President
He can debate Rosanne Barr
@ Iron Fist:
Sorry at 4!
@ waldensianspirit:
I didn’t have a clue who that was until I read that. I’m sure he’ll make a big splash! As Bugs says, What a Maroon!
@ buzzsawmonkey:
@ Iron Fist:
I hope she represents herself and tries to use that argument in court.
buzzsawmonkey wrote:
The fascist fish-wife is still around?
The Osprey wrote:
George Galloway is Scots -- there’s exhibit 1.
@ The Osprey:
@ Speranza:
Where does Sean “The Rapists for $200, Alex” Connery fall along this matrix?
doriangrey wrote:
my ex wife is from ireland…went to school in one of the gaeltachts…Béal Átha an Ghaorthaidh
buzzsawmonkey wrote:
hey, i dont bad mouth matzo balls and gefilte fish, so dont bad mouth the glorious haggis!
Macker wrote:
He’s from Edinburgh. Edinburgh is the banking and law capital of Scotland and tends to be somewhat more Conservative than Glasgow.
Sean Connery’s voice is the epitome of the Edinburgh accent.
coldwarrior wrote:
Great Chieftain o’ the puddin’ race!
Speranza wrote:
On the other hand, John Smeaton is also a Glaswegian.
@ The Osprey:
Jack Bruce the bass player and lead singer from the 1960′s group CREAM is from Glasgow.
@ Speranza:
and so is Sheena Easton.