Aelia Capitolina (Latin in full: Colonia Aelia
Capitolina) was a city built by the emperor Hadrian, and occupied by a Roman colony, on the site of Jerusalem
, which was in ruins since 70 AD, leading in part to the
Bar Kokhba revolt of
132–136.
Politics
Jerusalem was still in ruins from the First Jewish-Roman War in 70
A.D. Josephus, a contemporary,
reports that "Jerusalem ... was so thoroughly razed to the ground
by those that demolished it to its foundations, that nothing was
left that could ever persuade visitors that it had once been a
place of habitation."
When Emperor Hadrian vowed to rebuild Jerusalem from the wreckage
in 130 A.D., he considered reconstructing Jerusalem as a gift for
the Jewish people. The Jews awaited with hope, because Hadrian was
considered a moderate. But after Hadrian visited Jerusalem, he
decided to build Aelia Capitolina which would be inhabited by his
legionnaires. Hadrian also decided to never allow Jews to re-enter
the city ever again. Fundamentalist Jews, incensed at this harsh
decree, secretly started putting aside arms from the Roman
munitions workshops; soon after, a revolt broke out under
Simeon ben Kosiba.
This Bar Kokhba revolt, which the Romans
managed to suppress, enraged Hadrian, and he came to be determined
to erase Judaism from the province; Iudaea province
was renamed Syria
Palaestina, and Jews were banned from entering the city, on
pain of death, except on the day of Tisha
B'Av. The
Sanhedrin had earlier
relocated to
Jamnia. Hadrian's new
plans included temples to the major regional deities, and certain
Roman gods, in particular
Jupiter
Capitolinus; the city had formerly been the single Holy City of
most forms of Judaism, see also
Jerusalem in Judaism.
Name
Aelia came from Hadrian's
nomen gentile,
Aelius, while Capitolina
meant that the new city was dedicated to Jupiter Capitolinus
, to whom a temple was built on the site of the
former Jewish temple, the Temple Mount
. The city was without walls, protected by a
light garrison of the
Tenth
Legion, during the Late Roman Period.
The detachment at
Jerusalem, which apparently encamped all over the city’s
western hill, was responsible for preventing Jews from returning to the city. Roman
enforcement of this prohibition continued through the fourth
century. The Latin name
Aelia is the source of the
Arabic term Iliya (إلياء), an early
Islamic name for Jerusalem.
Plan of the city
The two pairs of main roads - the
cardines (north-south) and decumani (east-west) - in Aelia
Capitolina.
The urban plan of Aelia Capitolina was that of a typical
Roman town wherein main thoroughfares
crisscrossed the
urban grid
lengthwise and widthwise. The urban grid was based on the usual
central north-south road (
cardo) and
central east-west route (
decumanus).
However, as the main cardo ran up the
western hill, and the Temple Mount blocked the eastward route of the main decumanus, a
second pair of main roads was added; the secondary cardo ran down
the tyropoean
valley
, and the secondary decumanus ran just to the north
of the temple mount. The main Hadrianic cardo terminated not
far beyond its junction with the decumanus, where it reached the
Roman garrison's encampment, but in the Byzantine era it was
extended over the former camp to reach the southern walls of the
city.
The two
cardines converged near the Damascus Gate
, and a semicircular piazza covered the remaining space; in the piazza a
columnar monument was constructed, hence the traditional name for
the gate - Bab el-Amud (Gate of the
Column). Tetrapylon were
constructed at the other junctions between the main roads.
This
street pattern has been preserved through Jerusalem's later
history; the western cardo is Suq Khan ez-Zeit (Olive-oil Inn
Market), the southern decumanus is both the Street of the
Chain and Suq el-Bazaar (Bazaar Market; called David
Street by Israelis
), the
eastern cardo is Al-wad Road (Valley road), and the
northern decumanus is now the Via Dolorosa
. The original thoroughfare, flanked by rows
of columns and shops, was about 73 feet (22 meters) wide (roughly
the equivalent of a present-day six lane motorway), but buildings
have extended onto the streets over the centuries, and the modern
lanes replacing the ancient grid are now quite narrow. The
substantial remains of the western cardo have now been exposed to
view near the junction with Suq el-Bazaar, and remnants of one of
the tetrapylon are preserved in the 19th century
Franciscan chapel at the junction of the Via
Dolorosa and Suq Khan ez-Zeit.
As was
standard for new Roman cities, Hadrian placed the city's main
Forum
at the
junction of the main cardo and decumanus, now the location for the
(smaller) Muristan
. Adjacent to the Forum, at the junction of
the same cardo, and the other decumanus, Hadrian built a large
temple to the goddess Venus, which later became the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre
; despite 11th century destruction, which resulted
in the modern Church having a much smaller footprint, several
boundary walls of Hadrian's temple have been found among the
archaeological remains beneath the Church. The Struthion Pool lay in the path of the
northern decumanus, so Hadrian placed vaulting over it, added a large
pavement on top, and turned it into a secondary Forum; the pavement
can still be seen under the Convent of
the Sisters of Zion
.
Notes
- Josephus, Jewish War, 7:1:1
- Encyclopaedia Britannica 11th Edition
- The
Cardo Hebrew University
- Virgilio Corbo, The Holy Sepulchre
of Jerusalem (1981)
- Pierre Benoit, The
Archaeological Reconstruction of the Antonia Fortress, in
Jerusalem Revealed (edited by Yigael Yadin), (1976)
External links
See also
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