[366] Madden, “Coins of the Jews,” pp. 183–97.
[367] Tacitus, “Hist.,” V. xiii.; Josephus, “Wars,” VI. v. 3.
CHAPTER IX
THE ROMAN CITY
When the last smouldering fires had burned out among the ruins, the silence of death came over the desolate heaps which had once been Jerusalem, nor does it appear certain that any buildings were erected, or any native population allowed to dwell on the site, for sixty-five years after the fall of the city. The camp of the 10th legion was built on the plateau of the upper city, and was defended by the three great towers, which would form a citadel still in case of need. The demolition of the walls appears otherwise to have been so complete as to leave no traces of their lines thereafter, though the huge blocks lay on the ground, and were used again when the Roman colonial city, Ælia Capitolina, was built. Every stone of the Holy House seems to have been deliberately removed. The outer Temple ramparts were overthrown into the valleys, down to the level of the plateau formed by Herod within them. Two buttresses only were left on the north-west, close to Antonia, while on the south-east the corner of the wall stood up alone, as it was seen by the pilgrims down to the time of Justinian in our sixth century, with the spring of a huge arch which supported vaults at this angle. The great bridge was broken down to the ground, and the stones of its arch still lie on the Herodian pavement of the street that passed under it. Zion was a “ploughed field,” and the rabbis who ventured to visit the desolate sanctuary mourned as they saw the jackals prowling in its ruins.[368]
THE EARLY BISHOPS
The Sanhedrin established itself at Bureir, in Philistia, and afterwards at Jamnia, south of Joppa, where a famous school of doctors studied the Scriptures down to the time of the later revolt in 135 A. D.; but it would seem that the Jews were not allowed to approach their Holy City, and only visited it by stealth. Nor have we any certain indication that the Christians returned till after the Roman city was built. Eusebius[369] gives a list of fourteen bishops following James the Just; but the first of these (St. Simeon) must have left Jerusalem in 64 A. D. The second is supposed to have been consecrated in 107 A. D. They all bear Jewish names, except Seneca (125 A. D.) and his successor Justus. As to this “line of the circumcision,” which was supposed to end in 135 A. D., Eusebius himself says, “The space of time which the bishops of Jerusalem spent in their see I could in no wise find preserved in writing ... but this much I have been informed from records, until the siege of the Jews in Hadrian’s time there were fifteen bishops.”
The presence of the 10th legion, Fretensis, is, on the other hand, shown by the recovery of inscribed objects found by Mr. Bliss,[370] namely, three fragments of Roman tiles bearing the abbreviated title of the “Legio X Fretensis,” and in one case a representation of the boar, which was the emblem of this legion. But at some time before the year 117 A. D. this garrison was changed and the 3rd legion, Cyrenaica, took its place. It was also perhaps during this period that the Jews and Jewish Christians began to adopt a custom which continued in use down to the Middle Ages. The “lovers of Zion” desired that their bones might rest at the Holy City, and it became a pious duty to gather them, and to rebury them near it. There was also, in later times at least, a superstitious belief that those who were not buried in the “Valley of Decision” (Jehoshaphat) would have to find their way there through Sheol from their graves[371]—a survival of the ancient Egyptian belief in the journey of the soul through Amenti to the judgment hall of Osiris. It is said that, to the present day in Russia, Jewish cemeteries are called “Jehoshaphat,” and that this ancient superstition still survives. Stone caskets, adorned by geometrical patterns engraved on the sides, were prepared to bring the bones from other regions. Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela (about 1163 A. D.) speaks of these as existing in the cave of Machpelah at Hebron: “You there see caskets filled with the bones of Israelites; for unto this day it is a custom in the house of Israel to bring thither the bones of their relicts, and of their forefathers, and to leave them there.”
THE OSSUARIES
We have already seen that the bones of the family of Nicanor were so buried on Olivet, and that similar caskets (or ossuaries) were found in the tomb of Helena of Adiabene[372]; these latter may belong to the first century, as the only coins found with them were of the reign of Titus. Several other examples were found buried on the south spur of Olivet in 1873, and were studied by M. Clermont-Ganneau. Hebrew names are scratched upon them, and in one instance a rough cross, as though marking the presence of a Hebrew Christian from Pella or from Kaukabah in Bashan, where Ebionite Christians were living down to our fourth century. The exact age of these examples is uncertain, and the presence of the cross—an emblem only used in secret before 326 A. D.—rather favours the supposition that they are late. In 1900 other Jewish tombs were explored on the north of Olivet, and similar ossuaries were found; three of these bore Greek texts, and another was inscribed in Hebrew. The names Protas and Papos are clearly written, and that of “Yehoḥanan bar Ṣabia” seems to be decipherable. Quite recently also Jewish texts have been found in a tomb near the village of Silwân, with the names of “Abishalom father of Yehoḥanan,” and of “Shemra.” They are cut in soft rock and blacked in, but the last letter of the second name is painted in red. To the same class belong probably the graffiti in the so-called “Tombs of the Prophets” on Olivet, one of which was discovered by de Vogüé with the words “Phlôrianos Astaros” in Greek, and the Hebrew broken text “Peace be to ’Ab...” There are, however, fragments of Greek Christian graffiti at this site,[373] and though the expression “father of Yehoḥanan” points to burial or re-burial by a son, it seems probable that these interments of the bones of ancestors may be supposed to be of very various ages. The tombs in which they occur are certainly old, for they contain kokîm tunnels as graves instead of the loculi of the Greco-Jewish age.
In the reign of Trajan[374] the Jews of Mesopotamia and of Egypt broke out into revolt and were subdued, but there is no notice of any such rebellion in Palestine. We have evidence that Jerusalem was then held by the 3rd legion, which was originally called Augusta, but afterwards Cyrenaica on account of its success against the Jewish rebels at Cyrene; for a Latin text was found in 1895, built into the Turkish wall near the south or Sion Gate. “To Jove the best and greatest, Serapis, for the health and victory of the Emperor Nerva Trajanus Cæsar, the best, the august, the German, Dacian, Parthian [victor]; and to the Roman people, the standard bearer of the third Cyrenaic legion made” (this). This text cannot be earlier than 116 A. D., and Trajan died the next year.