Palestine Exploration OJtarter!J 130 (I gg8)

AELIA CAPITOLINA AND THE LOCATION OF THECAMP OF THE TENTH LEGIONI

DORaN BAR

The Tenth Legion, known as 'Fretensis', was the regular garrison deployed by the Romans inJerusalem after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E. This can be learned fromjosephus Flavius's clear words: 'But Caesar resolved to leave there as a guard the Tenth Legionwith certain troops of horsemen and companies offootmen' (Josephus, War, VII.I.2). But doesjosephus also provide a clue as to the camp's location? He refers to this matter incidentallywhile reporting that the Legion was left to camp beside 'so much of the wall as enclosed the cityon the west side. This wall was spared in order to afford a camp for such as were to lie ingarrison' (Josephus, War, VII.1. I).Josephus's written testimony, the sole direct reference to thecamp's location, seems at first self-explanatory enough to pinpoint the location of the Legion'scamp, as indeed most historians ofJerusalem did. In their view, josephus Flavius makes directreference to some part of the Western Wall of Second-Temple Jerusalem as a fortification thatthe Romans had left intact to provide strengthening for the Roman camp.

This article will attempt to show that the question of the location of the legionary camp isstill far from being settled. Josephus Flavius's description and several archaeological finds fromthe city indicate that, while we cannot doubt the existence of the camp somewhere inside thecity boundaries, the question of the actual location of the camp is still intriguing and unresolved.

WAS THE CAMP OF THE TENTH LEGION REALLY ON THE SOUTH-WESTERN HILL OF JERUSALEM?

Josephus Flavius's testimony convinced many historians ofJerusalem from the final decades ofthe nineteenth century almost to this day. They relied on what appeared to be an indisputabledescription. These scholars shared the view that the remnants of the Tenth Legion's camp wereburied somewhere on the south-western hill of Jerusalem's Old City (Germer-Durand 1892,373; Wilson 1905,138-44; Vincent 1914,19-21). Extensive archaeological excavations in thisarea during the 1960s and 1970Sleft scholars still convinced and holding on to the same view.This hypothesis remains prevalent among most historians ofJerusalem even today (Couasnon1974, pI. V; Tsafrir 1975,286-301; Bahat 1989,58; Margalit 1989,45-56; Cohn 1989, 116;Murphy-O'Connor 1995, 303-2 I). We submit, however, that this assumption is based onseveral arguments which are not well established.

The predominant argument is offered by Josephus Flavius's description, which seeminglyreferred to some part of the Western Wall that was left by Titus to be used as a fortification forthe camp - ostensibly the 'First Wall' of Second-Temple jerusalem. The topographicaladvantage of the hill, which rises 773 m. above sea level, over the rest of the city was also astrong argument used by scholars to place the camp on that hill. Furthermore, the ease withwhich they could mark the assumed rectangular boundaries of the camp on the south-westernhill was, again, very tempting. Today it is widely believed that the camp's boundaries ran asfollows: on the north and the west a line of fortifications that was based on the remnants of theFirst Wall, presumably the stretch of wall which Titus had ordered to be left untouched and theLegion soldiers had subsequently renovated; on the east a line of wall that was likewise erectedby the soldiers, situated on the western side of the Jewish Quarter; on the south the camp wall

THE CAMP OF THE TENTH LEGION 9was apparently based on the line on which the present Ottoman wall was later built. A wall onthis line is conventionally thought to have been first erected by the soldiers of the Tenth Legion.

Despite the virtual unanimity among scholars about the camp's location, the archaeologicalfinds inside the suggested boundaries of the camp and along its walls do not verifY these claims.There is no archaeological evidence that any secondary use was made of the First Wall duringthe late Roman period. Reports indicate that during the Byzantine period part of the First Wallwas indeed· renovated, but no late Roman period remains were found there (Johns 1950,152- I58; Tushingham 1968, I 10- I I I). Likewise on the eastern and southern sides of thepresumed camp no remains were found. The scholars' reconstruction, based on the assumptionthat the present southern wall of the Old City stands on a late Roman wall which served as thecamp fortification, has yet to be confirmed by archaeological finds. Several excavations,conducted on both sides of the present Ottoman wall, show that the wall was erected on muchlater remains (Broshi 1977, 36). On the northern side of the camp, opposite the presumedalignment of the First Wall, remnants of some kind of fortification from the late Roman periodwere found (Johns 1950, 125; Hamilton 1952,86). This line of remains, discussed later in thisarticle, cannot in our opinion have formed part of the camp walls.

The excavations that were carried out inside the supposed area of the camp have yieldedsimilar results. One of the most important conclusions reached from the excavations carriedout in the Jewish Quarter by N. Avigad was the realization that no traces of Roman buildingactivity could be found (Avigad 1980, 205-208). In large-scale excavations that were carriedout within theJewish Quarter, the Mount Sion area, the Armenian Quarter and the Citadel,very sparse late Roman period remains were found, mostly broken pieces of tiles with the TenthLegion's seal on them, while a more significant concentration of evidence was found in theCitadel area (Johns 1950, 152-58; Geva 1983, 64-67). Allover the areas that were excavateda Byzantine stratum was found directly above the Second Temple level, but hardly any findsfrom the late Roman Period turned up there (Tushingham 1968, I 10- I I; Bahat and Broshi1972, 103; Kenyon 1974, 256; Avigad 1980, 207).

Several years ago an article was published by H. Geva, which negates the widely heldopinion and claims that, contrary to what was customary in all other cities in the eastern part ofthe Empire, inJerusalem no regular camp was built. According to this theory, the Tenth Legionsoldiers were stationed in a temporary camp on the south-western hill, ready to be called out toany mission in the area (Geva 1984; 1993, 759-60). This explains why no remnants of the campwere found, but in our opinion it is not reconcilable with late Roman literary sources, whichclearly testify that it was not customary for Roman legions to spend even one single nightoutside a fortified camp (Polybius, Histories, VI.26.IO-32; Keppie 1984, 191-92; Isaac 1990,427-28).

Because of the absence of archaeological evidence, it seems to us that not only was theTenth Legion's camp not located on the south-western hill ofJerusalem, as most scholars argue,but this hill was very sparsely populated during the late Roman period and perhaps was notpart of Aelia Capitolina at all at that time.

LITERARY SOURCES FROM THE BYZANTINE PERIOD RELATING TO THE SOUTH-WESTERN HILL

It would have been very fortunate ifliterary sources from the late Roman period indicating theprecise location of the camp were available to us, but unfortunately this is not the case.Therefore we must have recourse to later sources related to the Byzantine period and seewhether they can enlighten us somewhat about this issue.

10 PALESTINE EXPLORATION QUARTERLY

From the early Byzantine period onwards, more and more pilgrims and Christianinhabitants passed through the streets ofJ erusalem with the hope of visiting the religious sites ofthe Holy Land. Some of them left behind valuable testimonies referring to the situation on thesouth-western hill during their time, and they can help us determine whether the hill waslocated inside the boundaries ofJerusalem or, as we believe, outside it.

Eusebius Pamphili (265-339 C.E.) mentions the status of Mount Sion in his days on severaloccasions. From his references to the mountain in his Onomasticon it is apparent that he knew theexact location of the hill very well (Eusebius, Onomasticon, 162. I 2),2 and from his interpretationof the book of Micah we can conclude that from the turn of the third century, at least, the hillwas uninhabited: 'Now it [Mount Sion] is being cultivated by the Romans like the rest of thecountry, and indeed we saw the place with our own eyes being ploughed by oxen and sown'(Eusebius, Demonstratio Evangelica, VIII.3. 10 (406)). Several years later, at the beginning of theByzantine period, an anonymous pilgrim arrived in the region from the city of Bordeaux.During his pilgrimage he visited Jerusalem and part of his description refers to Mount Sion.The year of his visit, 333 C.E., is a decisive turning point in the history of Jerusalem, for this isthe time when the city was converted from being a remote place into a major Christian religiouscentre. The significance of this date stems from the fact that at that time the city had not yetchanged dramatically in appearance. This was before the big changes that were introducedthrough Christianity. From the pilgrim's words, 'as you leave Jerusalem to climb Sion', we canclearly deduce that the hill lay outside the boundaries of the city, while from his words 'climbingSion from there, you can see the place where once the house of Caiaphas used to stand ...inside Sion, within the wall, you can see where David had his palace' (Itinerarium Burdigalense,59 I. 7-593. I) we can learn that he had to climb up the steep hill towards the summit, passingby Caiaphas's house on the southern side of the mount. Turning north, he passed through 'Sionwall', apparently a stretch of a wall that was left from the Second Temple period near the threefortified towers. Our pilgrim identified one of them as the place where David's palace used tostand. Having visited the site, the man from Bordeaux returned to Jerusalem, leaving 'Sion'and facing the 'Gate of Neapolis'. It seems obvious from his words that he was quite familiarwith the different status of the two geographical units - Jerusalem, the city itself, where mostof his visit was concentrated, and 'Sion', the area in ruins, lying outside the city walls, where hesaw David's palace.

The testimony of the Bordeaux pilgrim, which indicates that the south -western hill wasindeed to be found outside the city boundaries, is supported by later Byzantine sources. Cyril ofJerusalem (315-387 C.E.), the bishop of the city, says in the middle of the fourth century thatthe area of Mount Sion was cultivated and not inhabited: 'Today the place is full of cucumberfields' (Cyril, Catecheses, 16. I8). A few years later, Bishop Optatus from Numidia writes aboutthe mountain: 'Not at that Mount Sion, which is separated from the walls of Jerusalem by asmall stream and on whose summit there is a plain ... Not in this worldly mount where thereare no longer gates' (Optatus Milevitanus, Liber de Schismate Donatistarum, 3.2). Still later, whenJerome describes the pilgrimage of Paula to Jerusalem (385 C.E.), he describes how all the oldgates of Mount Sion were lying in ruins in his days (Hieronymus, Epistula 108.9). Severaldecades later we hear from Eucherius, bishop of Lyons, crucial evidence about the situation onthe mount. His whole description is marked by its very realistic character and he teaches us agreat deal about mid-fifth-century Jerusalem: 'The site of the city is almost forced into a circularshape, and is enclosed by a lengthy wall, which now embraces Mount Sion, though this wasonce just outside. It is on the south, and overlooks the city like a citadel' (Eucherius, De situHierosolimae, 3). Eucherius's description should be judged by the historical reality of the fifthcentury. In the middle of that century, the Empress Eudocia finished building a vast wall that

THE CAMP OF THE TENTH LEGION I I

surrounded the south-western hill ofJerusalem. She thus revived the line of the First Wall of theSecond Temple period and included the mount again within the boundaries of the city (Bliss1898, 14-20). This act, it is easy to guess, left a great impression on Jerusalem's residents andvisitors. Eucherius, being similarly affected by the Empress's act of piety, stresses that beforeEudocia's move, the city was much smaller in scale and Mount Sion lay outside the city. In hisdays, explains Eucherius, the city with the mount inside it was much larger.

If we summarize what we have learned from the Byzantine sources about the situation onthe south-western hill ofJ erusalem during their times, it seems evident that the hill was not partof fortified Jerusalem in the first half of that period. The argument that a similar extra-muralstatus can be attributed to the mount during the preceding late Roman period seems to be wellsubstantiated. The late Roman city was not bigger than its Byzantine successor, nor was it moresplendid or important. We assume, then, that during the late Roman period, as in the first partof the Byzantine period, the hill was not populated and lay outside the city's boundaries.

AELIA CAPITOLINA AND THE CAMP OF THE TENTH LEGION - URBAN RELATIONS

The founding of Aelia Capitolina and its connection to the outbreak of the Bar Kochba revolthave been extensively discussed by many scholars (Schiirer 1973, 540-43; Smallwood 1976,443-44; Alon 1984, 430-60). It is customary to think that the decision to found a colony ofRoman citizens on the ruins of the former city of Jerusalem was made in the course of theEmperor Hadrian's visit to the East in 129- I 30 C.E. The colony, known as Aelia Capitolina,was different from all the other cities of the eastern Empire. A Greek polis could have beenexpected to be built on the site ofJ erusalem, as was the common Roman practice in the easternprovinces. Instead, as an exception, a Roman colony was established by Hadrian himself,alongside the Tenth Legion's camp, which was founded earlier in 70 C.E. (Isaac 1980, 340-60).

Contrary to Second Temple times or the Byzantine period, whenJerusalem spread over avast area, Aelia Capitolina and its urban center were confined to a much smaller stretch ofland, in the parts known today as the Christian and Muslim Quarters. It is logical to assumethat the Tenth Legion's camp formed an integral part of Aelia Capitolina and was likewiserefurbished by Hadrian's officials according to the same strict urban planning as the rest of thecity, but sadly, because of the unsatisfactory data we have from Jerusalem, we must seek ananalogy in other cities in the Eastern Roman Empire where Roman legions were deployed.

The Third Legion, Cyrenaica, was based in the northern part of the city of Bostra, thecapital of the province of Arabia. It was stationed in a well fortified camp which formed anintegral part of the city. Here many relevant remains from the legion's presence in the areawere found (Moughdad 1976, 65-81; Kennedy 1990, 125; Isaac 1990, 123)' In the city ofPalmyra, in the eastern part of modern Syria, the military quarter in the north -west of the citylikewise formed an integral part of the city, and was divided from it only by a wall (Michalowski1963; 1985, 25I-6 I; Isaac 1990, 166; Kennedy 1990, 134). Strikingly similar discoveries weremade in the excavations at the city of Dura Europos on the banks of the Euphrates (Hopkinsand Rowell 1934, 207-37; Hopkins 1979; Isaac 1990, 147-52; Kennedy 1990, I I 1-14). Allthis seems to indicate quite clearly that these Roman military camps were all interwoven in theurban fabric of the cities, divided from them only by a wall. 3 Can we then deduce from theseinstances anything regarding Aelia Capitolina and the relationship between the colony and theTenth Legion's camp? It would appear that the answer is affirmative. We must assume that inlate RomanJ erusalem, as in other cities in the area, the legionary camp formed an integral partof the city. But no such certainty belongs to the commonly held view that the site of the campwas on top of the south-western hill. According to the archaeological finds and the town-plan of

12 PALESTINE EXPLORATION QUARTERLY

the city, we can clearly see that the south-western hill was not part of Hadrian's new urbanplanning, as we will show below.

It is a widely accepted notion that the streets of today's Old City of]erusalem reflect thelayout of Aelia Capitolina (Wilkinson 1975, I 18-36; Minsker 1977, 129). If we look carefully atthe maps and aerial photographs of today's Old City, we can see that many streets in itsnorthern parts, namely the streets of the Christian and Muslim Quarters, are still founded onthe same strict plan which dates back to the days of Hadrian. On the other hand, it is clear thatthe entire southern part of the Old City, which today makes up the] ewish and ArmenianQuarters, is not planned in the same way. The southern areas do not appear to have been anintegral part of Aelia Capitolina. That is because we cannot find there any proof of the parallelstreets, characteristic of the second century, which means that Aelia Capitolina was evidently amuch smaller city than previously assumed.

The civil and municipal centre of Aelia Capitolina was erected by Hadrian's builders inthe northern parts of former Second-Temple] erusalem. The street plan in that area wascharacterized by strict geometric planning consisting of a network of parallel streets intersectingat right angles, with all the colony's public buildings built along them. The Cardo, the mainstreet of the colony, was a wide street flanked by splendid rows of decorated pillars on eitherside. In the past, the common theory was that this street stretched from the Damascus Gate,running through not only the northern part of the city but also the southern part of AeliaCapitolina, passing near the legionary camp (Germer-Durand 1892; Wilson 1905, 138-44;Vincent 1914, 19-2 I; Coiiasnon 1974, pI. V; Tsafrir 1981, 39). Today, in the light of thearchaeological exposure of some parts of this street, it is evident that the southern part of thestreet, from the junction of to day's three markets and David Street southwards, was built duringthe second half of the Byzantine period (Avigad 1980, 2 13-29). Support for the dual-phasetheory can be found in the visual incongruence between the earlier and the later parts of thestreet, where the latter is not completely straight (Reich 1987, 164-67). Th~s is again animportant proof of our view that the Roman city was confined to the northern parts of themodern Old City.

The question whether Aelia Capitolina was a fortified city and if indeed it was surroundedby a wall, or what was then the line of the city's walls, are issues on which scholars have failedto agree. Normally, when the status of colony was accorded a city, a wall was built around it,but when Aelia Capitolina was founded in the second century, it was apparently an unwalledcity. Many scholars connect the transfer of the Tenth Legion from] erusalem to Aila (Eusebius,Onomasticon 6. I7:ff.) at the end of the third century to the building of a wall around the city. Thealignment of the city's walls, as researchers would have it, ran basically on the line of themodern Old City walls on the eastern, northern and western sides (Hamilton 1940-42, 26, 35,52; Hennessy 1970, 22-27; Kloner 1986, 124-26), and indeed, in some places, remains fromthe period have been found. It is only reasonable to assume that a similar wall can be found onthe southern side of the city as well, but as mentioned before, pointing to a specific wall there isa much more difficult task. The supposition that a late Roman southern wall can be uncoveredbeneath the existing Ottoman wall has been proved to be inaccurate. If Aelia Capitolina wasindeed a fortified city, then the southern city wall should be sought on a line lying furthernorthward, parallel to David Street and the Street of the Chain. A series of remains were foundalong this line in the nineteenth century (Finn 1886, 207; Pierotti 1864, 30, 32; Schick 1892,186-87; Macalister 1906,299; Wilson 1871,274-76). Previously, those remains were identifiedby historians of]erusalem as belonging to a variety of periods (Tsafrir 1975, 56-60; Hamilton1952, 86; Simons 1952, 254-55). The line which joins those remains, from the late Romanperiod it seems, may point to the place where Aelia Capitolina's southern wall passed, if indeed

THE CAMP OF THE TENTH LEGION 13it was surrounded by a wall at that time. This wall ran from where the three towers stoodtowards the Temple Mount and was built on the southern slope of the Transverse Valley. Thismethod of building a wall, on a reverse slope rather than on a forward slope, seems at first to besomewhat hard to explain in purely logical terms, but after an examination of the topographicalcharacteristics of the hill it seems nonetheless to make sense. No natural obstacles from thesouth could pose a threat to the city's security.

All the evidence that was mentioned earlier led to the conclusion that the view that thelocation of the Tenth Legion's camp was on the south-western hill cannot be verified. Thisconventional hypothesis gained credence during the final decades of the nineteenth century,from the days of Germer-Durand and the other early Jerusalem researchers, but it has neverbeen analysed according to the actual layout of the city. The researchers were very muchinfluenced by comparisons with the perfect Roman way of building cities and with otherregional Roman cities, but in fact the scholars' reconstruction was not soundly based.Archaeology shows a gap between the earlier Second-Temple finds and the later Byzantinestratum. Very few late Roman remains have been found. The extra-mural character of thisarea shows again that it was not part of Aelia Capitolina's grand plan, and the fact that theCardo ends in the northern part of the city supports this conclusion. Literary sources, thoughfrom a later period, show that not only is there no truth in the conventional reconstruction ofthe camp at that location, but evidently the entire hill was then outside the city, and wasincluded within the city boundaries only after the middle of the fifth century.

A NEW SUGGESTION

The tendency of scholars to locate the camp on the south-western hill derives from JosephusFlavius's description. In our opinion, they mistakenly connected the three towers that Titus hadordered left untouched (Josephus, War, VII. 1. I) directly to the western part of Jerusalem'swall- seemingly the First Wall. It seems to us that a solution to the problem of the location ofthe Roman camp lies in a more careful reading ofJosephus's words.

The most outstanding thing in the relevant paragraph ofJosephus is that he fails to nameany specific wall when he talks about a western wall that surrounded Jerusalem. Unlike otherpassages in his writings where he does refer to a specific wall of contemporary Jerusalem, thistime for some reason he avoids such a specification.

Jerusalem's 'Third Wall' was built during the days of Agrippa I, the last Hasmonaeanruler, in the first half of the first century C.E.4 The wall stretched from the three towers towardsthe north-east, reaching the Tower ofPsephinus and encircling the city on the north, towardsthe Temple Mount (Josephus, War, V.4.2). On a map of Second-Temple Jerusalem, it is clearthat together with the First Wall, this Third Wall was also part of the city's fortification networksystem on the west. We submit that Josephus did not refer to the First Wall of the city whenwriting about the location of the camp, but to the later wall, the Third Wall.

This is not the only place where Josephus refers to this wall as the Western Wall ofJerusalem. This happens, for example, when he describes one of the Roman units that blockedthe city and was based 'near the corner opposite the Tower Psephinus, where the encirclingwall bent back from the north to the west' (Josephus, War, v.3.5). According to this new way ofreadingJ osephus, in the passage mentioned above, it is suggested that when the historian spokeabout a section of the Western Wall that Titus had ordered to be left for the Tenth Legion, hereferred to the Third Wall. This view is corroborated by the realization that the three towerswere left by the emperor for the purpose of showing the strength of the Roman army, while the

2

THE CAMP OF THE TENTH LEGION 15wall was indeed meant to be left as part of the Roman camp. No physical connection betweenthe wall and the towers is implied byJosephus' words.

On that basis, we propose that the location of the Tenth Legion's camp was confined tothe area between the Second Wall and the Third Wall (Avi-Yonah 1968). This area, whichtoday is included within the boundaries of the Christian Quarter, the Muristan and the Churchof the Holy Sepulchre, enabled the Legion soldiers to control the entire city easily. Josephustells us that this area was a commercial centre during the Second Temple period, and that theTenth and Fifteenth Legions tried to break through it into the 'upper city' and the three towersat the beginning of the siege (Josephus, War, v.8. I). We can assume that this area sufferedgreatly from the ravages of war and that many of the buildings there were destroyed. It seemsthat at the end of the fighting Titus ordered that the area, close to the three towers and fortifiedby walls on three sides, be spared, so as to serve as a camp for the Legion. That area was chosenbecause of the relative sparsity of construction there and mostly because of the topographicaland military advantages it offered.

At this stage of the discussion we must digress a little and devote a few words to the generalappearance of Aelia Capitolina as most historians of Jerusalem see it. The customary view ofAelia Capitolina presumes that, like many other Roman cities, Hadrian's new city was plannedaccording to the model of military camps. Such cities were usually divided by two mainintersecting streets, which carved the city into four equal parts. The city's main road, itsnorth-south axis, was usually called the Cardo while the east-west road was usually called theDecumanus. In the case of Jerusalem, the city was intended to be planned and divided intodesignated areas by broad streets. As mentioned earlier, its main street was the Cardo Maximus.However, as distinct from the ideal design of the Roman city envisaged by scholars, a secondaryCardo was also built, running parallel to the Western Wall of the Temple Mount. The widestreet of the colony that ran across it was divided into two. The Eastern Decumanus led visitorsinto the Northern Forum that stood north of the Temple Mount through a triumphal gatewhich is known today as the Ecce Homo Arch (Vincent 1914,669-742; Benoit 1975, 135-67;Aline 1956). The Western Decumanus, which supposedly ran on what today are David Streetand the Street of the Chain, connected the western gate of Aelia Capitolina to the TempleMount. According to this view, the city was divided into four quarters with the south-westernquarter being formed by the Tenth Legion's camp.

One of the major urban elements in the city, the Forum, is believed to have been locatedin the centre of the city, north-west of where the city's two main streets crossed. Despite theabsence of either archaeological or literary confirmation of this theory, all the scholars stillmaintain this view even today (Vincent 1914, 19-21; Couasnon 1974, 11-12; Bahat 1989,61-65; Geva 1993,763; Gibson and Taylor 1994,65-69). North of the Forum, it is commonlybelieved, a civic basilica and a temple in honour of the Roman goddess Venus-Aphrodite werebuilt (Couasnon 1974, I 1-12).

Unfortunately, this reconstruction of the plan of Aelia Capitolina is based much more onspeculation than on hard facts on the ground. The most amazing part of this reconstruction isthe fact that all the scholars seem to locate in such a small city asJerusalem two squares or Fora.This is actually a unique phenomenon which is unparalleled in any other Roman city of asimilar scale. With the exception of very large cities like Rome, no other city in the entireRoman Empire can be found with more thanjust one forum (Zucker 1959,55; Mumford 1961,207-208; Kornel 1982, 158-66; MacDonald 1986, 6, 36, 49; Owens 1989, 18-23). It seemsthat building two squares in one city conflicted with the Roman principle which favoured aclear and defined designation of urban areas without any ambiguity.

16 PALESTINE EXPLORATION QUARTERLY

Because of the difficulties mentioned above, we suggest a reconsideration of thereconstruction of the southern part of Aelia Capitolina. According to our theory, the area whereall the scholars usually place the city's Forum should be seen as part of the Tenth Legion'scamp. The only forum which, in our opinion, was built in Aelia Capitolina was to be found inthe northern part of the city, near the Temple Mount, where the Capitoline Temple of the citywas situated (Gibson and Taylor 1994, 69-70) and where the two main streets of the city - theeastern Decumanus and the Cardo, which may be the real Cardo Maximus of the city -intersected. This assumption is supported by our suggestion that the size of the city at that timewas much smaller, while the bulk of the city clearly leant toward its eastern section. Theexistence of this forum is confirmed by a later Byzantine source: Sophronius of Jerusalem(560-638 C.E.), the patriarch of the city in the last decade of Christian rule, tells us about theexistence of a Forum in the northern part of the city, near the Church of the Probatica(Sophronius, Anacreontica, 20).

The rectangle whose sides are marked by the Christian Quarter, the Muristan and theChurch of the Holy Sepulchre was the site of extensive building activity during the second halfof the nineteenth century. Archaeologists have had the opportunity to study this area throughseveral small-scale excavations. In those diggings it was found that, during the late first centuryor early in the second century, a large engineering operation was carried out there (Lux 1972,Plans 1,6; Couasnon 1974, 11-12; Kenyon 1974,261-62; Schein 1981,23-24). Huge amountsof debris were brought to the place in an attempt to level the riverbed of the Transverse Valleyand form a flattened and elevated ramp. While discussing the finding ofJesus' grave, Eusebiusrefers to this Roman engineering operation (Eusebius, Vita Const., 111.26),whose purpose, webelieve, was to serve as a platform for the use of the Tenth Legion's soldiers.

The suggested boundaries of the camp are as yet not well defined and can only be assumedto follow archaeological data and the remains of straight streets in this area of today's Old City.Despite that and following our assumption, the camp was fortified on the east by a wall thatseparated it from the Cardo. On the south, it seems, it was fortified by the First Wall, and onthe west by the Third Wall. To these we should add the three towers that also formed part ofthe camp fortifications. The existence of this wall is confirmed by a later Byzantine source:Sozomen, who tells us about the existence of a wall around at least part of this area (Sozomen,Historia Ecclesiastica, II. I). The Legion's soldiers camped there, then, facing south and west,while behind them, to the north, lay the fortified city. As was common in other camps, twomain streets divided the camp. One of them was the longitudinal street on which today'sChristian Street may have been built (Chen 1979, 243-44). The camp's other main streetpassed somewhere south of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and reached the longitudinalroad. It seems that the main entrance to the camp was at the eastern end of this street, where itmet the Cardo. In the past, remnants of a decorated gate dating back to the Roman periodwere found in this area, which could perhaps be the remains of the camp's main gate (Vincentand Abel 1914, 70-79). The fact that a temple was erected inside the camp boundaries (Gibsonand Taylor 1994, 65-69) was not totally uncommon. Other Roman cities that housed legionsalso boasted temples (Isaac 1990, 148, 166-67), while the remains of straight streets in thesuggested area of the camp show that this was indeed part of Hadrian's planned colony.

Since the area of the present-day ,Christian Quarter has never been methodicallyexcavated, the archaeological evidence cannot give us an unambiguous picture and attest to theexistence of the Roman camp there. Nonetheless, it is important to cite the few pieces ofevidence that have been found in the area. Most of the findings are Latin inscriptions, thelargest concentration of those which were found in the Old City. Some of them relate directlyto the Tenth Legion by mentioning some of its commanders (Thomsen 1922,22,24,69, 101;

THE CAMP OF THE TENTH LEGION 17Sarfatti 1975, 15 I). Although those inscriptions cannot provide decisive proof of the camp'slocation, they can certainly support our view about the camp's location.

Additional testimony to the existence of the camp in the suggested area can be found inrecent excavations along the Upper Aqueduct, which transported water from springs in thesouth to the city of] erusalem. In order to provide a constant water supply to the camp, theLegion's soldiers built or maybe merely renovated the Upper Aqueduct, which led water to theTowers' Pool, inside the suggested area of the camp (Mazar 1989, 181-83; Arnit 1994, 5 I7- I8).The existence of the aqueduct inside the boundaries of the camp could explain the vast effortsthat the Legion's soldiers had invested while building the aqueduct. According to the Romanperception, which valued the independence of the Legion's soldiers, a reservoir was certainlyessential (Webster 1985, 208-209).

CONCLUSIONS

Ever since the final decades of the nineteenth century, when Jerusalem began to draw theattention of various scholars, unanimity about the reconstruction of Aelia Capitolina's urbanappearance started to take shape among historians ofJerusalem. For many years the writings ofthose pioneers seemed indisputable, and even though the period at hand, the late Romanperiod, suffers from a shortage of written or archaeological sources, this reconstruction by mostmodern scholars was never questioned. This can be said both about the reconstruction of thecity in general, but especially about the reconstruction of the Tenth Legion Camp on the south-western hill ofJerusalem.

As shown in this article, none of the written, urban or archaeological sources which relateto this hill indicate that it was the location of the camp. Our conclusion is even more far-reaching: We argue that this hill was first included within the boundaries of the city only afterthe mid-fifth century.

We must admit that our conclusion that the Tenth Legion's camp should be sought insidethe boundaries of the Christian Quarter of today suffers from the same weaknesses as thetraditional theories, which we have just rejected. Although our suggestion is based onJosephus'stestimony, providing what we believe is a more accurate understanding of his writings, the factthat no decisive archaeological proof has been found in the suggested area still leaves ourproposal rather insecure. Nevertheless, we believe that those archaeological finds that havebeen uncovered, the urban character of the area and the testimony of] osephus, together offer ahint as to the camp's location.

To the best of our knowledge, the key to understanding the reconstruction of AeliaCapitolina and to the location of the site of the Legion camp lies in the fact that it was not localinhabitants of Jerusalem who made the decisions about the establishment of the camp or theplanning of the city. Rather it was people who came to the city together with the armies of Titusand Hadrian, personnel well trained in Roman urban and military design. They were unawareof its former urban history and decided to erect the Roman camp in an area that appeared tobe relatively accessible and defensible by the existing walls and towers in the northern part ofthe city.

NOTES

1 A similar article was previously published by me in 2 Eusebius often refers to two Sions. The first of themHebrew (Bar 1993). The present article contains some was the biblical Sion - the Temple Mount, which wasadditions arising from my further research in the past left in ruins by the Christians during the Byzantinethree years. I wish to thank Dr R. Rubin for his important period. The other Sion was identified on the south-contribution, but all the text ismy responsibility. western hill, known by this name from the days of

18 PALESTINE EXPLORATION Q,UARTERLYJosephus and onwards. On this issue see Walker 1990, confiscated from the inhabitants of those cities by the282-3 Io. It seems clear enough to us that in our army.quotations Eusebius is referring to the south-western hill. 4 The identification of the third wall is in great dispute3 It is important to note that, contrary toJerusalem, the among historians ofJerusalem, who have failed to agree

legionary camps at Palmyra and Dura Europos were upon the course of this wall. On that see Kloner 1986,located in already built areas, in quarters that were 12I-29 and Wightman 1993, 159-84.

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