The Walls of Jerusalem

The city was fortified with three walls, except where it was enclosed by impassable ravines; there it had only one. It was built on two hills facing each other, divided by a ravine between them, down into which the houses ran in rows one above another. Of the two hills, the one that holds the upper city is much the higher and runs straighter in length. Because of its strength King David called it the Stronghold (he was the father of Solomon, who built the first temple), but we call it the Upper Market. The other hill, called Akra, which carries the lower city, is rounded on both sides. Opposite this was a third hill, naturally lower than Akra and once divided from it by another broad ravine. But in the time when the Hasmoneans reigned, they filled in that ravine, wanting to join the city to the temple, and they cut down the height of Akra and made it lower, so that the temple would rise above it on this side too. The ravine called the Valley of the Cheesemakers, which, as we said, divides the hill of the upper city from the lower hill, runs down as far as Siloam; for that is what we called the spring, whose water is sweet and plentiful. On the outside the city’s two hills were surrounded by deep ravines, and because of the cliffs on either side, there was no way of approach from anywhere. [a]

Of the three walls, the old one was hard to take, because of the ravines and the hill above them on which it had been built. Besides the advantage of its position it had been strongly built, since David and Solomon and the kings after them took pride in the work. It began on the north at the tower called Hippicus and ran to the Xystus; then, joining the council chamber, it ended at the western colonnade of the temple. In the other direction, toward the west, it began at the same point and ran through a place called Bethso to the Gate of the Essenes; then it turned south above the spring of Siloam, bent again toward the east at Solomon’s Pool, and went on as far as a place they call Ophlas, where it joined the eastern colonnade of the temple. The second wall began at a gate in the first wall called Gennath, and it enclosed only the northern quarter of the city, running up as far as the Antonia. The third wall began at the tower Hippicus and ran north to the tower Psephinus. Then it came down opposite the monuments of Helena, queen of Adiabene and daughter of King Izates, stretched on past the royal caves, turned at a corner tower near the place called the Fuller’s Tomb, and joining the old wall, ended at the ravine called the Kidron. [c]

Agrippa built this wall around the parts added to the city, which had been entirely unprotected. As the city overflowed with people it gradually crept out beyond the old walls. As they built up the area north of the temple, along by the hill, they spread out a good way, until a fourth hill too was settled, the one called Bezetha. It lies opposite the Antonia but is cut off from it by a deep trench, dug deliberately so that the foundations of the Antonia should not be joined to the hill, easy to reach and less lofty. That is also why the depth of the trench added so greatly to the height of the towers. In the local language the newly built quarter was called Bezetha, which in Greek would be called the New City. Since the people living there needed protection, the father of the present king, also named Agrippa, began the wall I have spoken of. But he was afraid that Claudius Caesar might suspect, from the size of the work, that it was meant for revolution and rebellion, and he stopped after laying only the foundations. And in fact the city could never have been taken if the wall had gone on as it was begun. It was put together of stones thirty feet long and fifteen feet wide, which could not easily have been undermined with iron tools or shaken by engines. The wall itself was fifteen feet thick, and its height would no doubt have been greater still if its founder’s ambition had not been cut short. Later, although the Jews built it up in haste, it rose to thirty feet, with a parapet of three feet and battlements of four and a half feet above that, so that its whole height reached thirty-seven and a half feet.

The towers rose above the wall, thirty feet wide and thirty feet high, square and solid like the wall itself; and the fitting and beauty of their stones fell nothing short of a temple’s. Above the solid thirty feet of the towers were costly rooms, with upper rooms above them, and cisterns to catch the rain, and in each tower broad winding stairways. The third wall had ninety such towers, with three hundred feet between them; the middle wall was divided into fourteen towers, and the old wall into sixty. The whole circuit of the city was about four miles. [f]

Wonderful as the whole third wall was, more wonderful still was the tower Psephinus, which rose at its northwest corner and opposite which Titus camped. It was a hundred and five feet high, and from it at sunrise one could see Arabia and, toward the sea, the farthest reaches of the Hebrews’ territory. It had eight sides. Opposite it stood Hippicus, and next to it two others, built by King Herod in the old wall. In size, beauty and strength they were beyond any in the world. For besides the greatness of his nature and his ambition for the city, the king indulged his own feelings in the splendor of these works. He dedicated them to the memory of the three people dearest to him, and named the towers after them: his brother, his friend and his wife. The wife, as we have told, he had killed for love; the other two he lost in war, after they had fought bravely.

Hippicus, named after his friend, was square, thirty-seven and a half feet in breadth and in length, and forty-five feet high, with no hollow space anywhere. Above this solid mass of rock, joined stone to stone, was a reservoir thirty feet deep to catch the rain, and above that a two-storied house thirty-seven and a half feet high, divided into rooms of various kinds. Over it ran turrets of three feet and battlements of four and a half feet all around, so that the whole height came to a hundred and twenty feet. The second tower, which he named Phasael after his brother, was sixty feet in breadth and in length alike, and its solid part rose to a height of sixty feet. Above it ran a colonnade fifteen feet high, sheltered by breastworks and bulwarks. Over the middle of the colonnade was built a second tower, divided into costly rooms and even a bath, so that the tower lacked nothing to make it look like a palace. Its top was adorned with battlements and turrets beyond those of the other. Its whole height was about a hundred and thirty-five feet. In shape it resembled the lighthouse on Pharos that shows its fire to those sailing to Alexandria, but it was much larger around. At this time it had been made into the seat of Simon’s tyranny. The third tower was Mariamne, for that was the queen’s name. It was solid up to thirty feet and was thirty feet wide and as long. The living quarters above were more costly and more varied than those of the others, for the king thought it fitting that the tower named for a woman should be more ornamented than those named for men, just as those were stronger than the woman’s. Its whole height was eighty-two and a half feet.

Large as these three towers were, they looked much larger because of where they stood. The old wall in which they were set had been built on a high hill, and above the hill a sort of crest rose another forty-five feet, and the towers stood on top of that, which added greatly to their height. The size of the stones was remarkable too. They were not built of common rubble or of stones that men could carry; they were cut from white marble. Each block was thirty feet long, fifteen wide and seven and a half deep, and they were so closely joined that each tower looked like a single rock that had grown up out of the ground and then been trimmed by craftsmen’s hands into its shape and corners, so invisible were the joints. [k]

Adjoining these towers on the north, on the inner side, was the king’s palace, which is beyond any description. It lacked nothing in extravagance or in workmanship. It was walled all around to a height of forty-five feet, with ornamental towers set at equal distances, and great banqueting halls, and guest chambers with a hundred couches each. The variety of stones in them cannot be described, for much that is rare everywhere had been gathered there. The ceilings were wonderful, both for the length of their beams and for the splendor of their decoration. The rooms were countless, of endlessly varied design, and all fully furnished, and most of the objects in each of them were of silver and gold. All around were many colonnaded courts opening one into another, with different columns in each, and their open spaces were green everywhere. There were groves of every kind, with long walks through them, and deep canals around them, and pools everywhere full of bronze figures through which the water poured out, and many dovecotes of tame pigeons around the streams.

But it is impossible to describe the palace as it deserves, and the memory is a torment, bringing back the ruin wrought by the robbers’ fire. For it was not the Romans who burned all this, but, as we have already said, the plotters inside, at the beginning of the revolt. The fire started at the Antonia, passed on to the palace, and consumed the roofs of the three towers.