allies had pounded the city for 55 continuous days. After having broken through the two north walls, the troops murdered and pillaged at will. Herod found himself with a capital of ruined buildings and a decimated population.
Herod’s Palatial Residence
Some 40 years later, from the Mount of Olives, Jesus’ eye would have been first caught by the splendor of the Temple just on the other side of the Kidron valley; its impressive mass balanced on the far side of the city by the three great towers of the royal palace. These dominant structures sat on hills divided by the Tyropoean (Cheesemakers) valley on whose slopes were more houses than Jesus had ever seen. The whole was surrounded by a high wall with towers at regular intervals. The city into which Jesus walked was Herod’s achievement.
Fully aware that he had very few friends, Herod’s primary concern was his own security. His first monumental building was the fortress Antonia, named for his friend Mark Antony, at the northwest corner of the Temple. It is described by the Jewish historian Josephus, an eyewitness, as having four towers, that on the southeast corner being 30 feet higher than the others (War 5.238-46). Nothing remains now except a section of the 12-foot-thick south wall.
After Rome assumed direct control in A.D. 6, it was garrisoned by Roman troops. They were preparing to interrogate Paul under torture there before he revealed his Roman citizenship (Acts 22:22-29).
Such soldiers, or their predecessors under Pompey in 63 B.C., were probably responsible for the pagan healing sanctuary that has been excavated in the grounds of St. Anne’s Church. In the first century it was outside the walls of Jerusalem. There Jesus healed a man who had been ill for 38 years