136 



DR. E. W. G. MASTERMAN, ON 



the Antonia. The third wall was commenced after the Cruci- 

 fixion by Herod Agrippa I upon an elaborate plan, but, for 

 fear of Claudius Caesar, was not so finished, and at the time of 

 the approach of the Koman army under Titus, was hastily com- 

 pleted. It had a breadth of 18 feet, rose to a height of 40 feet 

 and had 90 massive towers. It began at the tower Hippicus 

 (near the present Jaffa Gate), reached round the north quarter 

 of the city to the tower Psephinus — possibly where Kulat el 

 Jalud (Goliath's Castle) is now — and then turned eastwards. 

 The more I have looked into this subject on the ground itself 

 the more I am convinced that the general line of this wall is 

 that of the existing north wall, though there can be no doubt 

 but that near the present Herod's Gate it struck south-east 

 along the edge of the " St. Anne's Valley," excluding the north- 

 east corner of the existing city. 



A question which has long puzzled students of the subject is 

 how the present line of the southern wall ever came to be 

 selected. The old wall was along a line of great natural strength, 

 but the mediaeval course, now followed, is quite otherwise. 

 Sir Charles Wilson put forward a theory which I am convinced 

 is the true explanation. After Jerusalem had been completely 

 destroyed, the Emperor Hadrian erected a Roman camp on part 

 of the site. It is expressly mentioned that Herod's great towers, 

 near the present Jaffa Gate, were not completely destroyed, and 

 that a Roman camp was established there. Now Sir Charles 

 Wilson has shown that if this camp followed the usual size and 

 construction of such camps it would be four-walled and cover an 

 area of about 50 acres. He found that if Hadrian utilized the 

 remains of the first wall for the northern side and that of the 

 western wall — running south from the towers — as the western 

 side of the camp, then the southern wall must necessarily have 

 run along the course of the present south wall from the south- 

 west corner. This being so, when later the emperor erected the 

 city of iElia Capitolma out of the ruins, he took the south wall 

 of his camp as the southern boundary of the western half of the 

 city and the massive southern wall of the temple area (which, 

 it is quite clear, survived the sieges) as the south wall of the 

 eastern half of the city and joined these two by a wall crossing 

 the Tyropoean along the general line of the present wall. This 

 became the line during almost all the succeeding centuries. 



For a time — for at least over a century — the old southern line 

 was restored (with beautifully cut stone, as Bliss's excavations 



