Aelia Capitolina

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Aelia Capitolina on the Madaba mosaic map
Remains of the Cardo Maximus in Aelia Capitolina
Huldah gates
Golden Gate

Aelia Capitolina , completely colonia Aelia Capitolina (also Helya Capitolina , ancient Greek Αἰλία Καπιτωλιάς Ailía Kapitōliás ), was a Roman colony on the site of the city ​​of Jerusalem destroyed by Titus in 70 AD . The colony was founded - probably after the Bar Kochba uprising in 135 AD - under the Roman Emperor Hadrian , who visited the site in 130 AD.

Surname

The name Aelia Capitolina is derived on the one hand from Hadrian's gentile name Aelius , but on the other hand it refers to Iuppiter Optimus Maximus , the supreme god of the Roman pantheon , to whom a temple called Capitolium was built on the Temple Mount, often consecrated in colonies .

The Roman name officially existed until the year 324, when Christianity was upgraded under Emperor Constantine the Great and the part Capitolina was removed from the official city name. Aelia remained in use as a name in addition to the resumption of the use of Jerusalem and Hierosolyma and lived on after the Arab conquest of the city in 638 in the form Iliya (إلياء).

history

Destruction 70 AD

Jerusalem was completely destroyed at the end of the Jewish War in AD 70: Flavius ​​Josephus writes in his History of the Jewish War that Jerusalem ... was so thoroughly razed by the workers that no stranger would be there to be able to convince whether people have ever lived here.

Reconstruction in AD 117

According to Eusebius of Caesarea , the name change only took place after the suppression of the second Jewish uprising in 135. A date for the construction of the two main Roman traffic axes (Cardo and Decumanus) was determined from the finds discovered directly under the cobblestones. On the basis of these findings, archaeologists now suggest that the Roman city was planned and its main roads paved in the early years of Emperor Hadrian's reign, about a decade before his visit to the east in 130, that is, in 117. He dismissed for this the governor of Judea, known for his brutality, Lusius Quietus, and had him and three other consulars, who had been Trajan's close confidants, accused of treason and executed. Under Hadrian, the columned east-west axis ( Decumanus ) was built in Aelia Capitolina , which probably led to the forum with the rebuilt Yahweh Temple . Today the east-west axis ends as a dead end at what is now the Western Wall . The Golden Gate , the Hulda Gates and the Damascus Gate were also rebuilt . Bar Kochba coins are supposed to prove that the rebuilt city already existed before and during the Bar Kochba uprising.

Change of name in 135 AD

After Hadrian left the Middle East, Quintus Tineius Rufus became governor of Judea and the Bar Kochba uprising broke out. After the Bar Kochba uprising in 135, Hadrian changed the name of the province of Judea to the province of Syria Palestine and the name of the city to Aelia Capitolina The Jewish Temple Mount became a Roman Capitol , where the temple for Jupiter Capitolinus was built, where according to Eusebius of Caesarea there was also a temple of Aphrodite . In addition, one of the victory gates, which were built in honor of Hadrian and whose preserved central arch was renamed the Ecce Homo arch in Christian times , rose at the north-west corner of the Temple Mount above the Via Dolorosa .

According to Christian tradition, Hadrian forbade Jews from entering the city after the Bar Kochba uprising under threat of death. Allegedly they were only allowed to visit the city on Tisha beAv , i.e. the ninth day of the month Av , a Jewish day of fasting and mourning, on which the destruction of the Jerusalem temple is commemorated. In the non-Christian tradition, however, this prohibition is not found and since the Severan period at the latest there seems to have been a small Jewish community in the city again. On the other hand, there was no Jewish Christian community in the city after the uprising, while a Gentile Christian community survived. Eusebius of Caesarea not only reports on the alleged expulsion of the Jews from the city, but also passes on a complete first Jewish Christian, later Gentile Christian list of bishops for Jerusalem, which, however, was created as a construct under the bishops Narcissus or Alexander , who thus secure their authority in the Easter dispute wanted to.

Presumably in the course of the relocation of the legio X Fretensis during the reign of Diocletian from Aelia to Aila on the Red Sea, Aelia was again given a wall as a city wall. As a result of the results of the Council of Nikaia in 325 and the policy of Emperor Constantine , the city became a Christian place of remembrance . The Church of the Holy Sepulcher was built on the initiative of the Emperor and under the supervision of Bishop Makarios and Empress Mother Helena . This building activity was part of a series of similar projects, such as the construction of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem to commemorate the incarnation of Jesus . Other buildings followed the First Council of Constantinople in 381 when Hagia Sion was built to commemorate the descent of the Holy Spirit . In 387, the Ascension Church, an octagonal church building, was erected to commemorate the Ascension of Christ on the Mount of Olives . Before 391, the Gethsemane Church followed at the foot of the Mount of Olives, the foundations of which are under the modern Church of All Nations . After the division of the empire in 395 , the city became part of the Byzantine Empire . During the Council of Chalcedon in 451, Jerusalem became a patriarchate . Nevertheless, the monastic movement of the city initially held to the opponents of the Chalkedon resolutions . The following time was marked by turmoil, which also brought the first mention of the Marian tomb , the erection of churches on the site of the house of Kajaphas and the praetorium of Pontius Pilate , the Hagia Sophia . Empress Eudokia had the city wall extended to the south. Under Justinian I , the huge Nea Church was built in 543, dedicated to the Theotokos ("God-giving birth"), which was supposed to serve, among other things, to cope with the increasing stream of pilgrims. Extensive hospice facilities belonged to the church . In 614 the city was conquered by the Persian Sassanid Empire , but the damage was quickly removed after the Byzantine reconquest in 628. 638 Jerusalem finally to the armies of the expanding Islamic rulers. The churches remained untouched and, following on from the older Jewish temple tradition , the al-Aqsa mosque was built in 638 - initially as a wooden structure - under ʿUmar ibn al-Chattāb . In 692 it was replaced by a stone building under Abd al-Malik and the Dome of the Rock added.

City topography

The city plan of Aelia Capitolina was that of a typical Roman city. One of the main thoroughfares was the Jerusalem Cardo . This column-adorned north-south axis is shown on the mosaic map of Madaba and began at the northern gate, today's Damascus Gate . It crossed the city in a straight line from north to south, flanked by the forum and temple of Venus (today overbuilt with the Church of the Holy Sepulcher), and led to the Nea Church . The other main thoroughfare was the east-west axis ( decumanus ) surrounded by pillars and leading to today's Western Wall , where the former temple of Yahweh is believed to be. Roman buildings are the Ecce Homo Arch , the Golden Gate , the Hulda Gate and the Damascus Gate.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Thorsten Opper: Hadrian. Power man and patron. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2009, ISBN 978-3-534-22999-4 , p. 90.
  2. ↑ Yisrael Shalem: Chapter 6: Sancta Hierosolymitana - Jerusalem in the Byzantine Period (324 CE - 638 CE). In: Jerusalem: Life Throughout the Ages in a Holy City (course). Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, 1997, accessed May 12, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Flavius ​​Josephus, History of the Jewish War 7,1,1 ( online at Wikisource ).
  4. ↑ Eusebius, Vita Constantini 3,26,3; so also Socrates Scholastikos 1.17.
  5. ↑ https://followinghadrian.com/2014/11/05/exploring-aelia-capitolina-hadrians-jerusalem/
  6. ↑ https://www.academia.edu/7924123/Aelia_Capitolina_-_Eastern_Cardo
  7. ↑ Chanan Eschel (Hebrew: חנן אשל) and Boas Sisso (Hebrew: בעז זיסו) (eds.): חידושים בחקר מרד בר כוכבא (German: News about the Bar Kochba Revolt), Ramat Gan, 2004. p. 5– 9.
  8. ↑ https://followinghadrian.com/2014/11/05/exploring-aelia-capitolina-hadrians-jerusalem/
  9. ↑ https://www.academia.edu/7924123/Aelia_Capitolina_-_Eastern_Cardo
  10. ↑ Dietrich-Alex Koch : History of early Christianity. A textbook. 2nd Edition. Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 2014, p. 113 f. and Christopher Weikert: From Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina. The Roman policy towards the Jews from Vespasian to Hadrian (= Hypomnemata . Volume 200). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2016, p. 283 f.
  11. ↑ Eusebius, Vita Constantini 3,26,3; so also Socrates Scholastikos 1.17.