Aelia Capitolina: Jerusalem No More - The BAS Library
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Roman Jerusalem

Aelia Capitolina: Jerusalem No More

By Hanan Eshel

Unlike the First Jewish Revolt against Rome (66–70 C.E.), which was chronicled in detail by the first-century historian Josephus, the Second Jewish Revolt, the so-called Bar-Kokhba Revolt (132–135 C.E.), is known only from scraps of ancient literature.1 Archaeology alone can fill in the gaps. And it has been doing so in an amazing way in recent decades.a One of the mysteries surrounding the revolt involves the founding of the city Aelia Capitolina, the name the Romans gave to Jerusalem. Did the Romans establish Aelia Capitolina before the Bar-Kokhba Revolt, thereby inciting the Jews to revolt? Or did they establish it […]

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Footnotes

1.

See, for example, Amos Kloner, “Underground Metropolis—The Subterranean World of Maresha,” BAR 23:02.

2.

See the following articles in the September/October 1989 BAR: Joseph Patrich, “Hideouts in the Judean Wilderness—Jewish Revolutionaries and Christian Ascetics Sought Shelter and Protection in Cliffside Caves,” BAR 15:05 and Hanan Eshel, “How I Found a Fourth-Century B.C. Papyrus Scroll on My First Time Out,” BAR 15:05.

Endnotes

1.

The research for this article was funded by the C.G. Foundation Jerusalem Project at Bar-Ilan University.

2.

Dio Cassius, Historia Romana, 69.12.1–2.

3.

Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, 4.6.