Image Details

David Harris/Collection Israel Museum
ON THE COVER: Emperor Hadrian (117–138 A.D.) appears as a fearless military hero in this bronze statue, found in a second-century A.D. Roman fort in the Jordan Valley. As emperor, Hadrian founded colonies throughout Judea, including one in Jerusalem, which he renamed Aelia Capitolina. In “Searching for Roman Jerusalem,” Hillel Geva reports on the brutal devastation of the city by the Romans in 70 A.D., and the unexpectedly gradual redevelopment of the colony, which served as a minor outpost of the imperial army throughout Hadrian’s reign. Hanan Eshel, in “Jerusalem No More,” resolves the longstanding question as to whether Aelia Capitolina was founded before or after the Second Jewish Revolt against Rome. Kenneth Holum recounts “Hadrian’s Imperial Tour of Judah”—a bit of Roman propaganda designed to improve relations between the emperor and his far-flung subjects. For more on a tourist’s surreptitious discovery of the cover statue, see “Hadrian: A Portrait in Bronze.”