Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/41

 JERUSALEM. .lecounts for the firm hold with which they main- tained their possession of their strongliold, the capital of their tribe, for upwards of five centuries after the coming in of the children of Israel under Joshua (cir. p.. c. 1585); dnring which period, according to Joscphus, they held uninterrupted and exclusive possession of the Upper City, while the Israelites (whether of the tribe of Judah or of Benjamin is un- certain) seem only to have occupied the Lower City for a time, and then to have been expelled by the garrison of the Upper City. (Joseph. Ant. v. '2. §§ 2, 5, 7; comp. JuUges, i. 8, 21, xix. 10 — 12.) 2. It wxs not until after David, having reigned seven years in Hebron, came into undisputed posses- .sion of the kingdom of Israel, that Jerusalem was finally subjugated (cir. b. c. 1049) and the Jebusite garri.son expelled. It was then promoted to the dignity of the capital of liis kingdom, and the Upper and Lower City were united and encircled by one wall. (I Chvon. si. 8; comp. Joseph. Ant. vii. 3. §2.) L'nder his son Solomon it became also the eccle- sia.'itiftil head of the nation, and the Ark of the Covenant, and the Tabernacle of the Congregation, after having been long dissevered, met on the thresh- ing-floor of Aniunah the Jebusite, on Mount Moriah. (1 Chron. x.i. 15; 2 Citron, iii. 1.) Besides erect- ing the Temple, king Solomon further adorned the city with palaces and public buildings. (1 Kings, vi. viii. 1 — 8.) The notices of the city from this period are very scanty. Threatened by Shishak, king of Egypt (i5. c. 972), and again by the Arabians under Zerah (cir. 950), it was sacked by the com- bined Philistines and Arabs during the dis.astrous reign of Jehoram (884), and subsequently by the Israelites, after their victory over Amaziah at liethshemesh (cir. B. c. 808). In the inv.-u^ion of the confederate annies of Pekah of Israel and Ifezin of Syria, during the reign of Ahaz, the capital barely escaped (cir. 730; comp. Isaiali, vii. 1 — 9. and 2 Kvi(jk, xvi. 5, with 2 Chron. xxviii. 5) ; as it did in a still more remarkable manner in the follow- ing reign, when invented twice, a.s it would seem, by the generals of Sennacherib, king of Assyria (b. c. 713). The deportation of Manasseh to Babylon Would seem to intimate that the city was cap- tured by the Chaldeans as early as 650; but the fact is not recorded expressly in the sacred nar- rative. (2 Chron. xxxiii.) Ymm this period its disastere thickened apace. After the battle of Megiddo it was taken by Pharaoh Necho, king of Egypt (b. c. 609), who held it only about two years, when it passed, together with the whole country under the sway of the Chaldeans, and Jehoiakim and some of the princes of the blood royal were carried to Babylon, with part of the sacred vessels of the Temple. A futile attempt on the part of Jehoiakim to regain his independence after his restoration, resulted in his death; and his .-^on had only been seated on his tottering throne three months when Nebuchadnezzar again besieged and took the city (598), and the king, with the royal family and principal officers of state, were carried to Babylon, Zedekiah having been nppointed by the conqueror to the nominal dignity of king. Having held it nearly ten years, he revolted, when the city was a third time besieged by Nebuchad- nezzar (b. c. 587). The Temple and all the build- ings of Jerusalem were destroyed by fire, and its walls completely demolished. 3. As the entire desolation of the city does not JERUSALEM. 25 appear to have continued more than fifty years, the " seventy years" must date from the first depor- tation; and its restoration was a gradual work, as the desolation had been. The first commission issued in favour of the Jews in the first year of Cyrus (b.c. 538) contemplated only the restoration of the Temple, which was protracted, in consequence of numerous vexatious interrtijitions, for 120 years, — i. e. until the eighth year of Darius Nothus (b.c. 418). According to the most probable chronology it was his successor, Artaxerxes IMneuion, who issued the second commission to Ezra, in the se- venth year of his reign, and a third to Nehemiah in his twentieth year (b. c. 385). It was only in virtue of the edict with which he was intrusted, b.icked by the authority with which he was armed as the civil governor of Palaestine, that the resto- ration of the city was completed; and it has been before remarked that the account of the rebuilding of the walls clearly intimates that the limits of the restored city were identical with that of the pre- ceding period: but the topographical notices are not sufficiently clear to eiiable us to determine with any degree of accuracy or certainty the exact line of the walls. (See the attempts of Schultz, pp. 82 — 91; and Williams, Memoir, 111 — 121.) Only fifty years after its restoration Jerusalem passed into the power of a new master (b. c. 332), when, according to Josephus, the conqueror visited Jerusalem, after the subjugation of Gaza, and accorded to its in- h.ibitants several important privileges (.Josephus, Ant. xi. 8). On the death of Alexander, and the division of his conquests among his generals, it w:is the ill-fortune of Judaea to become the frontier pro- vince of the rival kingdoms of Egypt and Syria; and it was consequently seldom free from the miseries of war. Ptolemy Soter was the first to seize it, — by trcacher)', according to Josephus (b. c. 305), who adds that he ruled over it with violence. (Ant. xii. 1.) But the distinctions which he conferred upon such <if its inhabitants as he carried into Egypt, and the privileges which he granted to their high priest, Simon the son of Onia.s, do not bear out this representation {Eccliis. 1. 1, 2.) But his successor, Ptolemy Philadelphus, far outdid him in liberality; and the embas.sy of his favourite minister Aristeas, in conjunction with Andreas, the chief of his body- guard, to the chief priest Eleazar, furnishes us with an apparently authentic, and certainly genuine, account of the city in the middle of the third cen- tuiy before the Christian era, of which an outline may be here given. " It was situated in the midst of mountains, on a lofty hill, whose crest was crownetl with the magnificent Temple, girt with three walls, seventy cubits high, of proportionate thick- ness and length coiTe>ponding to the extent of the building The Temple had an eastern aspect: its spacious courts, paved throughout with marble, covered immense reservoirs containing large supplies of water, which gushed out by mechanical con- trivance to wash away the blood of the numerous sacrifices offered tlicre on the festivals The foreigners viewed the Temple from a strong fortress on its north side, and describe the appearance which the city presented It was of moderate extent, being about forty furlongs in circuit The disposition of its towers resembled the arrangement of a theatre: .some of the streets ran along the brow of the hill ; others, lower down, but parallel to these, followed the course of the valley, and they were connected by cross streets. The city was built