Antonia Fortress

The Antonia Fortress was a citadel built by Herod the Great in 37 BC as part of his extensive urban development of Jerusalem. Around 20 BC, Herod began a massive and ambitious project to rebuild the Temple. By the time of Jesus, the Temple was not yet fully completed, but its scale was already magnificent. The construction of the city walls and Temple was continued by Herod Agrippa in 42 (or 43) AD. The completed Temple was a splendid building made of marble and pure gold. From a distance, it was said to look “like a mountain covered with white snow,” and it greatly surpassed the Second Temple built by Zerubbabel.

 When Paul was preaching in Jerusalem and proclaiming Jesus as the Savior, he incited the wrath of the Jewish priests. The Jews seized Paul in the Temple and tried to kill him. A tribune commanding the troops in the fortress intervened in the commotion, brought Paul into the fortress, and allowed him to stand on the fortress stairs and speak to the Jewish crowd below in Hebrew (Acts 21:27-40; 22:1-24).

Just six years after the Temple rebuilt by Herod the Great was officially completed, the Jews attempted to revolt against Rome. The Roman general Titus led a large army to attack Jerusalem in 70 AD, arriving at the city gates during the Jewish Passover festival. The Jewish people inside the city were also suffering from internal strife, and a staggering number of them—as many as 600,000 (other sources say about 1 million)—died in the conflict. On the 72nd day of the siege, the Antonia Fortress was captured by the Roman army, putting the Temple under immediate threat. On the 105th day, the Temple was destroyed. By the 134th day, the entire city was engulfed in flames. The houses were completely burned, and the city walls were torn down. Titus only spared a section of the old wall in the northwest corner of Jerusalem and Herod’s three towers. He left these standing to quarter the large garrison of soldiers stationed there and to demonstrate the power of his conquest. After Jerusalem was destroyed, the ruins were left completely uninhabited. For the next 50 years, no events were recorded in Jerusalem. The Jewish historian Josephus stated that during that period, Jerusalem was like a desolate wasteland that had never been inhabited. Today, only a remnant of the Western Wall remains.