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Construction
Construction of Acra
ancient fortress in Jerusalem
- 2nd century – 2nd century BCE
- Middle East
Construction
ancient fortress in Jerusalem
Fetching the article from Wikipedia…
The Acra (also spelled Akra, from Ancient Greek: Ἄκρα, Hebrew: חקרא ,חקרה Ḥaqra(h)), meaning "stronghold" (see under "Etymology"), was a location in Jerusalem thought to have contained a fortified compound built by Antiochus Epiphanes, ruler of the Seleucid Empire, following his sack of the city in 168 BCE. The name Acra was also used at a later time for a city quarter probably associated with the by-then destroyed fortress, known to Josephus (first century CE) as both Acra and "the lower city". The fortress played a significant role in the events surrounding the Maccabean Revolt, which resulted in the formation of the Hasmonean Kingdom. The "upper city" was captured by Judas Maccabeus, with the Seleucid garrison taking refuge in the "Acra" below. The task of destroying this last enemy stronghold inside Jerusalem fell to Simon Maccabeus surnamed Thassi. Knowledge about the Acra is based almost exclusively on the writings of Josephus, which are of a later date, and on the First and Second Books of Maccabees, which were written not long after the described events.
The exact location of Acra within Jerusalem, and even the meaning of the term—fortress, fortified compound inside the city, or compound with an associated fortress—is critical to understanding Hellenistic Jerusalem, but it remains a matter of ongoing discussion. The fact that Josephus used the name interchangeably with 'the lower city' certainly does not help. Historians and archaeologists have proposed various sites around Jerusalem, relying initially mainly on conclusions drawn from literary evidence. This approach began to change in the light of excavations which commenced in the late 1960s. New discoveries have prompted reassessments of the ancient literary sources, Jerusalem's geography, and previously discovered artifacts. The more recent theories combine archaeological and textual evidence and favour locations near the Temple Mount and south of it, but there are alternative theories as well (see "Location").
The ancient Greek term acra was used to describe other fortified structures during the Hellenistic period. The Acra is often called the Seleucid Acra to distinguish it from references to the Ptolemaic Baris as an acra and from the later city quarter of Jerusalem which inherited the name Acra.
Acra is a shortened form of the Greek akrópolis, adopted in Aramaic usage and connotating "citadel" or "stronghold".
Below are the events leading up to the Maccabean Revolt in which the Acra played an important role, based again mainly on Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews and the First and Second Book of Maccabees.
Following Alexander the Great's death in 323 BCE, Coele-Syria was contested between the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt, and the Seleucid Empire based in Syria and Mesopotamia. Seleucid emperor Antiochus III's victory over Egypt in the Battle of Panium brought Coele-Syria under Seleucid control. The Jewish population of Jerusalem had aided Antiochus during his siege of the Baris, the fortified base of the Egyptian garrison in Jerusalem. Their support was rewarded with a charter affirming Jewish religious autonomy, including barring foreigners and impure animals from the Temple precincts, and an allocation of official funds for the maintenance of certain religious rituals in the Temple. Despite being allowed religious freedom, many Jews were enticed by and adopted elements of the prestigious and influential Greek lifestyle. The imperial culture offered a route to political and material advancement, and this led to the formation of Hellenistic elites among the Jewish population. Hellenization produced tensions between observant Jews and their brethren who had assimilated Greek culture.
Antiochus IV Epiphanes ascended the Seleucid throne in 175 BCE. Shortly afterward, Epiphanes was petitioned by Jason for appointment to the position of High Priest of Israel—an office occupied by his brother Onias III. Jason, himself thoroughly Hellenized, furthermore promised to increase the tribute paid by the city and to establish within it the infrastructure of a Greek polis, including a gymnasium and an ephebion. Jason's petition was granted, yet after a 42-month rule he was ousted by Antiochus and forced to flee to Ammon. In the meantime, Antiochus IV had launched two invasions of Egypt, in 170 BCE and again in 169 BCE, and routed the Ptolemaic armies. Antiochus' victories were short-lived. His intent to unify the Seleucid and Ptolemaic kingdoms alarmed the rapidly expanding Roman state, which demanded that he withdraw his forces from Egypt. With Antiochus engaged in Egypt, a false rumor spread in Jerusalem that he had been killed. In the ensuing uncertainty, Jason gathered a force of 1,000 followers and attempted to take Jerusalem by storm. Although the attack was repulsed, when word of the fighting reached Antiochus in Egypt, he suspected his Judean subjects of exploiting his setback as an opportunity to revolt. In 168 BCE, Antiochus IV Epiphanes marched on and sacked Jerusalem, looting the temple treasury and killing thousands of its residents. Reversing his father's policy, Antiochus IV issued decrees outlawing traditional Jewish rites and persecuting observant Jews. Temple rituals were discontinued, Jewish observance of Sabbath prohibited, and circumcision outlawed.
To consolidate his hold on the city, monitor events on the Temple Mount and safeguard the Hellenized faction in Jerusalem, Antiochus stationed a Seleucid garrison in the city:
Then they fortified the city of David with a great strong wall and strong towers, and it became their citadel. And they stationed there a sinful people, lawless men. These strengthened their position; they stored up arms and food, and collecting the spoils of Jerusalem they stored them there, and became a great snare. It became an ambush against the sanctuary, an evil adversary of Israel continually.
— 1 Maccabees 1:33–36.
The name Acra derived from the Greek acropolis signifies a lofty fortified place overlooking a town. In Jerusalem, the word came to symbolize anti-Jewish paganism: a fortress of the "impious and wicked". Dominating both the city and the surrounding countryside, it was occupied not only by a Greek garrison but by their Jewish confederates as well.
The Seleucid suppression of Jewish religious life met with considerable resistance among the native population. While Antiochus was occupied in the east during 167 BCE, a rural priest, Mattathias of Modiin, raised a rebellion against the empire. Both the Seleucid administration and the local Hellenized faction failed to grasp the magnitude of the revolt. In 164 BCE Judas Maccabaeus liberated Jerusalem and reconsecrated the Temple. Although the surrounding city had fallen, the Acra and its inhabitants held out. Maccabaeus besieged the fortress, whose inhabitants sent an appeal to the Seleucid king (now Antiochus V) for assistance. A Seleucid army was dispatched to put down the revolt. When it laid siege to Beth-Zur, Maccabaeus was forced to abandon his siege of the Acra and face Antiochus in battle. In the subsequent Battle of Beth-Zechariah, the Seleucids won their first victory over the Maccabees, and Maccabaeus was forced to withdraw. Spared from capitulation, the Acra persisted as a Seleucid stronghold for 20 more years during which it weathered several Hasmonean attempts to oust the Greek garrison.
Judas was killed in 160 BCE and succeeded by his brother Jonathan, who attempted to build a barrier to cut off the Acra's supply line. Jonathan had already assembled the manpower required for the task when he was forced to confront the invading army of Seleucid general Diodotus Tryphon at Beth Shan (Scythopolis). Having invited Jonathan to a friendly conference, Tryphon had him seized and murdered. Jonathan was succeeded by another brother, Simon, who besieged and finally captured the Acra in 141 BCE.
Two sources provide information about the ultimate fate of the Acra, although their accounts are contradictory in places. According to Josephus, Simon razed the Acra after ousting its inhabitants, and then quarried the hill on which it had stood to render it lower than the temple, purge the city of its evil memory and deny it to any future occupier of Jerusalem. The account appearing in 1 Maccabees paints a different picture:
And Simon decreed that every year they should celebrate this day with rejoicing. He strengthened the fortifications of the temple hill alongside the citadel [Greek: Acra], and he and his men dwelt there.
— 1 Maccabees 13:52.
Thus in this version, Simon did not immediately demolish the Acra, but instead had it occupied and may even have resided within it himself. 1 Maccabees does not mention its ultimate fate. The fortress had been built as an internal checkpoint to monitor and control Jerusalem and its population. If situated in the City of David as most scholars agree, its location would have added very little to Jerusalem's defenses against external threats. It may have fallen out of use and been dismantled around the end of the 2nd century BCE following the construction of the Hasmonean Baris and Hasmonean Palace in Jerusalem's upper city.
Bezalel Bar-Kochva offers a different theory: The Acra was still standing in 139 BCE when Antiochus VII Sidetes demanded it back from Simon, along with Jaffa and Gezer, two Hellenized cities Simon had captured. Simon was willing to discuss the two cities but made no mention of the Acra. It was at this point that he must have sealed its fate, as a way to deny the Seleucids any future claim or hold on Jerusalem. Thus, when Antiochus VII subdued the city during Hyrcanus I's reign, each and every one of his demands were met—except the one demanding the stationing of a Seleucid garrison in the city. Hyrcanus may have been able to reject, and Antiochus to drop, this demand because there was nowhere to billet the garrison, as the Acra would no longer have been standing. This explanation places the razing of the Acra somewhere in the 130s BCE.
Josephus describes Acra, or the "Lower City", during the outbreak of the First Jewish–Roman War. He makes known the internecine struggle between two Jewish factions, the one led by John of Gischala who controlled the Temple Mount and part of the Lower City, including the Ophel and the Kidron Valley, and the other led by Simon bar Giora who controlled all of the "Upper City" where he made his place of residence in the Phasael tower before abandoning it, and part of the "Lower City" (Acra) as far as the great wall in the Kidron Valley and the fountain of Siloam. Eventually, when the Roman army took the Lower City (Acra), they set fire to all its houses. The palace of the Adiabene Queen Helena, the proselytess to Judaism, was formerly situated in the middle of Acra.
The location of the original fortified structure known as Acra is important for understanding how events unfolded in Jerusalem during the struggle between Maccabean and Seleucid forces. This has been the subject of debate among modern scholars. Since the mid-1970s, the search has focused on three areas south of the presumed location of the Second Temple, now marked by the Dome of the Rock. These are, from north to south, the area later covered by the Herodian extension of the Temple esplanade; the Ophel; and the entire southeast hill known as the City of David, with a fortress at its northern end.
Complicating things is the fact that Josephus' Acra can be understood both as the name of a fortified structure and as that of a residential area in Jerusalem during his time, the late Second Temple period, named after the stronghold. This area he also calls the "Lower City", and corresponds today with parts of Silwan including the City of David and is distinct from "the Upper Market" (Hebrew: שוק העליון), also known as the "Upper City", as well as from the newer suburb known as Bezetha ("New City"). Josephus tells us that the area known as Acra (Ancient Greek: Ἄκρα) was built on a hill in the shape of a horned moon. The "Valley of the Cheesemakers" (the Tyropoeon) separated its hill from the adjacent area known to Josephus as the Upper City.
The most detailed ancient description of the nature and location of the Acra is found in Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews, where it is described as residing in the Lower City, upon a hill overlooking the Temple enclosure:
...and when he had overthrown the city walls, he built a citadel [Greek: Acra] in the lower part of the city, for the place was high, and overlooked the temple; on which account he fortified it with high walls and towers, and put into it a garrison of Macedonians. However, in that citadel dwelt the impious and wicked part of the multitude, from whom it proved that the citizens suffered many and sore calamities.
— Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 12:252–253
Text from the Wikipedia article “Acra (fortress)”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.