United States or Central African Republic ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
South was the open space of the great markets; near the southernmost segment of the outer wall was the semicircular Hippodrome. Cut off from its neighbor by ancient walls were Ophlas, overlooking Tophet and under the shadow of the Temple; Mount Zion which the Lord had established, Akra of the valley, Moriah, the Holy Hill, and Coenopolis or Bezetha which Agrippa I had walled.
There was a shout and the figure of the horseman plunged from his saddle face down on the earth. The wayfarer flung himself away and rushed toward the wall, only a little distance away. But all Coenopolis seemed to swarm now with legionaries, afoot or horseback. The Jewish sentry rushed to the edge of the tower overhanging the gate. "Open!" he shouted below. "One cometh!"
"Nothing," she said in a half-whisper. "No? But let me tell you what I have done already. Three days ago Titus took revenge upon Coenopolis for her sortie against Nicanor by firing the suburbs. The citizens could not spare water to fight the fire, and after futile attempts they gathered up food and treasure and fled into Jerusalem.
In the hour of sunrise the sentinel above the North Gate in the Old Wall saw among the ruins of the houses of Coenopolis a figure dodging painfully hither and thither. It was not habited in the brasses of the Roman armor. Also, it hobbled as if lame and ran toward the gate fast closed below the sentry.
"Because," she answered, "John of Gischala may yet be king of Judea and John hath a queen's diadem for sale at two hundred talents or a heart which I can have for nothing." There was malevolent and impotent silence in the andronitis of Amaryllis, the Greek. They who stood on the wall by the Tower of Psephinos in Coenopolis of Jerusalem on a day in March, 70 A.D., saw prophecy fulfilled.
The Jew, too intensely interested in the great climax enacting in the city below, ceased to remark on this figure. Presently, however, he looked again into ruined Coenopolis. He saw there this un-uniformed figure wrapped in fierce embrace with a young legionary.
Word Of The Day