ABSTRACT
The Herodian, Jewish city was destroyed, its residents killed or exiled, and a military camp of the Tenth Roman Legion established on a part of the ruins. Around 130 ce, the Roman emperor Hadrian founded a new city in place of Herodian Jerusalem, next to the military camp. He honored the city with the status of a colony and named it Aelia Capitolina. The inhabitants of Aelia Capitolina were soldiers and veterans of the Tenth Legion, and their families, citizens and merchants who accompanied the soldiers. The investigation of Aelia Capitolina began in the nineteenth century. The southern gate of Aelia Capitolina can be reconstructed at the southern end of the eastern colonnaded street visible on the Madaba map, that is, in the area of the current Dung Gate. The western Cardo of Aelia Capitolina led along a 550 meter north-south route from the plaza inside the northern city gate toward the Tenth Legion’s camp in the south.
