These mural examinations awakened a desire to stand, if possible, upon the very site of Solomon’s Temple. This, however, was both difficult and expensive. For many centuries the inclosure, together with the Mosque of Omar, had been closed against all Christians, but, thanks to the civilization of the West, the fanaticism of the East has yielded to a superior power, and many places hitherto inaccessible are now open to the Christian traveler.
The Temple area is an oblong quadrangle, extending north and south 1600 feet, and more than 1000 east and west. Since the reign of Herod the Great it has been enlarged, and now includes the space formerly occupied by the Tower of Antonia. It is only on this supposition that its present dimensions can be made to correspond with the measurements of Josephus, who describes it to have been a square,[120] and such it is if the above-mentioned space is excluded. If a line be drawn from the south side of the Golden Gate, and at right angles to it, to a point 150 feet north of the modern gate, called Bal el-Katanên, an area is left for the Temple and its courts 1018 feet long and 926 wide, which, in popular language, would be called a square, and to the eye presents such a figure.
On the space north of this imaginary line stood the famous Tower of Antonia, constructed by Judas Maccabeus, or by some other member of the Asmonean family, and which, at a subsequent period, was enlarged and rendered exceedingly grand by Herod the Great, who called it Antonia, in honor of Anthony, his benefactor. Quadrangular in form, it had a tower at each angle, three of which had an elevation of 87½ feet each, while the one at the southeast corner rose to the height of 122½ feet, uniting in this structure the strength of a fortress with the splendor of a palace. The interior was adorned with baths, courts, and porticoes. In the very centre of the inclosure was an open space for encampments, from which extended elegant passage-ways, connecting the tower with the colonnades of the Temple. From a rock eighty feet high, situated in the northwest corner, rose the Acropolis, seventy feet higher, which was incased with polished stones. As this was the fortress of the Temple, here was stationed the military guard; and, during the jurisdiction of the Romans, it was the seat of public justice. On the exterior of the present wall are two arches, now walled up, where the _Scala Santa_, or Pilate’s Staircase, which led to his judgment-hall, formerly stood. Regarding it with religious reverence, Constantine removed it to Rome, where it was placed in the Basilica of St. John Lateran; and, believing that it was once pressed by the Savior’s feet, the pious Catholic now ascends it upon his knees. A few paces to the west of these arches, and spanning the Via Dolorosa, is the _Ecce Homo_ arch, traditionally marking the spot where Pilate, having brought forth our Lord, exclaimed, “Behold the man!”[121]