Octavian, now called Augustus and head of…
19 BCE
Octavian, now called Augustus and head of the Roman Principate, has between 31 and 20 BCE restored to King Herod the Jewish territories that Pompey had taken away, and in this enlarged kingdom he has created a sound administrative system of Hellenistic type.
Able but ruthless, feared and hated by his people, Herod promotes Hellenization among the Jews.
Herod in the eighteenth year of his reign (20–19 BCE) rebuilds the Jewish Temple.
The Temple Mount esplanade is artificially enlarged with supporting walls (including the Western Wall) to house the splendid new Temple.
The new Temple is finished in a year and a half although work on outbuildings and courts is to continue for another eighty years.
To comply with religious law, Herod has employed a thousand priests as masons and carpenters in the rebuilding.
Yuval Baruch, archaeologist with the Israeli Antiquities Authority, will on September 25, 2007, announce his discovery of a quarry compound that provided Herod with the stones to renovate the Second Temple.
Coins, pottery and iron stakes found proved the date of the quarrying to be about 19 BCE.
Archaeologist Ehud Netzer confirmed that the large outlines of the stone cuts is evidence that it was a massive public project worked on by hundreds of slaves.
Immense towers, integrated in the older Hasmonean walls, strengthen the new royal palace, whereas a new citadel defends the Temple.
An amphitheater adds to the Hellenistic character of the city.
Center of religion, goal of obligatory pilgrimage, and the seat of the ruler and of the autonomous court of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish Council of Elders, Jerusalem becomes a great metropolis of the Hellenistic world.
The Sanhedrin, which traces its origins to a council of elders established under Persian and Syrian rule, is the highest Jewish legal and religious body under Rome.
The Great Sanhedrin, located on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, supervises smaller local Sanhedrins and is the final authority on many important religious, political, and legal issues, such as declaring war, trying a high priest, and supervising certain rituals.