Jerusalem: The Biography

* Hadrian’s buildings survive in some odd places: Zalatimo’s Sweet Shop, 9 Hanzeit Street, incorporates the remains of the gate of Hadrian’s Temple of Jupiter and the entrance to the main forum. The shop was opened in 1860 by Muhammad Zalatimo, an Ottoman sergeant; it is still run by the family patriarch of this Palestinian cake dynasty, Samir Zalatimo. Hadrian’s walls continue into another old Palestinian family business – the fruit-juice store of Abu Assab – and then into the Russian Alexander Nevsky Church. The archway of Hadrian’s lesser forum survives on the Via Dolorosa, which many Christians mistakenly believe is where Pilate presented Jesus to the crowd with the words ‘Ecce homo’ (Here is the man). In fact, the arch did not exist until a hundred years later. The base of the Damascus Gate has been excavated to reveal its Hadrianic glory. Today’s main street Ha-Gai or El Wad follows the route of Hadrian’s Cardo, which has been excavated in the Western Wall plaza. The historian Cassius Dio and the later Christian source Chronicon Paschale suggest that a Temple of Jupiter was built on the Temple Mount. This is possible, but no traces have been found.