After wilting in the blazing hot sun to enter the grounds of the Roman Forum, our first stop was the Arch of Titus.
The very first thing which caught my eye as I walked up to the arch was the Jewish menorah! What?!
It looks like Jerusalem being plundered.
Our tour guide Franco informed us that we were indeed seeing what we thought we were seeing. In AD 70 the Emperor Titus conquered the city of Jerusalem, burned the Temple to the ground, plundered the city, and brought back all the treasures of the Temple to Rome, along with 50,000 Jewish slaves.
The relief carvings on the Arch of Titus show the spoils of Jerusalem being brought back to Rome by the Roman soldiers.
I can’t help but think of Jesus’s words: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate.” – Matthew 23:37-38
“Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. ‘Do you see all these things?’ he asked. ‘I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.’” – Matthew 24:1-2
On the opposite-facing side of the Arch is the relief sculpture of Emperor Titus in a chariot being crowned by the goddess Victory.
Our tour guide pointed out that the Romans were typically benevolent conquerors who tolerated the local customs and practices of the people they conquered. The only thing they required was allegiance to the Roman empire … as shown by worshipping the emperor as god.
Most conquered peoples did not have a problem adding the worship of the emperor to the many other gods they already worshipped. But not the Jewish people. The Jewish people held loyalty to the one God alone – Yahweh. And it was for this reason they were destroyed.
The 50,000 Jewish slaves which Titus conquered and brought back to Rome were forced to build the Arch of Titus … as well as the Colosseum.
I had no idea the Colosseum itself was built by Jewish slaves who had been deported as a result of the sacking and burning of Jerusalem. And that the building of the Colosseum was funded using the spoils of Jerusalem and the treasures of the Temple.
There were probably a lot of tears that fell as the Colosseum was being built.
