The broader and loftier Western hill is without doubt that called by Josephus the Upper Market- place and the Upper City, and it is the one which since the 4th cent, has been known as Zion, Josephus I.BJ V. iv. 1) mentions that in his day it was called the Citadel of David, and this tradition survives in the name the ' Tower of David,' given to the fortress at the Jaffa Gate. This is not the place to discuss the position of Zion, but it is now fairly generally admitted that the tradition which placed the Citadel of Da>id and Zion on this Western spur was wrong, and that these sites lay on the Eastern hill south of the Temple. Josephus {BJv. iv. 1) describes the Western hill as ' much higher ' and ' in length more direct' than the other hill opposite to it. The buildings on it extended southward to the Valley of Hinnom, but to the north it is bounded by a valley which runs east>\'ard from near the modern Jaffa Gate to join the Tyropoeon Valley opposite the Western wall of the Temple area. It is to-day largely filled up, but its direction is preserved by David Street. The first wall ran along the S. edge of this valley, and tlie suburbs which grew up to its north were enclosed by the second wall.
Regarding the Eastern hill, or, rather, regard- ing the name for part of this Eastern hill, there is much more dispute. Josephus (/JJ V. iv. 1) wrote of the ' other hill, which was called Akra, and sus- tains the lower city ' : it 'is the shape of a moon when she is horned ; over against this there was a third hill' — evidently, from the description, that covered by the Temple — ' but naturally lower than Akra, and parted formerly from the other by a deep valley.' He narrates how Simon Maccabajus, after capturing the fortress which stood there, set his followers to work night and day for three years levelling the mountain, so that it should no longer be able to support a fortress which could overlook the Temple. As a result of tliis work, the valley between this hill and the Temple was filled up. • Robinson, B/iP i. 390.
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The conclusion is therefore that this hill, which we learn was the ' City of David ' at the time of the Maccabees, formed in the days of Josephus one hill with the Temple hill, and further that it was separated from the Western hill, whereon was the Upper City, by the valley which ' extended as far as Siloam.' All this points to the Eastern hill south of the Temple as the site of Akra * and of the Lower City. Akra cannot have lain north of the Temple, for here lay the Antonia {Ant. XV. xi. 4 ; BJ V. v. 8), the ancient Baris or tower, a fortress distinct from the Akra, indeed largely its suc- cessor ; and north of this again was Bezetha, the New City.
There is much to confirm this view of the posi- tion of the Akra. The Akra was built on the ' City of David,' and this is identical with the Jebu- site Zion. On quite other grounds Zion has been placed on this hill by many modern authorities. Then Akra is associated, in the description of the taking of Jerusalem, with ' the fountain,' i.e. the Virgin's Fountain, and Siloam {B.fv. vi. l).t The appropriateness of the name ' Lower City ' for the part of Jerusalem which sloped down south from the Temple is as evident as ' Upper City ' is for that which actually overlooked the Temple on the west. If this, the most ancient part of Jerusalem, is not that described by Josephus as Akra and Lower City, what name did it have ? It must have contained a very large share of the ordinary dwellings of the people. Ophlrts (the Ophel of the OT) seems in Josephus' {BJ v. iv. 2) time, at any rate, to have been only a particular knoll near the S.E. corner of the Temple.
The topographical difficulties are not insur- mountable if the history is borne in mind. It is highly probable that a valley does exist either south of the present Temple area or even on a line between the present Temjjle platform and the el-Aksa mosque. Tlie name may have remained associated with the highest parts of the hill, even though the wall of the Temple at the time of Josephus may have encroached on the hill, and even have covered part of the site of the ancient fortress. The Lower City seems to have extended up the Tyropffion Valley at least to the first wall, and hence the descent by steps from one of the W. gates of the Temple described by Josephus presents no real difficulty to the view of the position of Akra here maintained.
The older view of Rolnnson, Warren, Conder, and others, that Akra was the hill now sustaining the Muristan and the Church of the Sepulchre, north of the W. branch of the Tyropoeon Valley, presents many difficulties. This was the area enclosed by the second wall, and Josephus calls it not the Lower City, but ' the northern quarter of thq city.' Then the condition of neither the hill nor the valley tallies with the description of Josephus, and in his day the valley between this and the Temple must have been very much deeper than it is to-day. Josephus is more likely to be wrong in stating that the hill had once been higher than the Temple and was separated from it by a deep valley— a statement which depended on tradition — than in describing the hill as lower in his time and the valley as tilled up — facts which he must have seen with his own eyes.