The Arch of Titus and the Destruction of the Jerusalem Temple

The evidence explained

The Arch of Titus, still standing at the edge of the Roman Forum, was erected by the emperor Domitian to commemorate his deceased brother Titus's role in suppressing the Jewish revolt, and one of its two main interior relief panels depicts Roman soldiers in procession carrying identifiable Temple furnishings, most prominently a large seven-branched menorah, along with what is generally interpreted as a table associated with the showbread and possibly the silver trumpets described by Josephus. This visual record is independent of, though broadly consistent with, Josephus's detailed prose description in The Jewish War of the Roman triumph celebrating the fall of Jerusalem, in which he specifically describes captured Temple vessels being paraded through Rome.

Historians treat the correspondence between Josephus's textual account and the Arch's visual depiction as mutually reinforcing evidence for the historicity of the Temple's destruction and the Roman triumph that followed, since the two sources derive from different media and were produced by parties with different, though overlapping, interests: Josephus as a Jewish historian writing under Flavian patronage, and the arch as an official Roman state monument.

Scholars have debated some details of the relief's iconography, including whether the depicted menorah's base, which appears to include imagery some scholars argue may not be authentically Jewish in design (possibly reflecting Roman artistic adaptation or later restoration), accurately represents the original Temple menorah's true appearance, a question of some importance to later Jewish and Israeli cultural memory given the menorah's continued use as a national symbol. Steven Fine's research using non-invasive imaging techniques has explored traces of original paint on the relief, adding further nuance to how the monument is studied.

Independent of these iconographic details, the broader historical fact the arch and Josephus jointly attest, the destruction of the Second Temple by Roman forces under Titus in AD 70, is essentially undisputed among historians and is independently corroborated by additional archaeological evidence of burning and destruction layers at the Temple Mount and City of David excavations, making this one of the best-attested destructive events in the ancient Near East.