The Menorah on the Arch of Titus: Siege of Jerusalem

Introduction

When Titus led the Roman army into Jerusalem in 70 AD to suppress the Jewish rebels who had controlled the city for four years following the riots of 66 AD, the Roman army showed no mercy. It came to destroy the Judean Free Government that had formed and to reassert Roman primacy. The result was the destruction of the Temple, the capture of some 700 Jews — all of whom were marched back to Rome in captivity — and the seizure of the spoils of war.¹ Among those spoils was the Jewish menorah of Biblical significance: the menorah said to have been created by divine instruction and to have burned miraculously.

The menorah was a sacred object for the Jews, and for that reason its possession by the Romans was seen by the latter as a sign of total subjugation of the former. It was depicted on the Arch of Titus to celebrate the Roman victory and the humiliation of the conquered Judeans. But what happened to the actual menorah following its seizure by Rome? History is largely silent on the matter, though some among today's Jews suspect it may still be in Rome.² This paper examines the Arch of Titus and the menorah's multiple levels of significance in relation to the siege of Jerusalem.

Background: The Arch of Titus

The Arch of Titus was commissioned by the Emperor Domitian in honor of his older brother Titus, who led the siege against Jerusalem in 70 AD. Domitian was the last of the Flavian emperors and was eager to celebrate the achievements of his dynasty. Erected in 82 AD in Rome on the Via Sacra — the Sacred Way — near the Colosseum, the Arch was a symbol of a dying dynasty's final achievements for the Empire. Titus had led his triumph over the very spot where the Arch was later built. Domitian's favored architect Rabirius is most likely the one who designed the Arch of Titus, though no substantial surviving documentation confirms this. It is built in the Roman style with large stone columns and spandrels at the tops of the arch, where Nike — the goddess of Victory — can be seen.³

On the south panel inside the Arch, the spoils obtained from the Temple — burned to the ground by the Romans in Jerusalem — are depicted. The menorah is a central feature of this panel, carried on the shoulders of Roman soldiers. On the north panel, Titus is shown in his triumph.

The Arch stands 50 feet high and 44 feet wide, with an inner archway 27 feet high and 17 feet wide.⁴ Its style was intended to display the feats of the individual it honored: large, formidable, and designed to be seen from a great distance. Rabirius, who also contributed to the construction of the Colosseum, paid particular attention to capturing in chiseled stone the scene of Titus's Triumph — soldiers bearing off the sacred items of the Jews, the menorah in particular, with its seven branches — an image that has since become iconic. Displaying the spoils of the Siege of Jerusalem, the Arch of Titus has stood for thousands of years as a monument to the destruction of the Temple and the Roman triumph over the Jews, a victory that contributed directly to the Jewish diaspora.

The Significance of the Menorah

The significance of the menorah in the depiction of the Siege of Jerusalem on the Arch of Titus lies in what it represented to the Romans: the object most sacred to their enemy. By carrying it away, it was as though the Greeks had carried off the statue of Athena from a Trojan temple. That which was most precious to the Jews was now the property of Rome. The image represented the subjugation and devastation of the Jewish people, brought low by the might of the Roman Empire, and it was intended to humiliate them.⁵

The Romans themselves had no spiritual or religious interest in the menorah. They understood that it was a symbol of Jewish belief, that it held a special place in Jewish history, customs, sacred rites, and Temple life — and for that reason they were content to bear it away on their soldiers' shoulders, much as a victorious side might seize the opposing team's banner. By carving it in stone on the Arch of Titus, the Romans declared that the menorah was now theirs — just as Jerusalem was once again theirs: the Jewish rebels had been put down and scattered or enslaved.

For the Jews, the menorah carried profound significance, and seeing it carved into the stone of the Arch was not, and could not have been, a welcome sight.⁶ In recent centuries, however, Jewish scholars have raised questions about whether the menorah depicted on the Arch is an authentic representation of the Temple menorah at all. The images of animals and sea creatures at its base, they argue, would have been forbidden by Temple law.⁷ Rabbi Herzog, for instance, notes that in Jewish tradition the menorah was three-footed — unlike the one depicted on the Arch.⁸ If the Arch's depiction is accurate, then the Romans may not have obtained the Temple menorah at all, but something else entirely.

The Book of Exodus provides a description of the menorah as dictated by God to the Hebrews, plainly describing what it should look like:

Make a lampstand of pure gold. Hammer out its base and shaft, and make its flowerlike cups, buds and blossoms of one piece with them. Six branches are to extend from the sides of the lampstand — three on one side and three on the other. Three cups shaped like almond flowers with buds and blossoms are to be on one branch, three on the next branch, and the same for all six branches extending from the lampstand. And on the lampstand there are to be four cups shaped like almond flowers with buds and blossoms.⁹

The menorah on the Arch is depicted quite differently. It rests on a hexagonal base that is double-stepped, with each step identical in form though not in size to the other. The panels on the bases depict the sea creatures that Rabbi Herzog declared to be blasphemous and that would never have been permitted on the Temple menorah. Given that the menorah served a sacred function in Jewish Temple rites — its lamps lit daily from specially consecrated olive oil to illuminate the Temple through the night — there is little doubt that the menorah depicted on the Arch of Titus differs from the one that would have been used in the Temple.

One of the stories surrounding the Temple menorah holds that it burned miraculously, continuing to burn right up to approximately 40 years before the Temple's destruction — roughly the time of Christ's emergence into public life — as a sign, according to the Talmud, that God remained with Israel.¹⁰ This light symbolized the divine presence for the Jews, as described in Samuel 3:3.¹¹ The light of the Hanukkah festival was similarly a symbol of hope, memory, and commemoration of the Maccabean victory over the Greeks. Light has been used by religions throughout the world for centuries as a sign of spirituality, longing, expectation, and hope — and the menorah was no different, burning through the night to affirm that God was present with the Jews even in the darkest hours.

Conclusion

The menorah as depicted in the Arch of Titus, commemorating the siege of Jerusalem, holds significance on multiple levels. For Titus and the Romans, it was a trophy of victory over a rebellious people, and its representation on the Arch served as a permanent declaration of their subjugation. For the Jews, the menorah was a sign of hope in God, of belief in His constant love and presence among them — especially within the Temple where they performed their sacred rites. For other cultures, the menorah and objects like it have served in various forms as instruments of light, and light has long been the symbol of spirituality across the world's religions. In one sense, whoever holds the menorah holds a kind of power over the people it represents — and that may be precisely why it has remained such a potent and enduring symbol across the millennia.