* 19 Herod’g Temple aid the Romai Revolutoi only under pressure from the rabbis and despite his fear of the government in Rome, 9 and on the basis of such traditions it has been argued that rebuilding the Temple could have angered Rome, either because Herod demonstrated too much independence by undertaking the project or because the Temple might create a focus for dissent among I shall suggest here that, to the contrary, in fact Herod’s project Jews in the diaspora . 10 not only had the full and enthusiastic support of Rome but that the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple should be understood as part of the reinvention of the Roman world by the emperor Augustus after the disastrous civil war which had brought him to supreme power in 31 BCE . According to Josephus, the work was essentially Herod’s personal project : It was at this time, in the eighteenth year of his reign, after the events mentioned above, that Herod undertook an extraordinary work, ( namely ) the reconstructing of the t...
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