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Together with the restructured Citadel, Herod's Palace, situated near today's Jaffa Gate, represents only a part of the magnificent building operations undertaken by Herod the Great throughout the country in general, and Jerusalem in particular. It extended southwards as far as today's Mt. Zion, over what is now the Armenian Quarter.The Palace, as may be expected from Herod, was opulent in the extreme, as described by Josephus Flavius, with fountains, courtyards, gardens and whatever else money - and cheap labour - could buy! This was the "Upper City" - the area of the affluent section of the population, which extended upwards from close to the Tyropean Valley, adjacent to the Temple Mount and up the Western Hill.The Citadel represented the north-western "corner" of Herod's Jerusalem - as it had for some generations - and was the weakest area of the city, hence its existence; here the extended spur and hill on which the ancient city of Jebus - the City of David - stood, was joined to the relatively unprotected shoulder of the higher ground. Eastwards approximately from here, down to the Temple Mount, stretched the northern "First Wall", while the wall in the foreground represents today's wall running from the Jaffa Gate in the direction of Mount Zion.Herod's Palace Back
