Lithostrotos

LITHOSTROTOS. - A Greek term ("stone pavement," "paved area") to which corresponds the Aramaic Gabbatha ("elevated place," "height") by which John 19:13 designates the place where Pilate set up his tribunal in the trial of Jesus. The Roman procurator, who ordinarily resided at Caesarea in Palestine in the "praetorium of Herod" (Acts 23:35), when he went to Jerusalem lodged, in accordance with the custom of governors of occupying the palaces of deposed kings, in the palace of Herod (Philo, Legat. ad Caium, 38; Flavius Josephus, Bell. Iud., II, 14, 8), situated in the "upper city," south of the present Jaffa Gate. In this residence, which by reason of its elevation and the magnificence of its courts could claim the antonomastic appellation of Gabbatha and of L., the procurator Gessius Florus (64-66) pronounced sentence in a trial which in the narrative of Flavius Josephus (Bell. Iud., II, 14, 8) presents various similarities to the trial of Jesus.

Tradition, however, has from antiquity looked to the "lower city" in the vicinity of the Temple, settling in the Middle Ages on the so-called "arch of the Ecce Homo" (v.). In the underground area of the adjoining monastery of Notre Dame de Sion and of the Convent of the Flagellation, excavations carried out on various occasions between the years 1898-1931 brought back to light, and made it possible to reconstruct the plan of, a vast courtyard (2,500 sq. m. in area) covered with slabs of solid and broad stone (2 m. in length, 1.50 in width, 0.50 in thickness), a characteristically Roman work, with various outlines of games and traces of grooves to prevent horses from slipping. The grandiose pavement, flanked by various structures that archaeologists recognize as remains of the Antonia fortress (v.), was such as could be known by Hellenizers as the L., while for conservative Jews it continued to be the Gabbatha or the height on which the Antonia rested. It is therefore not improbable that Pilate, as other authorities did (Antiq. Iud., XXI, 27; Bell. Iud., I, 4, 3; II, 12, 1) on the occasion of Passover, transferred himself exceptionally to the Antonia fortress the better to dominate the crowds that had flocked to the Temple, and brought his tribunal there to judge Jesus. The course of the trial and the various Gospel scenes adapt themselves to and are easily localized in the Antonia fortress; so that tradition seems to rest on authentic memories.

Donato Baldi