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ssss1. Milman, iii. 238.

What little we have to say on the vexata quæstio of the topography of Jerusalem will be found further on (see Appendix); but on leaving this, the second period of our history, one remark must be made, which may help to explain the uncertainty which rests upon the sites of the city. The destruction of the buildings, first under Titus, and next under Chosroes, appears to have been thorough and complete. Pillars may have remained standing with portions of walls; foundations, of course, remained, these being covered up and buried in the débris of roofs, walls, and decorations. On these foundations the Christians would rebuild, imitating, as far as possible, the structures that had been destroyed; in many cases they would have the very pillars to set up again, in all cases they would have the same foundations. But there was no time between the conquest by Heraclius and that by Omar to repair and restore the whole, and perhaps nothing was actually built except a church over the site of the Holy Sepulchre, formed of the materials which remained of the Basilica of the Martyrium. This theory would partly account for the silence about Justinian’s Basilica, and for the apparent discrepancy between the statement made by Eusebius of decorations only having been set round the Sepulchre itself, contrasted with his admiration of the splendid Church of the Martyrium.