Titus, Josephus and the Torching of the Temple

[Robert Vermaat]

Speaking of all the goodies taken from the Temple : Treasures looted by Rome 'are back in the Holy Land'

So Hamas has all the Temple gold? GREAT bargaining chip!!

Personally I think is a c-'n-b story.

I mean:
"In the first holy crusade in AD533, the Byzantine Belisarius seized the treasure from a royal ship fleeing the Algerian harbour of Hippo Regius. It was then shipped to Constantinople, the capital of Byzantium.In the 7th century, Persians sacked Jerusalem, killing thousands of Christians, and dragging the Patriarch, Zacharias, to Persia. Dr Kingsley believes that his replacement, Modestus, spirited away the treasures to their final hiding place in AD614."

First of all, even if we aasume that it were the Vandals and not the Goths before tem (in 410) who laid their hands on the reasure (and Alaric would be a much much better candidate for the culprit!), we don't know that Gaiseric did not melt the stuff down. Also, no sources tell of the capture of this treasure by Belisarius after the capture of Carthage. In fact, Belisarius captured the royal treasure after the battle of Tricamarum (December 15, 533).

The next odd thing in this story is that they say the treasure was taken to Constantinople (where it was kept in utter silence, no sources report of it) but then they jump to Jerusalem being captured by the Sassanids. So? Did Justinian hide in in Jerusalem and not his own treasury? Very odd and extremely unlikely.

My guess would be that even IF this treasure had survived the ages and money shortages of Rome, it would've been the Goths who carried it away to Gaul in 410.