Day 1 · Vol. 130 AD
The fire falls
Pentecost
Jerusalem is packed to the walls. It is the feast of Pentecost, fifty days after Passover, and pilgrims from fifteen nations have flooded the city. The southern steps of the temple mount — broad limestone stairs still visible today, worn smooth by two thousand years of feet — would have been covered with people descending from the temple courts — Parthians, Medes, Egyptians, Romans, Arabs — all of them jostling through the same narrow streets, bartering in a dozen languages, filling every inn and courtyard.