This is the gate through which Jesus left the city of Jerusalem for his crucifixion outside the city, and here his guilt was proclaimed: He was declared as the “King of the Jews,” a proclamation that meant rebellion against the Roman empire.
According to a later tradition Jesus fell a second time, on the threshold of the gate (the Russians
identify this gate as being in a nearby compound owned by them). At the entrance we see the base of a Roman column that stood on the ancient thoroughfare, the Cardo Maximus, whose path and commercial nature are preserved to this very day.
