“But now, as soon as that legion that had been at Emmaus was joined to Caesar at night, he removed thence, when it was day, and came to a place called Seopus; from whence the city began already to be seen, and a plain view might be taken of the great temple. Accordingly, this place, on the north quarter of the city, and joining thereto, was a plain, and very properly named Scopus, [the prospect,] and was no more than seven furlongs distant from it.”
Josephus, The Jewish Wars, Book 5, Chapter 5, Verse 3.
Imagine Roman legions camped out here, overlooking the largest Temple of their time as they made plans to storm the seiged the city and plunder the riches inside the walled city. Today Mt. Scopus houses both the modern Hebrew University and the Mt. Scopus campus of the Hadassah Hospital. For anglophiles it’s also the site of a large and well-preserved Commonwealth war cemetery where one finds tomb stones belonging to fighters from Australia, New Zealand and the British Isles.