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The Second Temple Period 537 BC - AD 70
In the fifth century B.C. waves of refugees came back from Babylon, and erected the Second Temple. They started the slow work of rehabilitating life in the devastated city. But only under King Herod, an outstanding organiser with a passion for public buildings, was the whole city built up again and extended to the north and south, with an estimated population of 150,000. In the year AD 70, after the grim four-year war against the Romans, Jerusalem fell to the legions led by Titus.