ANTONIA
A tower-fortress, rebuilt by Herod the Great on the ancient Baris tower of the Maccabees, near the temple in Jerusalem, where the guardhouse was located to monitor the access to the sacred precinct.
Josephus tells us (Wars. 5:5, 8) that it was situated “at the corner of two cloisters of the temple court: the west and the north; It stood on a rock fifty cubits high, on a great precipice.
There is currently a tower, called Antonia, in the northwest corner, and there are indications of a similar one that was in the southeast corner. The ancient Antonia tower was demolished by Titus’s troops when they took it in the year 70 AD.