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The Struthion Pools. This 150-foot-long and 50-foot-wide pool is rich with Biblical association. Tradition calls the pavement above the ceiling of the pool the Lithostrotos, where Pilate condemned Jesus (John 19:13). We now know, however, that the pavement was actually the work of the Roman emperor Hadrian in the second century C.E. The pools were open and uncovered in Jesus’ time. The name Lithostrotos has stuck nonetheless. We may say of it, in the words scholar Jerome Murphy-O’Connor has applied to the Via Dolorosa, “It is defined by faith, not by history.”