The Acra was not the first Hellenistic stronghold in Jerusalem. Sources indicate that an earlier citadel, the Ptolemaic Baris, had also occupied a location overlooking the Temple's precincts. Although the exact location of the Baris is still debated, it is generally accepted to have stood north of the Temple Mount on the site later occupied by the Antonia Fortress. The Baris fell to Antiochus III at the turn of the 2nd century BCE and is absent from all accounts of the Maccabean Revolt. Despite the narratives which have the Acra constructed within a very short time-span, it was nevertheless formidable enough to weather long periods of siege. These factors, coupled with references in which the Baris was itself called an acra, have led some to suggest that the Baris and the Acra were in fact the same structure. Although both 1 Maccabees and Josephus seem to describe the Acra as a new construction, this may not have been the case. Antiquities of the Jews 12:253 may be translated to give the sense that the impious or wicked had remained rather than dwelt in the citadel, which could be taken to mean that the Acra had been standing before the revolt and that only the Macedonian garrison was new.