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2. Now of these three walls, the old one was hard to be taken, both by reason of the valleys, and of that hill on which it was built, and which was above them. But besides that great advantage, as to the place were they were situated, it was also built very strong; because David and Solomon, and the following kings, were very zealous about this work. Now that wall began on the north, at the tower called Hippicus, and extended as far as the Xistus, a place so called, and then joining to the council-house, ended at the west cloister of the temple. But if we go the other way westward, it began at the same place, and extended through a place called Bethso, to the gate of the Essens; and after that it went southward, having its bending above the fountain Siloam, where it also bends again towards the east at Solomon's pool, and reaches as far as a certain place which they called Ophlas, where it was joined to the eastern cloister of the temple. The second wall took its beginning from that gate which they called Gennath, which belonged to the first wall; it only encompassed the northern quarter of the city, and reached as far as the tower Antonia. The beginning of the third wall was at the tower Hippicus, whence it reached as far as the north quarter of the city, and the tower Psephinus, and then was so far extended till it came over agaist the monuments of Helena, which Helena, was queen of Adiabene, the daughter of Izates; it then extended farther to a great length, and passed by the sepulchral caverns of the kings, and bent again at the tower of the corner, at the monument which is called the Monument of the Fuller, and joined to the old wall, at the valley called the Valley of Cedron. It was Agrippa who encompassed the parts added to the old city with this wall, which had been all naked before; for as the city grew more populous, it gradually crept beyond its old limits, and those parts of it that stood northward of the temple, and joined that hill to the city, and made it considerably larger, and occasioned that hill, which is in number the fourth, and is called Bazetha, to be inhabited also. It lies over against the tower Antonia, but is divided from it by a deep valley which was dug on purpose, and that in order to hinder the foundations of the tower of Antonia from joining to this hill, and thereby affording an opportunity for getting to it with ease, and hindering the security that arose from its superior elevation, for which reason also that depth of the ditch

made the elevation of the towers more remarkable. This new built part of the city was calld Bezetha, in our language, which, if interpreted in the Grecian language, may be called the New City. Since therefore its inhabitants stood in need of a covering; the father of the present king, and of the same name with him, Agrippa, began that wall we spoke of; but he left off building it when he had only laid the foundations, out of the fear he was in of Claudius Cæsar, lest he should suspect that so strong a wall was built in order to make some innovation in public affairs; for the city could no way have been taken, if that wall had been finished in the manner it was begun as its parts were connected together by stones twenty cubits long, and ten cubits broad, which could neither have been either easily undermined by any iron tools, or shaken by any engines. The wall was however ten cubits wide, and it would probably have had an height greater than that, had not his zeal who began it been hindered from exerting itself. After this, it was erected with great diligence by the Jews, as high as twenty cubits, above which it hath battlements of two cubits, and turrets of three cubits altitude insomuch that the entire altitude extended as far as twenty-five cubits.

3. Now the towers that were upon it were twenty cubits in breadth, and twenty cubits in height; they were square and solid as was the wall itself, wherein the niceness of the joints, and the beauty of the stones were no way inferior to those of the holy house itself. Above this solid altitude of the towers, which was twenty cubits, there were rooms of great magnificence, and over them upper rooms, and cisterns to receive rain water. They were many in number, and the steps by which you ascended up to them were every one broad: of these towers then the third wall had ninety, and the spaces between them were each two hundred cubits; but in the middle wall were forty towers, and the old wall was parted into sixty, while the whole compass of the city was thirty-three furlongs. Now the third wall was all of it wonderful; yet was the tower Psephinus elevated above it at the north-west corner, and there Titus pitched his own tent for, being seventy cubits high, it both afforded a prospect of Arabia, and sun-rising, as well as it did of the utmost limits of the Hebrew possessions at the sea westward. Moreover, it was an octagon, and over against it was the tower Hippicus, and hard by it two others were erected by

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King Herod, in the old wall.-These were for largeness, beauty, and strength, beyond all that were in the habitable earth; for, besides the magnanimity of his nature, and his magnificence towards the city on other occasions, he built these after such an extraordinary manner, to gratify his own private affections, and dedicated these towers to the memory of those three persons who had been the dearest to him, and from whom he named them. They were his brother, his friend, and his wife. This wife he had slain, out of his love, [and jealousy,] as we have already related; the other two he lost in war, as they were courageously fighting. Hippicus, so named from his friend, was square, its length and breadth were each twenty-five cubits, and its height thirty, and it had no vacuity in it. Over this solid building, which was composed of great stones united together, there was a reservoir twenty-five cubits deep; over which there was an house of two storeys, whose height was twenty-five cubits, and divided into several parts; over which were battlements of two cubits, and turrets all round of three cubits high, insomuch that the entire height added together amounted to fourscore cubits. The second tower, which he named from his brother Phasaelus, had its breadth and its height equal, each of them forty cubits, over which was its solid height of forty cubits; over which a cloister went round about, whose height was ten cubits, and it was covered from enemies by breast-works and bulwarks. Their was also built over that cloister another tower, parted into magnificent rooms, and a place for bathing; so that this tower wanted nothing that might make it appear to be a royal palace. It was also adorned with battlements and turrets, more than was the foregoing, and the entire altitude was about ninety cubits: the appearance of it resembled the tower of Pharus, which exhibited a fire to such as sailed to Alexandria, but was much larger than it in compass. This was now converted to an house, wherein Simon exercised his tyrannical authority. The third tower was Mariamne, for that was his queen's name: it was solid as high as twenty cubits: its breadth and its length were twenty cubits, and were equal to each other: its upper buildings were more magnificent, and had greater variety than the other towers had: for the king thought it most proper for him to adorn that which was denominated from his wife, better than those denominated from men, as those were

built stronger than this that bore his wife's name. The entire height of this tower was fifty cubits.

4. Now, as these towers were so very tall, they appeared much taller by the place on which they stood; for that very old wall wherein they were, was built on an high hill, and was itself a kind of elevation that was still thirty cubits taller: over which were the towers situated, and thereby were made much higher to appearance. The largeness also of the stones was wonderful; for they were not made of common small stones, nor of such larger ones only as men could carry, but they were of white marble, cut out of the rock; each stone was twenty cubits in length, and ten in breadth, and five in depth. They were so exactly united to one another, that each tower looked like one entire rock of stone, so growing naturally, and afterwards cut by the hands of the artificers into their present shape and corners; so little, or not at all, did their joints or connexion appear. Now as these towers were themselves on the north side of the wall, the king had a palace inwardly thereto adjoined, which exceeds all my ability to describe it; for it was so very curious as to want no cost nor skill in its construction, but was entirely walled about to the height of thirty cubits, and was adorned with towers at equal distances, and with large bed-chambers, that would contain beds for an hundred guests a-piece, in which the variety of the stones is not to be expressed; for a large quantity of those that were rare of that kind was collected together. Their roofs were also wonderful, both for the length of the beams, and the splendour of their ornaments. The number of the rooms was also very great, and the variety of the figures that were about them was prodigious; their furniture was complete, and the greatest part of the vessels that were put in them were of silver and gold. There were besides many porticoes, one beyond another, round about, and in each of those porticoes curious pillars; yet were all the courts that were exposed to the air every where green. There were moreover several groves of trees, and long walks through them, with deep ranals and cisterns, that in several parts were filled with brazen statues, through which the water ran out. There was withal many dovecourts of tame pigeons about the canals. But indeed it

*These dove-courts in Josephus, built by Herod the Great, are, in the opinion of Reland, the very same that are mentioned by the Talmudists,

is not possible to give a complete description of these places; and the very remembrance of them is a torment to one, as putting one in mind what vastly rich buildings that fire which was kindled by the robbers hath consumed: for these were not burnt by the Romans, but by these internal plotters, as we have already related, in the beginning of their rebellion. That fire began at the tower of Antonia, and went on to the palaces, and consumed the upper parts of the three towers themselves.

CHAP. V.

A description of the Temple.

1. Now this temple, as I have already said, was built upon a strong hill. At first the plain at the top was hardly sufficient for the holy house and the altar, for the ground about it was very uneven, and like a precipice; but when king Solomon, who was the person that built the temple, and built a wall to it, on its east side, there was then added one cloister founded on a bank cast up for it, and on the other parts the holy house stood naked. But in future ages the people + added new banks, and the hill became a larger plain. They then broke down the wall on the north side, and took in as much as sufficed afterward for the compass of the entire temple. And when they had built walls on three sides of the temple round about, from the bottom of the hill, and had performed a work that was greater than could be hoped for, (in which work long ages and named by them, Herod's dove-courts. Nor is there any reason to suppose otherwise, since in both accounts they were expressly tame pigeons which were kept in them.

See the description of the temples hereto belonging, chap. xv. But note, that what Josephus here says of the original scantiness of this mount Moriah, that it was quite too little for the temple, and that at first it held only one cloister, or court of Solomon's building, and that the foundations, were forced to be added long afterwards by degrees, to render it capable of the cloisters for the other courts, &c. is without all foundation in the scrip. tures, and not at all confirmed by his exacter account in the Antiquities. All that is, or can be true here, is this, that when the court of the Gentiles was long afterward to be encompassed with cloisters, the southern foundation for these cloisters was found not to be large or firm enough, and was raised, and that additional foundation supported by great pillars and arches under ground, which Josephus speaks of elsewhere, Antiq. B. xv. ch. xi. § 8 vol. iv. and which Mr. Maundrell saw, and describes, p. 109, as extant under ground at this day.

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