3. When Cæsar had spoken such obliging things to the king, and had put the diadem again about his head, he proclaimed what he had bestowed upon him by a decree, in which he enlarged in the commendation of the man after a magnificent manner. Whereupon Herod obliged him to be kind to him by the presents he gave him, and he desired him to forgive Alexander, one of Antony's friends, who was become a supplicant to him. But Cæsar's anger against him prevailed, and he complained of the many and very great offences the man, whom he petitioned for, had been guilty of; and by that means he rejected his petition. After this, Cæsar went for Egypt through Syria, when Herod received him with royal and rich entertainments; and then did he first of all ride along with Cæsar, as he was reviewing his army about Ptolemais, and feasted him with all his friends, and then distributed among the rest of the army what was necessary to feast them withal. He also made a plentiful provision of water for them, when they were to march as far as Pelusium, through a dry country, which he did also in like manner at their return thence; nor were there any necessaries wanting to that army. It was therefore the opinion both of Cæsar and of his soldiers, that Herod's kingdom was too small for those generous presents he made them; for which reason, when Cæsar was come into Egypt, and Cleopatra and Antony were dead, he did not only bestow other marks of honour upon him, but made an addition to his kingdom, by giving him not only the country which had been taken from him by Cleopatra, but besides that, Gadara, and Hippos, and Samaria; and moreover of the maritime cities,* Gaza, and Anthedon, and Joppa, and Strato's Tower. He also made him a present of four hundred Galls [Galatians] as a guard for his body, which they had been to Cleopatra before. Nor did any thing so strongly induce Cæsar to make these sents, as the generosity of him that received them.

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4. Moreover, after the first games at Actium, he added to his kingdom both the region called Trachonitis, and what lay in its neighbourhood, Batanea, and the country of Auranitis; and that on the following occasion: Zenodorus, who had hired the house of Lysanias, had all along sent robbers out of Trachonitis among the Damascens; who thereupon had

*Since Josephus, both here and in his Antiq. B. XV. chap. vii. sect. 3. reckons Gaza, which had been a free city, among the cities given Herod by Augustus, and yet implies that Herod had made Costobarus a governor of it be fore, Antiq. B. XV. chap. vii. sect. 9. Harduin has some pretence for saying, that Josephus here contradicted himself. But perhaps Herod thought he had sufficient authority to put a governor into Gaza, after he was made tetrarch or king, in times of war, before the city was entirely delivered into his hands by Augustus.

recourse to Varro, the president of Syria, and desired of him that he would represent the calamity they were in to Cæsar: when Cæsar was acquainted with it, he sent back orders, that this nest of robbers should be destroyed. Varro therefore made an expedition against them, and cleared the land of those men, and took it away from Zenodorus. Cæsar did also afterward bestow it on Herod, that it might not again hecome a receptacle for those robbers that had come against Damascus. He also made him a procurator of all Syria, and this on the tenth year afterward, when he came again into that province; and this was so established, that the other procurators could not do any thing in the administration without his advice: but when Zenodorus was dead, Cæsar bestowed on him all that land which lay between Trachonitis and Galilee. Yet what was still of more consequence to Herod, he was beloved by Cæsar next after Agrippa, and by Agrippa next after Cæsar; whence he arrived at a very great degree of felicity. Yet did the greatness of his soul exceed it, and the main part of his magnanimity was extended to the promotion of piety.

CHAP. XXI.

Of the [temple and] cities that were built by Herod, and erected from the very foundations: as also of those other edifices that were erected by him: and what magnificence he shewed to foreigners; and how fortune was in all things favourable to him.

§ 1. ACCORDINGLY,

CORDINGLY, on the sixteenth year of his reign, Herod rebuilt the temple, and encompassed a piece of land about it with a wall, which land was twice as large as that before enclosed. The expences he laid out upon it were vastly large also, and the riches about it were unspeakable. A sign of which you have in the great cloisters that were erected about the temple, and the citadel * which was on its north side. The cloisters he built from the foundation, but the citadel he repaired at a vast expence; nor was it other than a royal palace, which he called Antonia, in honour of Antony. He also built himself a palace in the upper city, containing two very large and most beautiful apartments. To which

This fort was first built, as it is supposed, by John Hyrcanus. See Prid. at the year 207, and called Baris, the Tower or citadel. It was afterwards rebuilt, with great improvements, by Herod, under the government of Antonius, and was named from him, the Tower of Antonia; and about the time when Herod rebuilt the temple, he seems to have put his last hand to it. See Antiq. B. XVIII. chap. v. sect. 4. Of the War, B. I. chap. iii, sect. 3. and chap. v. sect. 4. It lay on the north-west side of the temple, and was a quarter as large.

the holy house itself could not be compared [in largeness.] The one apartment he named Cæsareum, and the other Agrippium, from his [two great] friends.

2. Yet did he not preserve their memory by particular buildings only, with their names given them, but his generoşity went as far as entire cities; for when he had built a most beautiful wall round a country in Samaria, twenty furlongs long, and had brought six thousand inhabitants into it, and had allotted to it a most fruitful piece of land, and in the midst of this city, thus built, had erected a very large temple to Cæsar, and had laid round about it a portion of sacred land of three furlongs and an half, he called the city Sebaste, from Sebastus, or Augustus, and settled the affairs of the city after a most regular manner.

3 And when Cæsar had further bestowed upon him another additional country, he built there also a temple of white marble, hard by the fountains of Jordan: the place is called Panium, where is a top of a mountain that is raised to an immense height, and at its side, beneath, or at its bottom, a dark cave opens itself; within which there is an horrible precipice, that descends abruptly to a vast depth; it contains a mighty quantity of water, which is immoveable; and when any body lets down any thing to measure the depth of the earth beneath the water, no length of cord is sufficient to reach it. Now the fountains of Jordan rise at the roots of this cavity outwardly; and, as some think, this is the utmost origin of Jordan; but we shall speak of that matter more accurately in our following history.

4. But the king erected other places at Jericho also, between the citadel Cypros and the former palace, such as were better and more useful than the former for travellers, and named them from the same friends of his. To say all at once, there was not any place of his kingdom fit for the purpose, that was permitted to be without somewhat that was for Cæsar's honour; and when he had filled his own country with temples, he poured out the like plentiful marks of esteem into his province, and built many cities which he called Cæsareas.

5. And when he observed that there was a city by the seaside, that was much decayed (its name was Strato's Tower) but that the place, by the happiness of its situation, was capable of great improvements from his liberality, he rebuilt it all with white stone, and adorned it with several most splendid palaces, wherein he especially demonstrated his magnanimity for the case was this, that all the sea-shore between Dora and Joppa, in the middle between which this city is situated, had no good haven, insomuch, that every one that sailed

from Phenicia for Egypt was obliged to lie in the stormy sea, by reason of the south winds that threatened them ; which wind, if it blew but a little fresh, such vast waves are raised, and dash upon the rocks, that upon their retreat the sea is in a great ferment for a long way. But the king, by the expences he was at, and the liberal disposal of them, overcame nature, and built an haven larger than was the Py* [at Athens ;] and in the inner retirements of the water he built other deep stations [for the ships also.]

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6. Now, although the place where he built was greatly opposite to his purposes, yet did he so fully struggle with that difficulty, that the firmness of his building could not easily be conquered by the sea; and the beauty and ornament of the works was such, as though he had not had any difficulty in the operation for when he had measured out as large a space as we have before mentioned, he let down stones into twenty fathom water, the greatest part of which were fifty feet in length, and nine in depth, and ten in breadth, and some still larger. But when the haven was filled up to that depth, he enlarged that wall which was thus already extant above the sea, till it was two hundred feet wide; one hundred of which had buildings before it, in order to break the force of the waves, whence it was called Procumatia, or the first breaker of the waves; but the rest of the space was under a stone wall that ran round it. On this wall were very large towers, the principal and most beautiful of which was called Drusium from Drusus, who was son-in-law to Cæsar.

7. There were also a great number of arches where the mariners dwelt; and all the place before them round about was a large valley, or walk, for a key [or landing place] to those that came on shore; but the entrance was on the north, because the north-wind was there the most gentle of all the winds. At the mouth of the haven were on each side three great Colossi, supported by pillars, where those Colossi that are on your left-hand, as you sail into the port, are supported by a solid tower, but those on the right-hand are supported by two upright stones joined together, which stones were larger than that tower which was on the other side of the entrance. Now there were continual edifices joined to the haven, which were also themselves of white stone; and to this haven did the narrow streets of the city lead, and were built at equal distances one from another. And over against the mouth of the haven, upon an elevation, there was a temple

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* That Josephus speaks truth, when he assures us that " The haven of this "Cæsarea was made by Herod not less, nay, rather larger, than that famous haven at Athens called the Pyreum," will appear, says Dean Aldrich, to him who compares the description of that at Athens in Thucydides and Pausanias, with this of Cæsarea in Josephus here, and in the Antiq. B. XV. chap. ix. sect. 6. and B. XVII, chap. ix. sect. 1.

for Cæsar, which was excellent, both in beauty and largeness; and therein was a Colossus of Cæsar, not less than that of Jupiter Olympius, which it was made to resemble. The other Colossus of Rome was equal to that of Juno at Argos. So he dedicated the city to the province, and the haven to the sailors there; but the honour of the building he ascribed to Cæsar,* and named it Cæsarea accordingly.

8. He also built the other edifices, the amphitheatre, and theatre, and market-place, in a manner agreeable to that denomination; and appointed games every fifth year, and called them in like manner Cæsar's Games; and he first himself proposed the largest prizes, upon the hundred ninety-second olympiad; in which not only the victors themselves, but those that came next to them, and even those that came in the third place were partakers of his royal bounty. He also rebuilt Anthedon, a city that lay on the coast, and had been demolished in the wars, and named it Agrippeum. Moreover, he had so very great a kindness for his friend Agrippa, that he had his name engraved upon that gate which he had himself erected in the temple.

9. Herod was also a lover of his father, if any other person ever was so; for he made a monument for his father, even that city which he built in the finest plain that was in his kingdom, and which had rivers and trees in abundance, and named it Antipatris. He also built a wall about a citadel that lay above Jericho, and was a very strong, and very fine building, and dedicated it to his mother, and called it Cypros. Moreover, he dedicated a tower that was at Jerusalem, and called it by the name of his brother Phasaelus, whose structure, and largeness, and magnificence, we shall describe hereafter. He also built another city, in the valley that leads northward from Jericho, and named it Phasalis.

10. And as he transmitted to eternity his family and friends, so did he not neglect a memorial for himself, but built a fortress upon a mountain towards Arabia, and named it from himself Herodium; † and he called that hill, that was of the shape of a woman's breast, and was sixty furlongs distant from Jerusalem, by the same name. He also bestowed much curious art upon it, with great ambition, and built round

* These buildings of cities by the name of Cæsar, and institution of solemn games in honour of Augustus Cæsar, as here, and in the Antiquities, related of Herod by Josephus, the Roman historians attest to, as things then frequent in the provinces of that empire, as Dean Aldrich observes on this chapter.

+ There were two cities or citadels, called Herodiums in Judea, and both mentioned by Josephus, not only here, but Antiq. B. XIV. chap. xiii. sect. 9. B. XV. ch. ix. sect. 6. Of the War, B. I. ch. xiii. sect. 8. B. III. ch. iii. sect. 5. One of them was 200, and the other 60 furlongs distant from Jerusalem. One of them is mentioned by Pliny, Hist. Nat. B. V. ch. xiv. as Dean Aldrich observes here.