The Jewish War

[John Reece]

The Jewish War

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In the fifteenth year of his reign he restored the existing Sanctuary and round it enclosed an area double the former size, keeping no account of the cost and achieving a magnificence beyond compare. This could be seen particularly in the great colonnades that ran around the entire Temple and the fortress tower over it to the north. The former were completely new structures, and the latter an extremely costly reconstruction, as luxurious as a palace, and named Antonia in honor of Antony. His own Palace built in the Upper City, consisted of two very large and very lovely buildings which made even the Sanctuary seem insignificant: these he named after his friends, one Caesareum, one Agrippeum.

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[John Reece]

The Jewish War

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But it was not in buildings only that he enshrined their memory and names: through his lavish generosity whole cities came into being. In the district of Samaritis he built a city with a magnificent wall over two miles long, settled in it 6,000 colonists, allotted to them some land of excellent quality, and in the center of the new town erected a vast shrine with precincts three hundred yards in length dedicated to Caesar. The town he called Sebaste, and to the citizens he granted a very special charter. At a later date, when Caesar had enriched him by the addition of further lands, there also he erected a shrine of white marble dedicated to his patron, near the sources of the Jordan at a place called Paneum. There is a mountain here whose top is lost in the clouds; in the lower slopes is a cavern with its mouth concealed by vegetation, inside which a sheer precipice descends, nobody knows how far, to a cavity filled with still water: no plummet has ever reached the bottom, however long the cord. From the roots of the cavern outside well up the springs which some consider to be the head-waters of the Jordan. A true account will be given later. At Jericho, between the fortress of Cypros and the old palace, he built other new buildings, better and more comfortable for visitors, named after the same friends. In fact I cannot think of any suitable spot in his kingdom that he left without some tribute of esteem for Caesar. When he had filled his own country with temples these tributes overflowed into the province, and city after city he built a Caesareum.

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[John Reece]

The Jewish War

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He noticed on the coast a town called Strato's Tower, in a state of decay, but thanks to its admirable situation capable of benefiting by his generosity. He rebuilt it entirely with limestone and adorned it with a most splendid palace. The city lies midway between Dora and Joppa, and hitherto the whole of that shore had been harborless, so that anyone sailing along the Phoenician coast towards Egypt had to ride the open sea when threatened by the south-west wind; even when this is far from strong, such huge waves are dashed against the rocks that the back-wash makes the sea boil up a long way out. But the king by lavish expenditure and unshakable determination won the battle agains nature and constructed a harbor bigger than the Piraeus, with further deep roadsteads in its recesses. The site was as awkward as could be, but he wrestled with the difficulties so triumphantly that on his solid fabric the sea could make no impression, while its beauty gave no hint of the obstacles encountered. He first marked out the area for a harbor of the size mentioned, and then lowered into 20 fathoms of water blocks of stone mostly 50 feet long, 9 deep and 10 broad, but sometimes even bigger. When the foundation had risen to water-level he built above the surface a mole 200 feet wide; half this width was built out to break the force of the waves and so was called the Breakwater; the rest supported the encircling stone wall. All along this were spaced massive towers, of which the most conspicuous and most beautiful was called Drusium after Caesar's step-son.

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[John Reece]

The Jewish War

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There was a row of arched recesses where newly-arrived crews could land, and in front of these was a circular terrace forming a broad walk for those disembarking. The harbor-mouth faced north, as in that locality the north wind is the gentlest, and on either side rose three colossal statues standing on pillars; those on the left of ships entering were supported by a solid tower, those on the right by two upright stones clamped together, even higher than the tower on the other side. Adjoining the harbor were houses, also of limestone, and to the harbor led the streets of the town, laid out the same distance apart. On rising ground opposite the harbor-mouth stood Caesar's temple, of exceptional size and beauty; in it was a colossal statue of Caesar, no whit inferior to the Olympian Zeus which it was intended to resemble, and one of Rome comparable with the Hera of Argos. Herod dedicated the city to the province, the harbor to those who sailed these seas, and the honor of his new creation to Caesar: Caesarea was the name he gave it. The rest of the buildings ― theatre, amphitheater, and market-place ― were on a scale worthy of that name. The king also instituted four-yearly games and called them too after Caesar, gracing the first contest ― held in the 192nd Olympiad ― with the personal gift of very valuable prizes, the royal bounty extending not only to the winners but to those who came second and third.

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[John Reece]

The Jewish War

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Herod also rebuilt Anthedon, a coastal town destroyed in war, and renamed it Agrippeum. So devoted was he to his friend Agrippa that he even engraved his name over the gate which he had erected in the Temple.

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[John Reece]

The Jewish War

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If ever a man was full of family affection, that man was Herod. In memory of his father he founded a city, choosing a site in the loveliest plain in his kingdom with an abundance of rivers and trees, and naming it Antipatris; and the fortress overlooking Jericho he refortified, making it outstandingly strong and beautiful, and dedicated it to his mother under the name Cypros. To his brother Phasael he erected the tower in Jerusalem that took his name; its design and tremendous size we shall describe later. He also founded another city in the valley running north from Jericho and called it Phasaelis.

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[John Reece]

The Jewish War

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Having immortalized his family and friends he did not neglect to make his own memory secure. He built a fortress in the hills facing Arabia and called it Herodium after himself, and seven miles from Jerusalem he gave the same name to an artificial hill, the shape of a woman's breast, adorning it more elaborately than the other. He encircled the top with round towers, filling the enclosed space with a palace so magnificent that in addition to the splendid appearance of the interior of the apartments the outer walls, copings, and roofs had wealth lavished upon them without stint. At very heavy cost he brought in an unlimited supply of water from a distance, and furnished the ascent with 200 steps of the whitest marble; the mound was of considerable hight, though entirely artificial. Round the base he built other royal apartments to accommodate his furniture and his friends, so that in its completeness the stronghold was a town, in its compactness a palace.

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[John Reece]

The Jewish War

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After this spate of building he extended his generosity to a great many cities outside his boundaries. For Tripolis, Damascus, and Ptolemais he provided gymnasia, for Byblus a wall, for Berytus and Tyre halls, colonnades, temples, and market-places, for Sidon and Damascus theaters, for the coastal Laodicea an aqueduct, and for Ascalon baths, magnificent fountains, and cloistered quadrangles remarkable for both scale and craftsmanship; in other places he dedicated woods and parks. Many towns, as if they belonged to his kingdom, received gifts of land; others he endowed with revenues to finance for all time the annual appointments of a gymnasiarch ― for instance ― that the office might never lapse. Corn he bestowed on all who needed it. To Rhodes he over and over again gave money for naval construction, and when the temple of Apollo was burnt down he rebuilt it with new splendor out of his own purse. What need be said of his gifts to Lycia or Samos, out of his own purse, or of his liberality to the whole of Ionia, sufficient for the needs of every locality? Even Athens and Sparta, Nicopolis and Mysian Pergamum are full of Herod's offerings, are they not? And the wide street of Syrian Antioch, once avoided because of the mud, did he not pave ― two and a quarter miles of it ― with polished marble, and to keep the rain off furnish it with a colonnade from end to end?

To be continued...

[John Reece]

Please see the last post in the The Antichrist Legend thread re discontinuance of this thread.