as divine penalties for the wantonness of their ruler, and might easily have crushed a weaker mind than his. Continuous drought caused a wide-spread sterility and famine; these in their turn produced grave diseases of every kind, excessive mortality, and general despair, and the dull discontent of the subjects was already threatening a general rising, while the springs of the royal revenue were dried up. With swift decision, however, the king did not hesitate to make the most strenuous efforts for the alleviation of the universal distress. In order to procure ready money he did not spare his own ornamental furniture, and he most judiciously availed himself of his friendship with Petronius, the Roman governor of Egypt, to purchase and import corn from that country. This he distributed with the greatest readiness among all the needy, either partly or entirely gratuitously. He also made provision for clothing the poor during the impending winter, and dispensed donations of seed, while he rendered similar favours far and wide to the surrounding nations. In this way, out of the general misery he earned general gratitude, both among heathens and Judeans, and reconciled many of his desperate enemies. He was also further recompensed soon enough for his unusually active care for the physical welfare of his subjects by an increase in the prosperity of agriculture and trade, so that he was soon able again to turn his thoughts to the vigorous prosecution of his great public works, and even to a number of fresh enterprises.

The greatest of these was the building of a new temple in Jerusalem itself. In this work he endeavoured to rival Solomon, although he was not impelled to it by love of the religion to which the temple was dedicated, but by a vain desire for glory; perhaps also by the expectation that when it was completed it would secure him from the Judeans no less gratitude than they had shown him for his efforts to rescue them from the famine. It was, indeed, fitting that the temple erected by Zerubbabel' should be replaced in more prosperous times by a larger and more magnificent edifice, if in these later days the true religion was still to be connected with a temple at all. The book of Enoch had promised a grand new temple in the future, and earlier rulers had made various changes and extensions. No sooner, however, did Herod announce his

1

Pp. 101, 113. The temple described by writers like the author of the book of Aristeas (pp. 244, 249), and Hecatæus in Jos. Contr. Ap. i. 22 (p. 247 sq.), is that of their own time, i.e. the temple before

Herod; and this is one of the proofs that
they wrote before his day.
"Book of Enoch, xcii. 14 (xci. 13 ed.
Dillm.).

Pp. 273, 325.

design than his well-known disposition excited all sorts of mistrust. He was obliged, therefore, to proceed with great caution, and submit to all the priestly prejudices which were then in force. In particular, he refrained from removing the walls of the old temple until he had completed all the preparations for erecting those of the new. These were then raised, in exact accordance with the requirements of the expounders of the law, by a thousand priests trained to architectural construction, and wearing the sacred priestly garments; so that after the preliminary labours had been accomplished by other instrumentality, the work was performed by the priests alone, and the whole edifice seemed to have been erected by sacred hands. The length of the temple was extended to one hundred cubits, and its height to one hundred and twenty. This elevation, however, was only attained in the centre, the two sides being lower. The walls were constructed very much like those of Solomon, of white blocks of marble of great breadth. The door on the east, however, was formed, as in the Mosaic tent,3 merely of coloured curtains, with purple flowers and figures interwoven. The only novelty, so far as we know, consisted in the great golden vine fixed over these curtains as a symbol of the divine blessing on the country and the people. This vine was a miracle of contemporary art of the most costly description. Of the division of the chambers within and the style of the temple porch we have no precise information. The erection of the temple was commenced in the year 20, and was completed in a year and a half. The king lost no time in carrying out his design, and had the satisfaction of celebrating the consecration amid great rejoicings on the part of the people, with magnificent pomp and splendid sacrifices, on the anniversary of his accession to the throne; and the story soon became current that in order not to interfere with the rapid progress of the work, no rain had fallen during the whole time except in the night." In the

Among the proofs that the preparatory speech of Herod to the people, Ant. xv. 11, 1, was very freely drawn up by Josephus, is the fact that the language used in it about the history of the temple of Zerubbabel is in entire accordance with the representation elsewhere given by Josephus, p. 128; but the height of one hundred and twenty cubits, which Herod assigned to the new temple, was hardly adopted without reference to the similar number already discussed, vol. iii. p. 236, and probably shows that the Solomonic temple also, at any rate in its upper chambers, equalled the height of the

erection, however, of the extensive and no less splendid buildings around the temple, he spent eight years more. The temple itself stood in a great square (each side being one stadium, i.e. 125 paces, in length), and was surrounded by magnificent cloisters; and both temple and cloisters were raised on the basis of the substructures laid by Solomon, so solid had been the workmanship of a thousand years before! From the great east gate ran a special double cloister, erected by the previous sovereigns, to the entrance of the temple.' The utmost splendour, however, was lavished on the southern cloister, as though the remembrance of the former royal distinction of this portion of the ground were still to be perpetuated, the name of the King's Cloister being bestowed on it. This was composed of one hundred and sixty-two Corinthian columns,3 twenty-seven feet in height and of enormous thickness, placed in four rows, so that it really consisted of three arcades running side by side from east to west. As in the temple, the centre was half as wide again as the side aisles, and twice as high; the whole was executed with the utmost possible art. All this constituted the inner sanctuary, together with the great altar on the east in front of the temple. Herod himself, not being a priest, could not enter any of these enclosures-neither the temple, nor the space around the altar, nor the cloisters of the priests. A few steps lower on the mountain he next built the so-called court of the people, which was approached from the inner sanctuary by three great gates on the south and three on the north, while the eastern gate, which was the largest and most beautiful of all, led on the south and north to the outer court, as also to a special forecourt for women. Inscriptions over the outer forecourt forbade any but a Judean to enter under pain of death; but around it Herod hung in proud display the trophies of his victories over foreign nations, particularly the Arabians, as consecrated gifts. Such was the temple of Herod: his successors, however, found much to add to it.

A short time before the rebuilding of the temple, Herod had commenced the erection of a new and splendid palace, rivalling Solomon in this respect also. It was specially designed to

1 Ant. xv. 1, 13 ad fin. The sovereigns here designated are certainly the same who have been already partly referred to, whose cloisters Herod left standing as they seemed well-built.

2 Vol. iii. p. 250 sq.

Probably not strictly one hundred and sixty-four, forty-one in each row from east to west; but the two central

ones stood at one end in front by themselves. The circumference of each pillar was as much as three men could surround with extended arms; seo the further description in Ant. xv. 11, 5.

4 Cf. also Acts iii. 2, 10; Jos. Ant. xx. 9, 7; and on the forecourt of the women, Contr. Ap. ii. 8.

provide sumptuous accommodation for illustrious strangers, and was composed of two wings, named after Augustus and Agrippa. The site selected for it was at no great distance from the Antonia, in the upper (or southern) city, opposite the southwestern cloister of the temple; and it was approached across the deep valley from the most southern of the four western gates of the temple. From the eastern gate a subterranean passage led to the castle of Antonia. In the northern city a Greek running-course was constructed.-About the same time he made the hill where he had defeated Antigonus into a fortress called Herodium. Situated at a distance of sixty stadia south-east of Jerusalem, he built upon it a magnificent castle. It was necessary to conduct water to it artificially, but for a long time afterwards it remained a place of great importance, and contained many residents.3 In later years he erected a new city in a contrary direction north-west of Jerusalem, at Caphar-saba, where there was an abundant water-supply. This he named Antipatris, in honour of his father. In the neighbourhood of Jericho he also perpetuated the memory of his mother in a Cyprus, and of his brother Phasael in a Phasaelis; he also gave the name of the latter to a lofty and splendid tower on the wall of Jerusalem. Two other similar towers erected by him, and resembling small fortresses, were designated respectively after his murdered wife Mariamne and one of his friends (probably an officer who had fallen early in his reign) named Hippicus. The Asmonean fortresses of Hyrcania, Alexandreum and Masâda he refitted,' only, however, because he valued them as places of strength. He also placed a marble monument over the ancient graves of David and Solomon. His sole reason for doing so, however, as the initiated at any rate were aware, was because in the later years of his reign he had once opened them for the sake of the treasures which it was believed were hidden in them. They were found to contain many valuables; but the fate of two men employed in the search filled him with a secret fear which he

5

now sought in regular heathen fashion to expiate.1 In addition to all these, he possessed palaces in all the principal cities throughout the country.2

To the campaign of Elius Gallus against the Arabs he despatched five hundred picked mercenaries;3 and his three sons by Mariamne, and subsequently his other sons as well, he sent to Rome to be brought up in the neighbourhood of Augustus and his other Roman friends. The friendship entertained for him by Augustus and Agrippa had been for some time rising higher and higher. To their previous gifts they added also the ancient provinces in the north-east, on the other side of the Jordan. These were in the possession of a certain Zenodorus, who had farmed the greater portion of the principality of Lysanias, which had been re-occupied by Augustus after the death of Cleopatra. Zenodorus was neither able nor willing to destroy the robber bands with which they were overrun, while Herod had a practised hand for exterminating them.5 Augustus and Agrippa, accordingly, refused to listen to the repeated violent complaints of the citizens of Gadara against Herod; and after the sudden death of Zenodorus from vexation they further gave him the rest of his possessions. Herod thus acquired also the fertile district in the north around the sources of the Jordan, where he erected a magnificent temple in honour of Augustus, not far from Paneas, which had been founded by Greek settlers.7

He even accompanied Augustus and Agrippa on their journeys in Asia, as a friend and adviser; and with the greatest zeal made their favour his sole object. Among the heathen in foreign countries, also, he always displayed the utmost magnanimity, generosity, and sympathy, so that the Roman authorities were the more ready to grant his requests for the maintenance of the privileges of the Judeans residing among the heathen. These enjoyed much reflected splendour from the sovereign of their fatherland, and, in whatever quarter of the Roman empire they were dispersed, they lived in security and honour during

1 Ant. xvi. 7, 1.

2 As at Sepphoris in Galilee, cf. Ant. xvii. 10, 5, where there was also a great depôt of arms, Bell. Jud. ii. 4, 1; in Jericho, Ant. xvii. 3, 1; in Ascalon, Ant. xvii. 11, 5; east of the Jordan in Amath (p. 388), Ant. xvii. 10, 6 (for which, however, we have Вneapaμáo in Bell. Jud. ii. 4, 2); in Cæsarea, Acts xxiii. 35.

See the details in Ant. xv. 10, 1-3; Bell. Jud. i. 20, 4; 21, 3. The district of Paneas (modern Banias) here described has been examined in recent times with special care by De Forest, and described in the Journal of the American Orient. Soc. ii. pp. 235-248. The name Oùλalá, near Paneas, is probably identical with

Jos. Ant. xv. 9. 3; Strabo, Geogr., or rather the Aramean SON,

xvi. 4, 23; cf. Eckhel, Doctr. iii. p. 496.

Ant. xv. 10, 1; xvii. 1, 3. • P. 407.

6 P. 400.

i.e. the Lake of Merom.

See the very minute account in Jos. Ant. xvi. 2, 2-5, comp. with xii. 3, 1 sq.