45. CÆSARÆA
This view shows the existing remains of the ancient Cæsarea and of its mole, as they occupy a large area upon the mainland and stretch out some distance to seaward. A large portion of the masonry or foundations of the mole are now buried far below the sea level. The promontory on the horizon at a distance of about twelve miles is the Castellum Perigrinorum, where there are extensive ruins, and beyond this, eight miles further north, is the headland of Carmel.
Josephus' descriptions of Cæsarea, as built and adorned in ten years by Herod. WAR. I. xxi. 5. 6. 7. and ANTIQUITIES, XV. ix. 6. nearly identical as they are, while they perfectly consist with contemporaneous testimonies, are the more to be regarded as furnishing an instance of his trustworthiness, inasmuch as no other account of this port and city, comprising details, has come down to us from that age. The greatness of the place, in the time of Josephus, we might indeed infer from the brief allusions of other writers; but we must turn to Josephus as our sole authority, if we wish for more information.
ascribed to ¹ 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 largess 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 Agrippium. Moreover, he had so very great a kindness for his friend Agrippa, that he had his name engraven 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 Phasaclus, whose structure, largeness, and magnificence, we shall describe hereafter. He also built another city in the valley that leads northward from Jericho, and named it Phasaclis.
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
¹ 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.
Arabia, and named it from himself¹ Herodium; and he called that hill that was 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 towers all about the top of it, and filled up the remaining space with the most costly palaces round about, insomuch, that not only the sight of the inner apartments was splendid but great wealth was laid out on the outward walls, and partitions, and roofs also. Besides this, he brought a mighty quantity of water from a great distance, and at vast charges, and raised an ascent to it of two hundred steps of the whitest marble, for the hill was itself moderately high, and entirely factitious. He also built other palaces about the roots of the hill, sufficient to receive the furniture that was put into them, with his friends also; insomuch, that on account of its containing all necessaries, the fortress might seem to be a city, but, by the bounds it had, a palace only.
II. And when he had built so much, he showed the greatness of his soul to no small number of foreign cities. He built places for exercise at Tripoli, and Damascus, and Ptolemais; he built a wall about Byblus, as also large rooms, and cloisters, and temples, and market-places at Berytus and Tyre, with theatres at Sidon and Damascus. He also built aqueducts for those Laodiceans who have lived by the seaside; and for those of Ascalon he built baths and costly fountains, as also cloisters round a court that were admirable, both for their workmanship and largeness.
¹ There were two cities, or citadels, called Herodium, in Judea, and both mentioned by Josephus, not only here, but Antiq. B. XIV. ch. xii. sect. 9, B. XV. ch. ix. sect. 6, Vol. II. Of the War, B. I. ch. xiii. sect. 8, B. III. ch. ii. sect. 7. One of them was '00, and the other 60 furlongs distant from Jerusalem. One of them is mentioned by Pliny, Hist. Nat. B. V. ch. xiv.
Moreover, he dedicated groves and meadows to some people; nay, not a few cities there were who had lands of his donation, as if they were parts of his own kingdom. He also bestowed annual revenues, and those for ever also, on the settlements for exercises, and appointed for them, as well as for the people of Cos, that such rewards should never be wanting. He also gave corn to all such as wainted it, and conferred upon Rhodes large sums of money for building ships, and this he did in many places, and frequently also. And when Apollo's temple had been burnt down, he rebuilt it at his own charges, after a better manner than it was before. What need I speak of the presents he made to the Lyceans and Samnians? or of his great liberality through all Ionia? and that according to everybody's wants of them. And are not the Athenians, and Lacedemonians, and Nicopolitans, and that Pergamus which is in Mysia, full of donations that Herod presented them withal? And as for that large open place belonging to Antioch in Syria, did not he pave it with polished marble, though it were twenty furlongs long? and this when it was shunned by all men before, because it was full of dirt and filthiness, when he besides adorned the same place with a cloister of the same length.
12. It is true, a man may say, these were favours peculiar to those particular places, on which he bestowed his benefits; but then what favours he bestowed on the Eleans was a donation not only in common to all Greece, but to all the habitable earth, as far as the glory of the Olympic games reached. For when he perceived that they were come to nothing, for want of money, and that the only remains of ancient Greece were in a manner gone, he not only became one of the combatants in that return of the fifth-year games, which in his sailing to Rome he happened to be present at, but he settled upon them revenues of money for perpetuity, insomuch, that his memorial as a combatant there can never fail. It would be an infinite task if I should go over his payments of people's debts, or tributes, for them, as he eased the people of Phasaclus, of Batanea, and of the small cities about Cilicia, of those annual pensions they before paid. However, the fear he was in much disturbed the greatness of his soul, lest he should be exposed to envy, or seem to hunt after greater things than he ought, while he bestowed more liberal gifts upon the cities, than did their owners themselves.
13. Now Herod had a body suited to his soul, and was ever a most excellent hunter, where he generally had good success, by the means of his great skill in riding horses; for in one day he caught forty wild beasts; that country breeds also bears, and the greatest part of it is replenished with stags, and wild asses. He was also such a warrior as could not be withstood: many men therefore there are who have stood amazed at his readiness in his exercises, when they saw him throw the javelin directly forward, and to shoot the arrow upon the mark. And then besides these performances of his, depending on his own strength of mind and body, fortune was also very favourable to him; for he seldom failed of success in his wars; and when he failed, he was not himself the occasion of such failings, but he either was betrayed by some, or the rashness of his own soldiers procured his defeat.
Here seems to be a small defect in the copies, which describe the wild beasts which were hunted in a certain country by Herod, without naming any such country at all.
Chap. XXII.