of the sacred city, still strong and
well provisioned. Four legions, with mercenary troops and allies, burning
to avenge the past, encamped beneath the walls, destroying the orchards
and olive-grounds and gardens which everywhere gladdened the beautiful
environs. The city was fortified with three walls where not surrounded by
impassable ravines, not one within the other, but inclosing distinct
quarters; and these were of great strength, the stones of which were in
some parts thirty-five feet long, and so thick that even the heaviest
battering-rams could make no impression. One hundred and sixty-four towers
surmounted these heavy walls, one of which was one hundred and forty feet
high, and forty-three feet square; another, of white marble, seventy-six
feet in height, was built of stones thirty-five feet long, and seventeen
and a half wide, and eight and a half high, joined together with the most
perfect masonry. Within these walls and towers was the royal palace,
surrounded by walls and towers of equal strength. The fortress of Antonia,
seventy feet high, stood on a rock of ninety feet elevation, with
precipitous sides. High above all these towers and hills, and fortresses,
stood the temple, on an esplanade covering a square of a furlong on each
side. The walls which surrounded this fortress-temple were built of vast
stones, and were of great height; and within these walls, on each side,
was a spacious double portico fifty-two and a half feet broad, with a
ceiling of cedar exquisitely carved, supported by marble columns
forty-three and three-quarters feet high, hewn out of single stones. There
were one hundred and sixty-two of these beautiful columns. Within this
quadrangle was an inner wall, seventy feet in height, inclosing the inner
court, around which, in the interior, was another still more splendid
portico, entered by brazen gates adorned with gold. These doors, or gates,
were fifty-two and a half feet high and twenty-six and a quarter wide.
Each gateway had two lofty pillars, twenty-one feet in circumference. The
gate called Beautiful was eighty-seven and a half feet high, made of
Corinthian brass, and plated with gold. The quadrangle, entered by nine of
these gates, inclosed still another, within which was the temple itself,
with its glittering facade. This third and inner quadrangle was entered by
a gateway tower one hundred and thirty-two and a half feet high and
forty-three and a half wide. "At a distance the tem