gdom to you by decree. I will also
endeavor to do you some further kindness hereafter, that you may not miss
Antony."
[Sidenote: Jos. Jew. War, I, 20:3b-4a]
After this, when Caesar went to Egypt through Syria, Herod received him
lavishly and royally. It was, therefore, the opinion both of Caesar and
his soldiers that Herod's kingdom was too small a return for what he had
done. For this reason, when Caesar had returned from Egypt, he added to
Herod's other honors, and also made an addition to his kingdom by giving
him not only the country which had been taken from him by Cleopatra, but
also Gadara, Hippos, and Samaria, and also the coast cities Gaza,
Anthedon, Joppa, and Straton's Tower. He also made him a present of four
hundred Gauls as a body-guard, which had before belonged to Cleopatra.
Moreover he added to his kingdom Trachonitis and the adjacent Batanea, and
the district of Auranitis.
[Sidenote: Jos. Jew. War, I, 21:13]
Now Herod had a body suited to his soul and was ever a most excellent
hunter, in which sport he generally had great success owing to his skill
in riding, for in one day he once captured forty wild beasts. He was also
a warrior such as could not be withstood. Many also marvelled at his skill
in his exercises when they saw him throwing the javelin and shooting the
arrow straight to the mark. In addition to these advantages of mind and
body, fortune was also very favorable to him, for he seldom failed in war,
and when he failed, he was not himself the cause, but it happened either
through the treachery of some one or else through the rashness of his own
soldiers.
[Sidenote: Jos. Jew. War, I, 21:1b, 4a]
Herod also built for himself at Jerusalem in the upper city a palace,
which contained two very large and most beautiful apartments to which not
even the temple could be compared. One apartment he named Caesareum and
the other Agrippeum [after his friends Caesar Augustus and Agrippa]. But
he did not preserve their memory by particular buildings only and the
names given them, but his generosity also went as far as entire cities.
For when he had built a most beautiful wall over two miles long about a
city in the district of Samaria and had brought six thousand inhabitants
into it and had allotted to them a most fertile territory and in the midst
of this city had erected a large temple to Augustus, he called the city
Sebaste [from Sebastus, the Greek of Augustus]. And when Augustus had
bestowed upon
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