treasurers,
the day before a festival, went up to the Roman captain of the temple
guards, and viewed their own seal, and received the vestments; and
again, when the festival was over, they brought it to the same
place, and showed the captain of the temple guards their seal, which
corresponded with his seal, and reposited them there. And that these
things were so, the afflictions that happened to us afterwards [about
them] are sufficient evidence. But for the tower itself, when Herod the
king of the Jews had fortified it more firmly than before, in order to
secure and guard the temple, he gratified Antonius, who was his friend,
and the Roman ruler, and then gave it the name of the Tower of Antonia.

5. Now in the western quarters of the enclosure of the temple there were
four gates; the first led to the king's palace, and went to a passage
over the intermediate valley; two more led to the suburbs of the city;
and the last led to the other city, where the road descended down into
the valley by a great number of steps, and thence up again by the ascent
for the city lay over against the temple in the manner of a theater, and
was encompassed with a deep valley along the entire south quarter; but
the fourth front of the temple, which was southward, had indeed itself
gates in its middle, as also it had the royal cloisters, with three
walks, which reached in length from the east valley unto that on the
west, for it was impossible it should reach any farther: and this
cloister deserves to be mentioned better than any other under the sun;
for while the valley was very deep, and its bottom could not be seen, if
you looked from above into the depth, this further vastly high elevation
of the cloister stood upon that height, insomuch that if any one looked
down from the top of the battlements, or down both those altitudes,
he would be giddy, while his sight could not reach to such an immense
depth. This cloister had pillars that stood in four rows one over
against the other all along, for the fourth row was interwoven into the
wall, which [also was built of stone]; and the thickness of each pillar
was such, that three men might, with their arms extended, fathom it
round, and join their hands again, while its length was twenty-seven
feet, with a double spiral at its basis; and the number of all the
pillars [in that court] was a hundred and sixty-two. Their chapiters
were made with sculptures after the Corinthian order, and caused an