d with wars and troubles, and having,
besides, an abundant fruition of the most desirable liberty, every one
was busy in augmenting the product of their own lands, and making them
worth more than they had formerly been.

4. The king had also other rulers, who were over the land of Syria and
of the Philistines, which reached from the river Euphrates to Egypt, and
these collected his tributes of the nations. Now these contributed to
the king's table, and to his supper every day [3] thirty cori of fine
flour, and sixty of meal; as also ten fat oxen, and twenty oxen out of
the pastures, and a hundred fat lambs; all these were besides what were
taken by hunting harts and buffaloes, and birds and fishes, which were
brought to the king by foreigners day by day. Solomon had also so great
a number of chariots, that the stalls of his horses for those chariots
were forty thousand; and besides these he had twelve thousand horsemen,
the one half of which waited upon the king in Jerusalem, and the rest
were dispersed abroad, and dwelt in the royal villages; but the same
officer who provided for the king's expenses supplied also the fodder
for the horses, and still carried it to the place where the king abode
at that time.

5. Now the sagacity and wisdom which God had bestowed on Solomon was
so great, that he exceeded the ancients; insomuch that he was no way
inferior to the Egyptians, who are said to have been beyond all men in
understanding; nay, indeed, it is evident that their sagacity was very
much inferior to that of the king's. He also excelled and distinguished
himself in wisdom above those who were most eminent among the Hebrews
at that time for shrewdness; those I mean were Ethan, and Heman, and
Chalcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol. He also composed books of
odes and songs a thousand and five, of parables and similitudes three
thousand; for he spake a parable upon every sort of tree, from the
hyssop to the cedar; and in like manner also about beasts, about all
sorts of living creatures, whether upon the earth, or in the seas, or
in the air; for he was not unacquainted with any of their natures, nor
omitted inquiries about them, but described them all like a philosopher,
and demonstrated his exquisite knowledge of their several properties.
God also enabled him to learn that skill which expels demons, [4] which
is a science useful and sanative to men. He composed such incantations
also by which distempers are alleviated. And