my ability to describe it; for it was so very curious
as to want no cost nor skill in its construction, but was entirely
walled about to the height of thirty cubits, and was adorned with towers
at equal distances, and with large bed-chambers, that would contain beds
for a hundred guests a-piece, in which the variety of the stones is not
to be expressed; for a large quantity of those that were rare of that
kind was collected together. Their roofs were also wonderful, both for
the length of the beams, and the splendor of their ornaments. The number
of the rooms was also very great, and the variety of the figures that
were about them was prodigious; their furniture was complete, and the
greatest part of the vessels that were put in them was of silver and
gold. There were besides many porticoes, one beyond another, round
about, and in each of those porticoes curious pillars; yet were all
the courts that were exposed to the air every where green. There were,
moreover, several groves of trees, and long walks through them, with
deep canals, and cisterns, that in several parts were filled with
brazen statues, through which the water ran out. There were withal many
dove-courts [11] of tame pigeons about the canals. But indeed it is not
possible to give a complete description of these palaces; and the very
remembrance of them is a torment to one, as putting one in mind what
vastly rich buildings that fire which was kindled by the robbers hath
consumed; for these were not burnt by the Romans, but by these internal
plotters, as we have already related, in the beginning of their
rebellion. That fire began at the tower of Antonia, and went on to the
palaces, and consumed the upper parts of the three towers themselves.

CHAPTER 5.

A Description Of The Temple.

1. Now this temple, as I have already said, was built upon a strong
hill. At first the plain at the top was hardly sufficient for the holy
house and the altar, for the ground about it was very uneven, and like
a precipice; but when king Solomon, who was the person that built the
temple, had built a wall to it on its east side, there was then added
one cloister founded on a bank cast up for it, and on the other parts
the holy house stood naked. But in future ages the people added new
banks, [12] and the hill became a larger plain. They then broke down the
wall on the north side, and took in as much as sufficed afterward for
the compass of the entire temple. And when t