3. Above the wall rose towers twenty cubits wide and twenty cubits high, each quadrangular and massive like the wall itself. In terms of the strength of their composition and the beauty of the stones, they were not inferior to temple buildings. On these twenty-iloct massifs there were magnificent chambers, and above them there were also rooms of the upper tier; For rainwater, a great many cisterns were built there with wide stairs leading to each separately. The third wall had ninety such towers; the distance between each two towers was measured in two hundred cubits. Fourteen towers were placed on the middle wall, and sixty on the ancient wall. The circumference of the entire city reached thirty-three stadia. If the third wall itself was worthy of wonder, the Tower of Psephin, located at its north-western corner, against which Titus encamped, was an outstanding work of art. Extending upwards to a height of seventy cubits, it offers a distant view of Arabia and the extreme reaches of the Jewish land to the sea. It was octagonal. On the opposite side, on the ancient wall, the Hippicus Tower was erected by King Herod, and near the latter there were two other towers, which in size, beauty and strength had no analogues in the world. For the elegance of these buildings was not only the work of the king's innate taste for the majestic and his zealous care for the city, but was also a tribute to the feelings of his heart, since with these towers he erected monuments to three favorite persons: his brother, friend and wife, whose names he gave to these buildings. His wife, as we have said above (Q[1], 22, 5), he killed out of jealousy, and he lost two others in the war, where they fought bravely.

The second tower, named by Herod after his brother Phasael,22 was forty cubits wide and long, and the same in height, and was all massive. At the top of it was surrounded by a balcony ten cubits high, protected by parapets and ledges; in the middle of this balcony rose another tower, which housed magnificent apartments, equipped even with a bathhouse, so that the whole tower completely resembled a royal castle. Its top was even more luxurious than the previous one and was decorated with turrets and battlements. In all, she was about ninety cubits high. In appearance, it was similar to the Pharos lighthouse, which is in front of Alexandria, but significantly exceeded its volume. At that time, Simon strengthened himself in it, making it the main point of his power. The third tower of Mariammus (after the queen) had a massive base twenty cubits high, twenty cubits wide, and the same length; the living quarters upstairs were even more splendid and varied than in the previous towers, for the king thought it fitting that a building named after a woman should be more decorated than those that bore the names of men; but the latter were, on the contrary, stronger than the women's tower. The height of this tower was fifty-five cubits.

4. The size of these three towers, considerable as it was in itself, seemed still greater by their position; for the ancient wall on which they stood was itself built on a high hill, and like the top of a mountain, rose thirty cubits high, and therefore the towers that were on it gained in height. The size of the stones used for the towers was also striking, for the latter were not built of simple stones or fragments of rock, which men could carry, but of hewn white marble blocks, each measuring twenty cubits long, ten cubits wide, and five thick; and so carefully were they [335] connected to each other that each tower seemed to grow out of the ground as a single rocky mass, from which the hand of the craftsman later carved the shapes and corners, so invisible were the seams of the structure. Adjacent to these towers, which stood to the north, was a royal palace beyond all description, in which splendor and decoration were brought to the highest perfection. It was surrounded by a perimeter wall thirty cubits high, which bore richly decorated towers at equal distances, and contained huge dining rooms with beds for hundreds of guests; the variety of stones used in this building was innumerable, for the rarest rocks were brought here in masses from all countries; The ceilings of the rooms are surprising in terms of the length of the beams and the splendor of the decoration. It contained a myriad of rooms of various shapes, and all of them were fully furnished; Most of the room utensils were made of silver and gold. There were many intersecting circular galleries, decorated with various columns, their open places buried in greenery. Here were heterogeneous parks with long alleys for revelry cutting through them, and near them deep reservoirs of water and in some places cisterns, abounding in artistic products of copper, through which water flowed. Around these artificial springs there were numerous turrets for tamed wild pigeons. However, it is not possible to describe this palace for its dignity; only the memory of the devastation wrought here by the robber's hand is painful; for it was not the Romans who burned all this, but, as has been said above, the internal enemies did it at the beginning of the revolt: a fire broke out for the first time in the castle of Antony, then it engulfed the palace and destroyed also the upper buildings of the three towers.

Chapter Five

Description of the temple.

1. The temple, as noted above, was built on the ridge of a strongly fortified hill. [23] At first, its top was barely enough for the church itself and the altar, since the hill was sloping and steep on all sides. But after King Solomon, the first founder of the temple, strengthened the eastern part of the hill with a wall, another colonnade was built on the earthen mound; [336] On the other sides, the church was still open. In the following centuries, the people expanded the surface of the hill more and more by means of permanent embankments; then they broke down the northern side and cut off as much space as later made up the entire volume of the temple. After the Jews had strengthened the hill from its very foot with a triple terrace-like wall, and had completed the construction that surpassed all expectations, for which long ages and all the sacred treasures that flowed from all over the world had been used, they built the upper space and the lower temple place. The lowest part of the temple rested on a foundation three hundred cubits high, and in some places even more. But not the full depth of this remarkable foundation was visible, for for the most part the ravine was filled in order to equalize it with the streets of the city. The rocks used for the foundation were forty cubits in size. The abundance of money and the zeal of the people greatly accelerated the progress of the work, and, thanks to this unflagging perseverance, in the course of time a structure was erected which had not even been hoped to be completed before.

2. The buildings erected on it were also worthy of such a foundation. All the galleries were double, twenty-five-cubit pillars, on which they rested, each consisting of one piece of the whitest marble; they were covered with ceilings of cedar wood. The high value of this material, the beautiful decoration and harmonious combination of it presented a majestic appearance, although neither the brush of the artist nor the chisel of the sculptor adorned the buildings from the outside. The width of each gallery reached thirty cubits, and their entire volume, including the castle of Antonia, was calculated in six stadia. Uncovered courtyard places were paved everywhere with multi-colored mosaics. Between the first and second consecrated places stretched a stone fence, very elegantly finished, three cubits high. At regular intervals there were pillars on it, on which was written in Greek and Roman the law of purification, which stated that a stranger should not enter the sanctuary, for this second sacred place was called a sanctuary. [24] It was fourteen steps above the first place. The sanctuary was a quadrangle surrounded by a special wall. The outer height of the latter, although it reached forty cubits, was not visible because of the steps that covered it; but inside the wall was only twenty-five cubits; for since the wall was built on a high place, to which it climbed by steps, the whole [337] of its interior was not visible, because the hill covered it. The staircase ended at the top with a platform that had ten cubits up to the wall. From here, other staircases, five steps each, led to the gate, of which there were eight on the north and south (four on each side), and two on the east. So many gates were needed here, since on this side there was a fenced place intended for worship for women; therefore, a second gate was needed here, cut in the wall against the first; and on the other sides, i.e. in the south and north, a special gate led to the women's narthex; Through the other gate, women were not allowed to enter, just as they were not allowed to leave their porch into other parts of the temple. This place was equally open to native and foreign Jewish women without distinction. The western side had no gates, the wall closed it tightly. The galleries between the gates on the inner side of the wall and leading to the treasury rested on a number of large and extremely beautiful pillars. However, in addition to size, they were not inferior in all other respects to those in the lower courtyard.

3. Nine of these gates were covered from top to end with gold and silver, as well as the jambs and lintels; some of them, which were outside the temple, were even of Corinthian copper,25 and far exceeded the value of silver-plated and gilded ones. Each gate consisted of two halves, thirty cubits high and fifteen wide. Inside the gates on both sides were spacious rooms like towers, thirty cubits wide and more than forty high. Each of these towers was supported by two columns of twelve cubits in volume. All the gates were of the same size; only those that were on top of the Corinthian gates, on the eastern side of the women's narthex, opposite the temple gates, were much larger; they were fifty cubits high, and the doors forty cubits wide; were covered with thicker silver and gold sheets, and the ornaments on them were even more magnificent than on the others. This metal cladding was donated for the nine gates to Alexander, the father of Tiberius. [26] Fifteen steps led from the wall that formed the border of the women's porch to the large gate, five steps less than those that led to the rest of the gate.

4. Twelve steps led to the temple building itself, which rose in the middle, that is, to the sanctuary. The pediment of the building [338] was, both in height and in breadth, a hundred cubits; and the back was forty cubits narrower; for on both sides of the pediment protruded two wings, each twenty cubits wide. The front side of this gate was all covered with gold, and through it one could see the entire interior of the first and large section of the temple. Inside the gate, everything around shone with gold. The interior of the temple was thus divided into two sections; but only the front remained open, which was ninety cubits high, fifty long, and twenty wide. The gate which led to this compartment was, as stated above, entirely gilded, as was the whole wall which bordered it. Above them were golden vines, from which hung tassels of human height. Of the two sections of the temple building, the inner one was lower than the outer one. Into it led golden doors, fifty-five cubits high and sixteen wide; Above them hung a Babylonian curtain of equal size, variegated in hyacinth,[27] linen,[28] sharlach,[29] and purple,[30] woven with extraordinary elegance, and striking the eye with a remarkable mixture of fabrics. This curtain was to serve as a symbol of the universe: the charlach signified fire, the fine linen the earth, the hyacinth the air, and the purple the sea; two of them are by similarity of color, and two, linen and purple, are of origin, for linen comes from the earth, and purple from the sea. The embroidery on the curtain represented the view of the entire sky, except for the signs of the zodiac. [31]

5. Through this entrance one entered the lower part of the temple building. The latter was sixty cubits high, the same length and twenty cubits wide; In its length, it was again divided into two sections: the first of them, separated from the second at a distance of forty cubits, contained three landmarking, world-famous works of art: a lampstand, a table, and an altar for incense. The seven lamps into which the lamp branched stood for the seven planets, the twelve loaves on the table — the zodiac and the year; the incense burner, filled with thirteen kinds of incense substances taken from the sea, uninhabited deserts and inhabited land, indicated that everything comes from God and belongs to God. The innermost part of the temple was twenty cubits[32] and was also separated from the outer part by a curtain. In fact, there was nothing here. [33] It remained forbidden, inviolable [339] and invisible to all. It was called the Holy of Holies. On the sides of the lower section of the temple there were many interconnected three-storey dwellings, which were accessible from both sides through special entrances. The upper part of the temple did not have any such extensions, since it was narrower and higher by almost forty cubits. At the same time, it was simpler to finish than the lower one. If we add the forty to sixty cubits from the ground, we get a total height of one hundred cubits.

6. The exterior of the temple presented everything that could only delight the eye and soul. Covered on all sides with heavy gold sheets, it shone in the morning sun with a bright fiery shine, dazzling to the eyes like the sun's rays. To strangers who came to worship in Jerusalem, from a distance it seemed covered with snow, for where it was not gilded, it was dazzlingly white. Its top was equipped with golden pointed needles so that the bird could not land on the temple and pollute it. 34 The blocks of stone of which it was built were up to forty-five cubits long, five thick, and six wide. And before him stood an altar fifteen cubits high, and the breadth and length of it were fifty cubits of equal size. It was a quadrangle and had horn-like protrusions at its corners, and a slightly rising terrace led to it from the south. It was built without an iron tool, and the iron never touched it. The church, together with the altar, was surrounded by an elegant lattice made of beautiful stones, about the elbow high, which separated the priests from the laity. The festering and lepers were forbidden to enter the city in general; women were not allowed to enter the temple during their month-long purification, but even when they were clean, they were forbidden to cross the above-mentioned boundary. Men, when they were not completely clean, were not to enter the inner court, just as priests were to do on such occasions.