HOW HEROD CELEBRATED THE GAMES THAT WERE TO RETURN EVERY FIFTH YEAR UPON THE BUILDING OF CESAREA; AND HOW HE BUILT AND ADORNED MANY OTHER PLACES AFTER A MAGNIFICENT MANNER; AND DID MANY OTHER ACTIONS GLORIOUSLY FJAJ 16.25
1. ABOUT this time it was that Cesarea Sebaste, which he had built,
was finished
The entire building being accomplished: in the tenth year,
the solemnity of it fell into the twenty-eighth year of Herod's reign,
and into the hundred and ninety-second olympiad
There was accordingly
a great festival and most sumptuous preparations made presently, in order
to its dedication; for he had appointed a contention in music, and games
to be performed naked
He had also gotten ready a great number of those
that fight single combats, and of beasts for the like purpose; horse races
also, and the most chargeable of such sports and shows as used to be exhibited
at Rome, and in other places
He consecrated this combat to Caesar, and
ordered it to be celebrated every fifth year
He also sent all sorts of
ornaments for it out of his own furniture, that it might want nothing to
make it decent; nay, Julia, Caesar's wife, sent a great part of her most
valuable furniture [from Rome], insomuch that he had no want of any thing.
The sum of them all was estimated at five hundred talents
Now when a great
multitude was come to that city to see the shows, as well as the ambassadors
whom other people sent, on account of the benefits they had received from
Herod, he entertained them all in the public inns, and at public tables,
and with perpetual feasts; this solemnity having in the day time the diversions
of the fights, and in the night time such merry meetings as cost vast sums
of money, and publicly demonstrated the generosity of his soul; for in
all his undertakings he was ambitious to exhibit what exceeded whatsoever
had been done before of the same kind
And it is related that Caesar and
Agrippa often said, that the dominions of Herod were too little for the
greatness of his soul; for that he deserved to have both all the kingdom
of Syria, and that of Egypt also. FJAJ 16.26
2. After this solemnity and these festivals were over, Herod erected
another city in the plain called Capharsaba, where he chose out a fit place,
both for plenty of water and goodness of soil, and proper for the production
of what was there planted, where a river encompassed the city itself, and
a grove of the best trees for magnitude was round about it: this he named
Antipatris, from his father Antipater
He also built upon another spot
of ground above Jericho, of the same name with his mother, a place of great
security and very pleasant for habitation, and called it Cypros
He also
dedicated the finest monuments to his brother Phasaelus, on account of
the great natural affection there had been between them, by erecting a
tower in the city itself, not less than the tower of Pharos, which he named
Phasaelus, which was at once a part of the strong defenses of the city,
and a memorial for him that was deceased, because it bare his name
He
also built a city of the same name in the valley of Jericho, as you go
from it northward, whereby he rendered the neighboring country more fruitful
by the cultivation its inhabitants introduced; and this also he called
Phasaelus. FJAJ 16.27
3. But as for his other benefits, it is impossible to reckon them up,
those which he bestowed on cities, both in Syria and in Greece, and in
all the places he came to in his voyages; for he seems to have conferred,
and that after a most plentiful manner, what would minister to many necessities,
and the building of public works, and gave them the money that was necessary
to such works as wanted it, to support them upon the failure of their other
revenues: but what was the greatest and most illustrious of all his works,
he erected Apollo's temple at Rhodes, at his own expenses, and gave them
a great number of talents of silver for the repair of their fleet
He also
built the greatest part of the public edifices for the inhabitants of Nicopolis,
at Actium; (6)
Dr. Hudson here gives us the words of Suetonius concerning this Nicopolis,
when Augustus rebuilt it: "And that the memory of the victory at Actium
might be celebrated the more afterward, he built Nicopolis at Actium, and
appointed public shows to be there exhibited every fifth year." In
August, sect. 18.
and for the Antiochinus, the inhabitants of the principal city of Syria,
where a broad street cuts through the place lengthways, he built cloisters
along it on both sides, and laid the open road with polished stone, and
was of very great advantage to the inhabitants
And as to the olympic games,
which were in a very low condition, by reason of the failure of their revenues,
he recovered their reputation, and appointed revenues for heir maintenance,
and made that solemn meeting more venerable, as to the sacrifices and other
ornaments; and by reason of this vast liberality, he was generally declared
in their inscriptions to be one of the perpetual managers of those games. FJAJ 16.28
4. Now some there are who stand amazed at the diversity of Herod's nature
and purposes; for when we have respect to his magnificence, and the benefits
which he bestowed on all mankind, there is no possibility for even those
that had the least respect for him to deny, or not openly to confess, that
he had a nature vastly beneficent; but when any one looks upon the punishments
he inflicted, and the injuries he did, not only to his subjects, but to
his nearest relations, and takes notice of his severe and unrelenting disposition
there, he will be forced to allow that he was brutish, and a stranger to
all humanity; insomuch that these men suppose his nature to be different,
and sometimes at contradiction with itself; but I am myself of another
opinion, and imagine that the occasion of both these sort of actions was
one and the same; for being a man ambitious of honor, and quite overcome
by that passion, he was induced to be magnificent, wherever there appeared
any hopes of a future memorial, or of reputation at present; and as his
expenses were beyond his abilities, he was necessitated to be harsh to
his subjects; for the persons on whom he expended his money were so many,
that they made him a very bad procurer of it; and because he was conscious
that he was hated by those under him, for the injuries he did them, he
thought it not an easy thing to amend his offenses, for that it was inconvenient
for his revenue; he therefore strove on the other side to make their ill-will
an occasion of his gains
As to his own court, therefore, if any one was
not very obsequious to him in his language, and would not confess himself
to be his slave, or but seemed to think of any innovation in his government,
he was not able to contain himself, but prosecuted his very kindred and
friends, and punished them as if they were enemies and this wickedness
he undertook out of a desire that he might be himself alone honored
Now
for this, my assertion about that passion of his, we have the greatest
evidence, by what he did to honor Caesar and Agrippa, and his other friends;
for with what honors he paid his respects to them who were his superiors,
the same did he desire to be paid to himself; and what he thought the most
excellent present he could make another, he discovered an inclination to
have the like presented to himself
But now the Jewish nation is by their
law a stranger to all such things, and accustomed to prefer righteousness
to glory; for which reason that nation was not agreeable to him, because
it was out of their power to flatter the king's ambition with statues or
temples, or any other such performances; And this seems to me to have been
at once the occasion of Herod's crimes as to his own courtiers and counselors,
and of his benefactions as to foreigners and those that had no relation
to him. FJAJ 16.29