ne outward surface, and filled up the hollow places
which were about the wall, and made it a level on the external upper
surface, and a smooth level also. This hill was walled all round, and in
compass four furlongs, [the distance of] each angle containing in length
a furlong: but within this wall, and on the very top of all, there
ran another wall of stone also, having, on the east quarter, a double
cloister, of the same length with the wall; in the midst of which was
the temple itself. This cloister looked to the gates of the temple; and
it had been adorned by many kings in former times; and round about the
entire temple were fixed the spoils taken from barbarous nations; all
these had been dedicated to the temple by Herod, with the addition of
those he had taken from the Arabians.

4. Now on the north side [of the temple] was built a citadel, whose
walls were square, and strong, and of extraordinary firmness. This
citadel was built by the kings of the Asamonean race, who were also
high priests before Herod, and they called it the Tower, in which were
reposited the vestments of the high priest, which the high priest only
put on at the time when he was to offer sacrifice. These vestments king
Herod kept in that place; and after his death they were under the power
of the Romans, until the time of Tiberius Caesar; under whose reign
Vitellius, the president of Syria, when he once came to Jerusalem, and
had been most magnificently received by the multitude, he had a mind to
make them some requital for the kindness they had shewn him; so, upon
their petition to have those holy vestments in their own power, he wrote
about them to Tiberius Caesar, who granted his request: and this their
power over the sacerdotal vestments continued with the Jews till
the death of king Agrippa; but after that, Cassius Longinus, who was
president of Syria, and Cuspius Fadus, who was procurator of Judea,
enjoined the Jews to reposit those vestments in the tower of Antonia,
for that they ought to have them in their power, as they formerly had.
However, the Jews sent ambassadors to Claudius Caesar, to intercede with
him for them; upon whose coming, king Agrippa, junior, being then at
Rome, asked for and obtained the power over them from the emperor, who
gave command to Vitellius, who was then commander in Syria, to give it
them accordingly. Before that time they were kept under the seal of the
high priest, and of the treasurers of the temple; which