e 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.

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 fi