Solomon’s Palace and Hiram’s Riddles

After the building of the temple, which, as we said before, was finished in seven years, the king laid the foundation of his palace. He did not finish it in less than thirteen years, for he was not as zealous in building this palace as he had been about the temple. The temple was a great work and required wonderful and astonishing effort; yet God, for whom it was made, worked along with it so far that it was finished in the number of years already mentioned. But the palace was a building far inferior in dignity to the temple. Its materials had not been made ready so long beforehand nor prepared so zealously, and it was only a dwelling for kings and not for God; so it took longer to finish. Still, this building was raised as magnificently as suited the happy state of the Hebrews and of their king. But I must describe its whole structure and the arrangement of its parts, so that those who come across this book may form an idea of it and, as it were, have a view of its size. [a]

This house was a large and elaborate building, supported by many pillars, which Solomon built to hold a crowd for hearing cases and trying lawsuits. It was roomy enough to hold a great body of people who would gather to have their cases decided. It was 150 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high, supported by square pillars, all of cedar; but its roof was in the Corinthian style, with folding doors, and the pillars beside them of equal size, each fluted with three grooves. The building was at once strong and very ornamental. There was also another house so arranged that its entire breadth was set in the middle. It was square, forty-five feet across, and had a temple facing it, raised on massive pillars; in that temple was a large and very splendid room where the king sat in judgment. Joined to this was another house built for his queen. There were other, smaller buildings for meals and for sleep after public business was over, and all these were floored with cedar boards. Some of these Solomon built with stones fifteen feet long, and paneled the walls with other sawn stones of great value, the kind that are dug out of the earth to ornament temples and to make fine views in royal palaces, and which make the quarries they come from famous. The fine workmanship of these stones was laid in three rows, but the fourth row would make one admire its carvings, which represented trees and all kinds of plants, with the shade cast by their branches and the leaves hanging down from them. These trees and plants covered the stone beneath them, and their leaves were worked so astonishingly thin and fine that you would think they were moving. The rest of the wall, up to the roof, was plastered over and, as it were, embroidered with colors and pictures. He also built other buildings for pleasure, and very long colonnades set in a pleasant part of the palace, and among them a most splendid dining hall for feasts and drinking parties, full of gold and all the other furnishings so fine a room ought to have for the comfort of the guests; all its vessels were made of gold. It is very hard to count up the size and variety of the royal apartments: how many rooms there were of the largest kind, how many of a smaller size, and how many were underground and out of sight; the elegance of those built to enjoy the fresh air; and the groves for the most delightful view, for escaping the heat and for shading the body. To put it briefly, Solomon made the whole building entirely of white stone, cedar wood, gold and silver. He also decorated the ceilings and walls with stones set in gold, and beautified them in the same way he had beautified the temple of God with such stones. He also made himself a throne of enormous size, of ivory, built as a seat of justice, with six steps up to it. On each of the steps stood two lions, one at either end, and two more lions stood above as well. At the seat of the throne, hands came out and received the king, and when he leaned back he rested against the forepart of a calf that faced toward his back; and the whole was fastened together with gold. [b]

Solomon completed all this in twenty years. Since Hiram king of Tyre had contributed a great deal of gold, and still more silver, to these buildings, as well as cedar and pine wood, Solomon rewarded Hiram with rich presents. He sent him grain year by year, and wine and oil, which were the chief things Hiram needed, because he lived on an island, as we have already said. Besides these, he gave him certain cities of Galilee, twenty in number, not far from Tyre. When Hiram went and looked them over and did not like the gift, he sent word to Solomon that he had no use for such cities; and from that time these cities were called the land of Cabul, a name which, interpreted in the language of the Phoenicians, means “what does not please.” The king of Tyre also sent Solomon puzzles and riddling sayings, and asked him to solve them and free them of the ambiguity in them. Solomon was so shrewd and understanding that none of these problems was too hard for him; he conquered them all by his reasoning, discovered their hidden meaning, and brought it to light. Menander too, who translated the Tyrian archives out of the Phoenician dialect into the Greek language, mentions these two kings, where he says: “When Abibalus was dead, his son Hiram received the kingdom from him. He lived fifty-three years and reigned thirty-four. He raised an embankment in the large open space, and dedicated the golden pillar that is in the temple of Zeus. He also went and cut timber on the mountain called Lebanon for the roofs of temples; and when he had pulled down the ancient temples, he built both the temple of Heracles and that of Astarte. He was the first to perform the raising of Heracles, in the month Peritius. He also made an expedition against the people of Utica, who did not pay their tribute, and when he had subdued them he returned. Under this king there was a younger son of Abdemon, who always solved the problems that Solomon, king of Jerusalem, set.” Dius also mentions him, where he says: “When Abibalus was dead, his son Hiram reigned. He raised the eastern parts of the city higher and made the city itself larger. He also joined the temple of Olympian Zeus, which had stood by itself, to the city, by raising an embankment in the middle between them, and he adorned it with gifts of gold. Moreover, he went up to Mount Lebanon and cut timber for building the temples.” He says also that Solomon, who was then king of Jerusalem, sent riddles to Hiram and asked to receive others from him in return, on the terms that whoever could not solve them would pay money to the one who did; that Hiram accepted the terms; that when he could not solve the riddles Solomon proposed, he paid a great deal of money as his fine; but that afterward he did solve them by means of Abdemon, a man of Tyre; and that Hiram proposed other riddles, which Solomon could not solve, and so Solomon paid back a great deal of money to Hiram. This is what Dius wrote. [g]