The Famine and Caesarea

In this year, the thirteenth of Herod’s reign, very great calamities came upon the country, whether God was angry or whether this misery comes around naturally in certain cycles of time. In the first place, there were continual droughts, and because of them the ground was barren and did not produce even what it usually brings forth. Then, after this barrenness of the soil, the change of diet forced by the lack of grain brought sickness on people’s bodies, and a plague took hold, one misery following hard on another. Being without both medical care and food made the plague, which had begun violently, last all the longer; and the deaths of so many in this way took away the courage of the survivors, since they had no means of supplying remedies for the distress they were in. When the crops of that year were ruined, and whatever had been stored up beforehand was used up, no ground for hope of relief remained. Instead the misery grew worse, contrary to what they expected; and not only in that year, for nothing was left to them, but the seed they had sown perished too, because the ground did not yield its crops in the second year either. Necessity, because of their want, drove them to many new shifts. Nor was the king himself any less in distress, since he had lost the tribute he used to receive from the produce of the land and had already spent his money in his lavish rebuilding of cities. And there seemed to be no means of help left to try, since the calamity had already turned his subjects to hatred of him; for it is always the way that misfortune lays the blame on those who govern. [a]

In these circumstances he considered how to find some timely help. But this was hard to do, since their neighbors had no food to sell them, having suffered no less themselves; and their money too was gone, even if it had been possible to buy a little food at a great price. Still, he thought it right by all means not to give up his efforts to help. So he cut up the furnishings of silver and gold that were in his palace, sparing neither the finest pieces nor those made with the most elaborate skill of the craftsmen, and he sent the money to Egypt, to Petronius, who had received the government of Egypt from Caesar. Not a few had already fled to Petronius in the same need; but since he was a personal friend of Herod and wanted to save his subjects, he gave them the first right to export grain, and helped them in every way in buying it and shipping it out, so that he was the chief source, if not the only one, of the help they received. When the grain arrived, Herod added his own careful management to these supplies. By this he not only turned around the minds of those who had formerly hated him, but also gave the greatest possible proof of his goodwill and care for them. In the first place, to those who were able to prepare their own food, he distributed their portion of grain with the most exact fairness. But there were many who, through old age or some other weakness, were unable to prepare food for themselves; for these he provided by appointing bakers and giving them their bread ready-made. He also took care that they should not suffer from the dangers of winter, since they were in great want of clothing as well, because their sheep and goats had perished and been utterly consumed, so that they had no wool to use, nor anything else to cover themselves with. When he had provided these things for his own subjects, he set about giving help to the neighboring cities too, and gave seed to the people of Syria. This was no less to his own advantage, since his kindness came so timely for their fruitful soil that everyone now had plenty of food. In all, when the harvest of the land was approaching, he sent out into the country no fewer than fifty thousand people whom he himself had fed and kept alive. In this way he restored his afflicted kingdom with great generosity and energy, and greatly lightened the sufferings of his neighbors, who were in the same calamity. No one who came to him in need went away without suitable help. Peoples and cities, and private individuals who had many dependents to provide for and were in want because of it, turned to him for refuge and received what they needed. By reckoning, the grain given to those outside his kingdom came to about a hundred and fifty thousand bushels, and what was given within his own kingdom to some one million two hundred thousand bushels. This care of his, and the timeliness of his kindness, had such an effect among the Jews themselves and was so widely spoken of among other peoples, that the old hatred stirred up by his tampering with some of their customs was removed from his kingdom and from the whole nation, and the generosity he showed in their worst distress seemed full amends for it. He also won great fame among foreigners. It looked as though these calamities, which had afflicted his land beyond belief, had come about to raise his glory and to his great advantage. For the greatness of soul he showed in these distresses, beyond all expectation, so changed the feelings of the people toward him that they came to think he had been from the beginning not the man their experience had shown him to be, but the man his care for them in their need now proved him to be. [d]

About this time he sent five hundred picked men from his bodyguard as allies to Caesar. Aelius Gallus led them to the Red Sea, and they were of great service to him there. Now that his affairs had improved and were flourishing again, he built himself a palace in the upper city. He raised its halls to a very great height and furnished them most lavishly with gold, precious stones and painted plaster, so that each had dining couches for a great many guests. The halls were of different sizes and had names of their own: one was called Caesar’s, another Agrippa’s. He also fell in love again and married another wife, letting no reasoning stand in the way of living as he pleased. The marriage came about in this way. There was a certain Simon, a citizen of Jerusalem, the son of one Boethus of Alexandria, and a priest of distinction. He had a daughter who was thought the most beautiful woman of her time. When the people of Jerusalem began to talk a great deal in her praise, Herod was at first moved by what was said of her; and when he saw the girl he was struck by her beauty. Yet he entirely rejected the thought of using his power to take her, suspecting, rightly, that he would be branded for violence and tyranny; so he thought it best to take the girl as his wife. And since Simon was of too low a rank to be related to him by marriage, yet too important to be despised, he pursued his desire in the more considerate way, by raising the family’s rank and making them more honorable. He at once deprived Jesus, the son of Phabet, of the high priesthood, appointed Simon to that office, and then made the marriage alliance with him. [g]

When this wedding was over, he built another fortress in the place where he had defeated the Jews when he had been driven out of his government and Antigonus held power. This fortress is about seven and a half miles from Jerusalem. It is strong by nature and very well suited to such a building. It is a fairly high hill, raised still higher by the hand of man, rounded in the shape of a breast. It is ringed with round towers and has a steep ascent built up of two hundred steps of polished stone. Inside are costly royal apartments, built for security and beauty at once. Around the foot of the hill there are residences well worth seeing, both for other reasons and for the water brought there from a great distance and at great expense, for the place itself has none. The level ground around it is built up into a city second to none in size, with the hill serving as its citadel. [j]

Now that all Herod’s plans had succeeded as he had hoped, he had no suspicion at all of any trouble within his kingdom, since he kept his people obedient in two ways: by fear, for he was relentless in inflicting punishment, and by the care he had shown them with great magnanimity in their misfortunes. But he also surrounded himself with security from abroad, making that too a stronghold against his subjects. He dealt with the cities graciously and kindly, and courted their rulers with timely gifts to each, so making them more friendly to him, and using his generous nature to strengthen his kingdom, until all his affairs grew greater and greater on every side. But this ambition, and the court he paid to Caesar and the most powerful men in Rome, forced him to depart from the customs of his nation and to tamper with many of its laws. Out of ambition he founded cities and raised temples, not in the land of the Jews, for they would not have endured it, since we are forbidden to honor statues and sculpted forms after the Greek fashion, but in the country outside our borders and in the cities round about. To the Jews he excused himself by saying that he did these things not of his own accord but by command and order; while to Caesar and the Romans he made a compliment of it, that he regarded even his own nation’s customs less than their honor. All the while he was aiming entirely at his own interest, or rather was ambitious to leave greater monuments of his reign to later ages. That is why he was so eager to rebuild cities and spent such enormous sums on them.

He noticed a place on the coast very well suited for a city, which was formerly called Strato’s Tower. He laid out a magnificent plan for it, and raised buildings over the whole site with great care, all of white stone, and adorned it with most splendid palaces and houses for its citizens. But the greatest work of all, and the one that cost the most labor, was the harbor, sheltered from the waves. It was as large as the Piraeus, with landing places inside and a second anchorage. It was remarkable for its construction, all the more because the site itself offered no advantage for such a great work; it had to be finished with materials brought from elsewhere and at very great expense. The city lies in Phoenicia, on the coastal voyage to Egypt, between Joppa and Dor. These are small towns on the coast with poor harbors, because of the southwest winds that beat on them. These winds keep driving the sand from the sea up onto the shore and allow no landing, so that merchants usually have to ride at anchor out at sea. To correct this difficulty of the coast, Herod marked out a circuit for the harbor toward the land large enough for great fleets to lie at anchor in, and he let down enormous stones into the sea to a depth of about 120 feet. Most of them were fifty feet long, not less than eighteen feet wide and nine feet high, and some were smaller, others larger. The mole he built out into the sea was two hundred feet wide. Half of it was set against the surge of the waves, to hold off the breakers that crashed against it; it was called the Procymia, the “breakwater.” The other half carried a stone wall set with towers. The largest of these was called the Drusion, a very fine work, named for Drusus, Caesar’s stepson, who died young. There were also many vaulted chambers built in as lodgings for the sailors, and in front of them a broad landing quay ran around the whole harbor, a most pleasant walk for anyone who liked to stroll. The entrance and mouth of the harbor faced north, the fairest of the winds there. At the base of the whole circuit, on the left as one sailed in, stood a tower set on a massive foundation to withstand the sea strongly; on the right were two great upright stones joined together, each larger than the tower opposite. All around the harbor stood a continuous row of buildings of the most finely polished stone. In the middle was a mound, and on it a temple of Caesar, seen from far off by those sailing into the harbor, with two statues, one of Rome and the other of Caesar. The city itself is called Caesarea, and it was built of the finest materials and in the finest style. Even the underground sewers and passages had no less work spent on them than the buildings above. Some of them ran at even intervals down to the harbor and the sea, and one ran crosswise and joined them all, so that the rain and the filth of the inhabitants were easily carried off together, and the sea itself, when the tide pressed in from outside, flowed through and washed out the whole city. Herod also built a theater in it, and on the south side, behind the harbor, an amphitheater able to hold a great crowd and well placed for a view of the sea. So the city was completed in twelve years, the king never tiring of the work and never failing to meet its costs. [k]