rusalem, the foundation of military colonies in Trachonitis and Batanea,
the construction of the third palace in Jericho, and the addition of the
casemate wall at Masada. It is not clear if the sanctuaries in Mamre and
Hebron and the foundation of the cities of Phasaelis, Antipatris, and Livias
belong to the second or third phase. In addition to being enterprising in
Palestine, Herod was an eager benefactor and donated money or commis-
sioned buildings in many places around the Mediterranean.
Herod’s sons readily followed their father, albeit on a lesser scale. In
the southern Jordan Valley, Archelaus founded Archelais to better exploit
the date palm groves; in Galilee, Antipas rebuilt Sepphoris and founded
Tiberias in 18c.e.as his two residential cities; and Philip refounded Beth-
saida as Julias.Herod’s Building Style
Herod’s building style mirrored the shrewdness of his political sensibilities
and the multiethnic nature of his realm. He avoided almost entirely the use
of figurative art in public and private contexts in regions where Jews were
the predominant inhabitants. Here he brought the Hasmonean material
culture to a new climax. This restriction went hand in hand with the inten-
sified development of an alternative architectural and decorative idiom
that had already begun in Hasmonean times. As before, the new style is in-
conceivable without contemporaneous architectural and decorative mod-
els borrowed from outside Palestine.
Herod’s builders adapted building types and architectural models
such as hippodromes, amphitheaters, Roman-style baths, domes, arches,
vaults, triclinia (dining rooms with couches on three sides), gardens, peri-
style courts (courts surrounded by a row of columns), and large piscinae
(fish ponds) (see figs. 1, 52-54). Huge fortresses at Masada, Machaerus, and
Herodium, palaces in Jericho and Jerusalem, and cities like Sebaste and
Caesarea show new styles of wall construction, includingopus reticulatum:
the use of pyramidal blocks laid out diagonally with their bases facing out-
ward (see figs. 55-61). The delicate geometrical patterns displayed on poly-
chrome aniconic mosaics and on architectural elements of the Temple
were based on Hellenistic and Roman decorative patterns of the first cen-
turyb.c.e.but did not simply copy them (see figs. 2-3). The same trend
seems to be evident in Herodian-period painting. There is evidence that
Herod had some of his walls painted by artisans from Italy. Much of the338jürgen k. zangenbergEERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
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